Chapter 15 Violet
VIOLET
My ribs are no longer trying to kill me with every breath I take, and finally keeping food down more often than not, which is a lower bar than I'd like to celebrate, but I'm celebrating it anyway.
Full parade. Confetti. Streamers. One of those giant inflatable tube men flailing outside a car dealership.
The works.
My body is filling out again, and my face is no longer that gorgeous shade of hospital-gray. I even have a bit of a tan since I spend as much time as possible outside.
And with the amount of milage I accumulate, you'd think I'd have gone to the maze by now.
It's been on my radar since the first time Elio mentioned it.
I've studied the sprawl of box hedges from his window for hours.
Load paths, sight lines, the geometry of intention.
Whoever designed it understood negative space.
Understood that the absence of direction is its own kind of beauty.
I've sketched it twice from above, filling in the paths I could see with pencil lines and leaving the hidden ones blank.
But I've never gone in.
Tonight this changes.
The hedges are eight feet tall, dense enough that moonlight barely filters through the upper branches.
The smell of boxwood and evening jasmine fills the Sicilian air, layered over something earthier underneath.
Damp soil. Old stone. Green things growing in the dark.
The gravel crunches under my feet, and the sound bounces off the hedge walls.
For the first time in weeks, the word alone doesn't make me flinch.
I take a turn. Then another.
Let the maze swallow me.
I'm about three turns deep when the gravel shifts behind me.
My heartbeat picks up when I hear footsteps behind me. They're unhurried, the sort of cadence that says, I don't have to run to catch you. I know that walk, heard it outside my door many times before.
Elio.
He must have followed me when I disappeared into the maze.
"Violet." His voice carries over the hedge tops, sending a shiver down my spine.
He knows I can hear him.
I don't answer, covering my mouth to trap the giggle threatening to break.
"Violet," he singsongs in a tone that edges on sinister. "You want to play games?"
Yet a swarm of butterflies takes off in my belly as heat spreads through me. The giggle dies down instantly as I lick my lips.
I take a step away from his voice, as quietly as I can, looking around frantically, as my pulse kicks into another level.
Elio steps into the path behind me, his face lit by the soft moonlight. A possessive smile dances on his handsome face as he takes a step toward me. "Run, tesoro."
I do.
Without thinking, I let my feet take me deeper into the maze, gravel spraying under my feet. My breath is coming quick, but not from effort. From want. From the adrenaline already converting to heat between my thighs.
I take a turn. Then another. Wrong ones. Dead ends that open into new corridors that twist back on themselves. I'm not trying to solve it. I'm not trying to escape.
Behind me, his footsteps change.
He was walking. Now he's not. His stride has gone from measured to hunting.
He's faster. Closer.
I take another turn and hit a dead end. Hedge wall on three sides. Moonlight pooling through the leaves in broken silver.
I spin.
He's there. At the opening of the dead end.
Not running anymore. Walking. Taking his time now that I'm cornered.
His chest rises and falls under a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and those dark eyes are fixed on me in the half-light, making every rational thought I've ever had pack a bag and leave.
"Found you." The half-smile he gives me is crazed at the edges, eyes black in the moonlight, suit jacket already gone somewhere between the last turn and here. The look alone soaks me. My panties are useless, clinging wet against me, thighs slick before he even touches me.
I don't wait.
I meet him halfway, fists in his shirt, yanking him down as my mouth crashes into his.
It's not a kiss. It's teeth and tongue and the sharp taste of espresso and smoke and the low, broken sound he makes against my lips that vibrates straight to my clit.
My hands tear at his shirt, buttons pop, linen rips, I don't care.
His are on my waist, lifting me like I weigh nothing, my legs wrapping around him in the same breath.
My back slams into the hedge wall, branches jabbing through thin cotton, thorns catching skin, and I arch harder into him because the sting only makes me wetter.
I can feel him, thick and rigid, pressing against my soaked center through his trousers and my useless panties.
The friction alone has me grinding down, shameless, chasing more.
He groans into my mouth, one hand sliding under my ass, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough to bruise.
I want every mark. Want them to bloom purple on my thighs by morning so I can press my fingers into them later and remember this exact second when he finally caught me.
"Off," I gasp against his lips, reaching between us.
He doesn't hesitate. One quick yank and his belt is gone, fly open, cock freed—hot and heavy against my inner thigh. I shove my panties aside, no patience for finesse, and line him up. He thrusts once, hard, deep, without preamble, and the stretch burns so good my head falls back against the hedge.
"Fuck—" The word rips out of me, half moan, half curse.
He pins me, one arm braced beside my head, the other locked under my ass, and fucks me against the living wall like he means to imprint me into it.
Leaves rain down with every thrust, branches snapping, thorns scraping my shoulders, my thighs.
I don't care. I roll my hips to meet him, taking him deeper, harder, the wet slap of skin loud in the night air.
My nails rake down his back through the ruined shirt, feeling muscle shift and flex under my hands.
He bites my neck, hard enough to mark, not hard enough to break skin—and I clench around him so tight he groans my name. "Violet—"
I bite his shoulder in return, through linen and skin, tasting salt and him. His rhythm falters for a second, hips stuttering, then he drives even deeper, hitting that spot that makes my vision white out.
Branches dig into my spine as my head tips back. His mouth finds my throat again—teeth, tongue, sucking hard enough to bruise. I arch, offering more, needing more, chasing the edge that's already so fucking close.
"Harder," I demand against his ear.
He obeys as his hand slides between us, finds my clit with rough fingers, circling with perfect pressure.
The orgasm hits like a freight train. I cry out, loud and shameless, the sound bouncing off the hedges as he keeps fucking me through it, drawing it out, hips snapping, cock dragging against every sensitive inch inside me until I'm shaking, clenching, soaking him, thighs trembling around his waist.
He doesn't stop.
He pulls me off the hedge, spins us, and drops to his knees on the gravel path.
And before my back hits the ground, he rolls under me until I'm straddling him.
Gravel digs into my knees, but I don't care.
I plant my palms on his chest, feel the rapid thud of his heart under blood-streaked skin, and ride him.
Hard. Fast. Greedy.
His hands grip my hips, guiding, bruising, urging me faster. His head tips back, moonlight carving the line of his jaw, the cords of his neck. He looks wrecked, eyes wild, lips parted, chest heaving, and I've never seen anything more beautiful.
I lean down, bite his throat and he thrusts up so deep I see stars. "Fuck, Elio—"
He flips us again in one smooth roll. Now I'm on my back, knees hooked over his elbows, spread wide. Gravel bites my ass, my shoulders. He drives into me, deep, punishing, relentless, and I arch, meeting every thrust, nails digging into his biceps.
"Come again," he growls against my ear. "Come on my cock, Violet. Let me feel it."
His thumb just about grazes my clit—and I do, the orgasm crashing through me, harder than before. I clench around him, pulsing, shaking, crying out his name. He follows two thrusts later, buried deep, hips stuttering, a low groan against my neck as he comes inside me, hot and endless.
We stay locked together, breathing ragged, sweat-slick, gravel embedded in my skin, branches in my hair. His forehead rests against mine. His hands, still shaking, frame my face.
I laugh. Breathless. Broken. Real.
Because I just got fucked senseless on a gravel path in a hedge maze in Sicily by a man who tore a trafficking compound apart to find me, and I have dirt under my nails, gravel rash on my ass, and his come leaking out of me onto the ground.
This is my life now.
And I chose it.
Ma would have a stroke. Danny would shoot him. Sean would write a very concerned letter.
I press my forehead to Elio's collarbone. He heaves under me.
Catch my breath. Body still pulsing, aftershocks rolling through me in lazy waves.
Then I push him off until he's on his back. His shirt ruined, there's dirt in his hair, and he's looking up at me like I'm a problem he can't solve and doesn't want to.
I grin.
"Again?" And I'm up. Running before he can grab me. The air is cool against my damp skin, and the slick between my thighs is obscene, but I feel invincible. Feral. Like the compound never laid a hand on me.
Behind me, Elio gets up, then takes off.
Faster this time. The gentleman is dead. The predator learned the rules.
I take a sharp left, then a right, and the hedge corridor opens into the center of the maze. A small clearing flooded with moonlight. Old stone pavers, cracked and mossy, a heavy stone bench at the center.
The stars are visible through the gaps above. Bright. Indifferent. Beautiful.
Elio catches me from behind before I can turn.