Chapter 20
The kiss didn't end—it unraveled slowly, as if the air itself was reluctant to separate us.
His lips still grazed mine when Cassian pulled away, but it wasn't a gentle gesture, wasn't a polite retreat.
It was a violent rupture, as if he had to tear off his own skin just to breathe without me.
Like the sound of industrial velcro ripping apart: dry, harsh, definitive.
His chest heaved in ragged gulps, shattering that perfect rhythm of forty beats per minute he cultivated like armor.
His glasses sat crooked, one temple almost slipping off his ear.
His hair—that hair that never dared a strand out of place—was disheveled, tangled where my fingers had pulled hard enough to hurt.
His mouth gleamed, red, swollen, red as if he'd been biting it from the inside.
He looked destroyed.
And never in my entire life had anyone been so obscenely beautiful.
The silence that followed was dense, viscous, full of particles of us both floating in the air. I still tasted him on my tongue—bitter black coffee, smoky whiskey, and something darker, more dangerous: the metallic taste of desire he'd kept locked away for years behind seven deadbolts.
“That...” His voice came out raw, almost unrecognizable, as if he'd swallowed gravel. “That was a mistake.”
He took a step back. His heel hit the coffee table; the box of pastries swayed dangerously but didn't fall.
Yet. His entire body seemed to be trying to reboot: shoulders straightening, jaw locking, breath being forced back under control.
As if he could simply erase what had just happened with a software update.
I didn't let him.
“No.” My voice came out firm, almost cruel. “It wasn't.”
I took a step forward. The cold wooden floor under my bare feet seemed to pulse with my own heartbeat. I still felt the ghost of his mouth on mine, the throb where he'd bitten my lower lip. His taste spread through my mouth like spilled ink.
“It was the only honest thing that's happened between us since you signed that damned paper.”
Cassian raised his hand, palm open—a universal sign for stop.
But the hand trembled. Trembled so much I could see the veins bulging on the back of it.
The perfectly trimmed nails, the pale skin, wrists bearing the tan line of an expensive watch.
Everything about him screamed control, except that traitorous hand.
“Solaia, stop,” he said, low and dangerous. “You're emotional. It's your birthday. The gift. You're confusing gratitude with...”
“Lust?” I cut in without mercy. “Desire? Need?”
The muscle in his cheek jumped. His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth crack together. His gray eyes darkened to the shade of a storm about to break.
“You've been drinking.”
“One sip of water,” I replied, taking another step. The air between us was so charged it seemed to crackle. “I'm painfully sober, Cassian. Which means I know exactly what I want. And I know exactly what you're running from.”
He growled—a low, animalistic sound that vibrated in my sternum.
“I don't run.”
“You do,” I whispered, getting so close I felt the heat of his body burning through my clothes. “You hide behind the Armani suits, the reports, the calculated silences. But I felt you, Cassian. When you kissed me... you wanted to devour me whole. Why are you so afraid of wanting me?”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then he exploded.
“Because you're chaos!” His voice broke, hoarse, almost a shout.
His hands seized my waist with brutal force, fingers digging into flesh as if he wanted to mark me to the bone.
He pulled me against him so hard our hips collided, the impact sending a shockwave through my entire body.
“You're walking disorder, Solaia. You're noise.
You're impulsive, reckless, dangerous as hell to my sanity.”
His nose brushed mine. His breath burned my lips, hot, fast, uncontrolled. I felt his heart hammering against mine—two war drums.
“I hate,” he continued, voice trembling with rage and something far more dangerous, “how much you distract me.
I hate that I spend all day thinking about whether you're safe, whether you've eaten, whether you're crying on that ridiculous pink couch. I hate that I want to fuck you until you forget your own name and then hold you until you fall asleep. I hate how much I want you.”
The confession fell between us like a grenade with the pin pulled.
I smiled. A slow, trembling, absolutely victorious smile.
“Then stop hating,” I whispered against his mouth. “And do something about it.”
It was the trigger.
Cassian didn't kiss me—he devoured me.
His mouth fell on mine like punishment and salvation at once.
Teeth clashed, tongues warred, he bit my lower lip until I moaned loud into his mouth.
His hands slid up my thighs, shoving the silk of my dress aside with barely contained violence, nails lightly scratching the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.
The cold granite of the kitchen island hit my back when he lifted me off the floor as if I weighed nothing, setting me on the edge with an impact that made my teeth rattle.
My legs opened on instinct, wrapping around his waist, heels digging into his back, pulling him deeper into the cradle of my hips.
The Chinese takeout box got swept aside and crashed to the floor—a sound neither of us registered.
He tore my dress. Didn't pull, didn't lift—tore. The thin silk split like paper under his fingers, the sharp sound echoing through the silent apartment. Cold air hit my exposed skin, quickly replaced by the heat of his palms—rough, possessive, claiming every inch they uncovered.
“You want this?” he growled against my neck, teeth scraping my skin, tongue tracing the throbbing vein. “You want the monster, Solaia?”
“I want you,” I gasped, my head falling back when he bit that exact spot where neck meets shoulder. Pain mixed with pleasure in a white explosion behind my eyelids. “All of you. The monster, the ice, the man. Everything.”
His hands trembled—not from hesitation, but from restraint on the verge of collapse.
He opened his belt with a metallic snap that reverberated through my blood.
The leather slid through the loops, the zipper rasped down in a way that made my stomach clench.
He didn't remove his shirt. Didn't remove his shoes.
He didn't need nudity—he needed possession.
With one impatient motion, he shoved aside the thin fabric of my panties. And then—God—he thrust into me.
It wasn't an entry. It was a conquest.
The sensation of him filling me, stretching me to the limit, filling every emptiness I didn't even know I carried—it was overwhelming.
I screamed—a raw, primal sound that tore from my throat.
He stopped for a second, forehead pressed to mine, eyes closed, breath coming in short, pained gasps against my lips.
I felt every inch of him pulsing inside me—the heat, the hardness, the delicious threat of total loss of control.
“Look at me,” he ordered, his voice so low it seemed to come from deep in his chest.
I opened my eyes. The gray had vanished. Only absolute black remained—dilated pupils swallowing everything. Something feral lurked there, something that terrified and ignited me in equal measure.
“Say my name,” he demanded, beginning to move. Slow. Torturously slow. Each inch of withdrawal was a promise of a harder return. “I want to hear you know exactly who's fucking you.”
“Cassian…” I moaned, his rhythm already unraveling my thoughts into fragments.
“Louder.”
He accelerated. The thrusts became brutal, deep, possessive.
The island slammed against my back with each impact, but I didn't feel pain—only him.
The delicious friction, the scalding heat, the smell of oud and sweat and sex saturating the air.
My nails dug into his shoulders through his shirt, tearing the expensive fabric.
I buried my face in the curve of his neck, licked the salt from his skin, bit down on the tense tendon.
“Cassian!” I screamed—his name both prayer and curse—as pleasure began to coil in my belly like a serpent about to strike.
He slid his hand between us. His thumb found that swollen bundle of nerves and pressed—no delicacy, no rhythm, just the relentless efficiency of someone who knows exactly where to touch to destroy.
“Come for me, Sol,” he growled in my ear, teeth clamped on my earlobe. “I want to watch you fall apart on my cock.”
I fell apart.
The orgasm hit me like lightning, ripping my body in two. I convulsed around him, clenching in violent spasms, nails shredding his shirt, a scream tearing from my throat until I ran out of air. The world exploded in impossible colors—blood red, molten gold, blinding white.
Cassian lost the final battle.
He growled—a guttural, animalistic sound—and slammed into me hard enough to shove the island a few inches across the floor.
His hands gripped my thighs so hard there would be marks tomorrow.
He spilled inside me in hot spurts, body trembling violently, face buried in my neck as he murmured in hoarse Italian:
“Mia… sei mia… cazzo, sei mia…”
We stayed like that for what could have been seconds or hours.
Me sitting on the cold granite, legs still locked around him, him curved over me, bracing his weight on trembling arms so he wouldn't crush me.
His sweat dripped onto my collarbone. His heart beat against mine as if trying to escape his chest and fuse with mine.
Slowly, he raised his head. Hair stuck to his forehead, glasses lost somewhere along the way—I'd heard them fall but hadn't registered it.
He looked at me—at the ruined dress, the swollen lips, the red marks his beard had left on my neck and breasts.
I waited for regret. I waited for the ice wall to return.
Instead, he ran his thumb over my lower lip—gently, almost reverently.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice still wrecked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
He sighed—not from regret, but from total surrender.
He pulled back just enough to straighten his clothes, his movements less precise than usual.
He picked up his glasses from the floor, put them on crooked.
Then, without warning, he slipped one arm under my knees and the other behind my back, lifting me as if I weighed nothing.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, my head falling against his shoulder, breathing in his scent mingled with mine.
“Taking you to bed,” he replied, his voice deep, as he walked down the hallway. “The counter's too hard. And we're not finished.”
A violent shiver ran down my spine.
“We're not?”
“No.” He looked down, eyes still black with desire. “You wanted to color my life, Solaia? Congratulations. Now you'll have to handle the fire.”
He carried me into the master bedroom—his bedroom, which I now knew was ours.
He laid me on the gray sheets with a gentleness that contrasted with the brutality of minutes before.
He shrugged off his jacket, tossed it to the floor.
The tie followed. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, button by button, eyes never leaving mine, devouring every inch of exposed skin, every mark he’d left on me.
There was no more ice.
What lay beneath was magma.
And I was starving.
I reached out to him, trembling.
Cassian seized it, lacing our fingers together. He climbed onto the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight, the scent of sex still clinging to him wrapping around me like a second skin.
He flipped me onto my back with terrifying ease, climbing over me, his knees spreading my legs again.
His open shirt revealed a chest marked by my scratches, sweat glistening in the dim lamplight.
He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand while the other trailed down my body, memorizing every curve, every tremor.
“You destroyed me,” he murmured against my mouth before kissing me slowly, deeply, his tongue tracing mine as if trying to memorize the taste. “Now I’m going to rebuild you my way.”
And he did.
The second time was slow, almost torturous.
He took me inch by inch, eyes locked on mine, forcing me to feel every pulse, every contraction, every drop of sweat that fell from his chest onto mine.
When I tried to speed up, he stopped, pinned my hips in place, brushed his nose against my neck, and whispered:
“Quiet. I want to feel you sucking every last drop of control out of me.”
I cried—not from pain, but from a fullness so great it hurt. He kissed every tear, licked the salt, bit my earlobe while moving inside me with cruel precision. When he finally let me come, it was with his teeth buried in my shoulder and his name tearing through my throat once more.
The third time was on our sides, him behind me, possessive arm around my waist, hand splayed across my belly as if he meant to keep me exactly where I was forever.
He slid into me from behind slowly, biting my nape, whispering things in Italian I didn’t understand but felt in my marrow.
Each thrust was deep, lazy, as if we had all the time in the world. As if the night would never end.
When the sun began to rise, filtering through the gray curtains, we were exhausted, destroyed, stuck together by sweat, fluids, and something far more dangerous.
Cassian kissed my forehead, the corner of my mouth, my closed eyelid.
“You’re mine,” he murmured, voice hoarse from screaming my name so many times. “And I’m yours. Finally.”
I smiled against his chest, feeling his heart beating in the same uneven rhythm as mine.
My father was wrong.
He didn’t sell me to a jailer.
He gave me to the only man capable of setting the entire world on fire just to keep me warm.
And I never wanted to put out that fire again.