Chapter 9 Luca
Emma’s back hits the nearest surface as I crash into her lips like a man starved—like she’s the last taste of something forbidden before the fall.
I couldn’t stop myself. That tear… that traitorous tear broke whatever leash I had on my self-control. And now I’m kissing her like I own her. Like I never stopped.
Her bag’s somewhere on the floor. Her hat? Gone. I don’t care. I don’t want to think, don’t want to slow this down with logic or consequence—because if I do, I’ll stop. And stopping right now would be the dumbest thing I could do.
Her mouth feels like home. Her lips still taste like memory. Her tongue still knows exactly how to move against mine, and mine still knows every curve of hers. It’s like our bodies remembered something our minds tried to forget.
I tug her shirt open—buttons flying, clattering across the floor—and the sound is almost satisfying. Her soft gasp pulls something primal from me.
“Luca…” she breathes as my face finds the warmth of her chest, and I trail my tongue down her skin, rediscovering her.
“If you want that bra to survive, take it off,” I growl, voice low and sharp.
She doesn’t even blink—just strips it away. I pull off my own shirt, watching her eyes drag over me like I’m something she’s craved for years.
God, I missed this. Missed her.
My hands take full possession, molding around the softness I dreamed of more nights than I’ll ever admit. She moans—my name, my touch, my control—and it short-circuits every rational thought in my head.
I kiss her hard, tugging at her waistband until her shorts slide to the ground. My voice is thick with want as I say, “Turn around.”
She listens. Of course, she listens. She always did. Emma never hid how much she liked it when I took charge, when I guided every moment like it was ours and only ours.
I lean into her ear, teasing the lobe with my mouth just like I used to, and she gasps so loud it sends a jolt through my spine. I remember that sound. I remember exactly what it did to me.
Just to be sure, my hand travels down her stomach, sliding over her underwear, testing if her body remembers too. It does. It’s all there. Every reaction. Every need.
“Still gets you, huh?” I whisper.
She nods, lost in it.
I move us before something else in that room shatters, lifting her away from the broken frame on the floor and finding the nearest couch. I sit, pulling her into my lap, gripping her hips like she’s mine again.
She reaches for my belt, fingers quick and trembling, and the way she undoes it tells me everything. She needs this as badly as I do.
“Ride me, Em.”
She nods, lips parted, breath hot. I press a thumb to her lips, and she takes it into her mouth, hungry, needy.
Fuck.
I’m barely keeping it together, and the second she lowers herself onto me—feeling her, deep, tight, perfect—I lose it. My head falls back, and I swear I see stars behind my eyes.
It’s like slipping into a version of heaven I forgot existed.
“Fuck,” I groan, clutching her tighter as she starts to move—slow, deliberate, relentless.
She’s everything. She always was. And right now, she’s mine.
“God, Em,” I breathe, losing rhythm, losing control, “you feel…”
“Stop talking,” she huffs, voice broken and beautiful. I blink. “You’re gonna make me come too fast.”
That does it. That ends me.
I shift her down onto the couch, flipping her beneath me, claiming every inch, every sound, every pulse of her body like it belongs to me—because for those few minutes, it does.
Her hands clutch the armrest. Her moans echo like music I forgot I loved. And just before everything crashes down around us, I feel it—her body trembling, clenching, spiraling.
I fall with her. Hard.
“Jesus, Em…” I groan, voice hoarse and guttural, lips bitten raw.
And then, through the haze, I hear it.
“I missed you,” she whispers. “God, I missed you so much.”
Everything stops.
She… missed me? She missed me? My breath catches. My body goes still. I pull away slowly, too aware of the mess we’ve made and the mess still inside me.
What the hell did I just do?
I stand, dragging my boxers back up, suddenly cold, suddenly furious.
Emma moves quickly, sensing the shift. “Luca, wait—”
“Don’t,” I snap, searching for my shirt. My hands tremble as I pick it up, brushing off glass from the frame that crashed to the floor.
“But… what did I say?” she stammers, trying to cover herself. “I’m on the pill. Don’t worry—”
“That’s not—” I cut in, voice rising. “God, that’s not what this is about. You don’t get to say that to me. Not you. Not after everything.”
I find the door. My pulse is a war drum in my throat.
“Luca, please—what did I do?”
I pause at the threshold. Look at her one last time. Naked, flushed, confused. Beautiful. “You don’t get to miss me, Em,” I say quietly. “You don’t get to say that—after I let you in, after I gave you everything, and you tore me to shreds.”
And with that, I walk out of her apartment.
And out of her life.
Again.