Chapter 14
SOFIYA
Sour cherry and salt still coat my lips when Rafa backs me against the suite’s door and clicks the lock.
The city hum of Monte Carlo fades; in its place, our jagged and hungry breathing that drowns out everything but need.
The wetsuit drags against my skin as he peels the zipper down, inch by inch, like he’s unwrapping contraband.
He growls something in Sicilian-laced English about how the neoprene hid ‘every sinful inch’ from him all night.
My heart jackhammers. I’m proud of my first mission with the Enforcer, wired from adrenaline, but beneath that pride curls an ache I barely recognise.
The suit puddles at my feet. I’m left in damp panties and weak knees. Rafa kneels – kneels – and drags his hands up the backs of my thighs, gentle but with a hint of nails. Goosebumps race in their wake.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
Absorbing my every reaction like he’s deciphering Sanskrit. Then he pulls closer, drops a kiss on my navel. Higher, to the apparently seriously erogenous zone of the lower curve of my left breast.
A long swipe of his tongue. A thick groan. ‘Fuck.’
Several flicks that bounce my breast and make my pussy throb like a drumbeat. God, how did I not know…?
He laves everywhere but the screaming tip of my breast, leaving whimpers and pleas locked in my throat. I’m near mindless when he pays the same infuriating attention the other breast.
My nails dig into his shoulders as I angle mine, seeking deliverance from his mouth. ‘Rafaelle…’
A filthy smirk. ‘There she is, my little tigra.’
He barely finishes speaking before his mouth closes over my nipple, suckling and flicking without mercy while his hand closes over the other.
My head falls back. Hunger stalking me since the second he revealed himself on the roof in New York flays me wide open.
‘Look at me, duci,’ he growls.
My head drops, my eyes finding his even though I sense I should be avoiding them. Masking. He’s staring at me as he returns to lapping the underside of my breasts, and sweet heaven, why is that so fucking hot?
‘Do you like that?’ The question is redundant.
My knees are sagging beneath the onslaught of pleasure. Still, I try to reason it out. ‘How… Why…?’
He smirks. ‘Your tits are the perfect weight and beautifully sensitive for maximum sensory overload.’ Eyes gone dark coffee sweep hot and feral over me.
‘You will look sensational all tied up, tits free and ready to be sucked and licked till you come. I won’t even need to go near this pussy growing slick for me, will I, bedda?
Breast play alone will get you off, won’t it? ’
I want to ask how he knows. Where he learned that. But I’ve participated in one murder tonight. I’m not entertaining a potential jealous rage killing.
With a hitched cry, I offer him my tip again. He swoops, a groan torn from his throat as he accepts my gift.
The first inkling of that bending he spoke of is when his hands suddenly grip my legs, his thumbs pressing into my inner thighs to hold me up. I blink. Realise I’ve sagged halfway down the door.
He splays me wider. Scents me while looking into my eyes.
Then his gaze drops.
And for the first time in my life, I watch a man staring at my pussy. Licking his lips and groaning at what he sees.
‘Fuck, you’re beautiful.’ His voice is a ragged scrape. ‘I need to taste how righteous victory made you.’ Then his mouth replaces his hands on one inner thigh.
Hot and devastating.
He mutters crude devotion against the inside of my leg. I only catch fragments – something about cherries and spoils of war – before language melts into sensation. Every flick of his tongue up my thigh tightens the coil in my belly.
My fingers tangle in his wet hair, anchoring myself as if the ground might tilt beneath me. When his tongue drags slowly up the inside of one thigh, deliberately avoiding where I’m desperate for him, my back arches, breath hitching.
The coil inside me winds tighter, drawn taut by the way he takes his time, like he’s savouring each reaction. He kisses the hollow at the top of my thigh, then does it again on the other side. Soft. Then rougher. His stubble scrapes lightly, a contrast that makes me shudder.
‘Rafa,’ I whisper, barely recognising my own voice.
He hums like he’s amused. Or turned on. Maybe both.
‘You taste like trouble, bedda,’ he murmurs, voice thick and gravel rich. ‘And I haven’t even had the best part yet.’
My whole body flushes at the implication.
His fingers tighten around my hips just as his mouth finally – finally – moves to where I’m throbbing for him.
Then his mouth closes on my clit. Flick. Flick. Flick. And I howl, my vision compressing a nanosecond before it detonates.
Pleasure splinters me, sharp and helpless.
‘There you go. That’s it, tigra,’ he croons. Fingers dance at my molten entrance, but he doesn’t go in. Just draws out my slick and my release. ‘I can be patient, baby. Just keep giving me the honey.’
A tortured groan ripples through the room when his mouth finds me once more, hungry licks lapping at me.
The moment the trembling eases, he shifts back.
Reaches for the towel and starts to tuck it gently around my waist like he’s already moving on. His hands still linger on my hips, but there’s a hesitation in them now. A peculiar restraint.
My pulse rallies, part defiance, part stubborn pride. I push him back and Rafa drops onto the carpet.
‘You need rest,’ he says quietly, brushing damp hair from my face. His voice is low, rough with emotion – and something else. ‘You don’t have to—’
I glance down. He’s hard. Thick and straining against his slacks.
My chest and pussy clench hard.
But he’s shaking his head already. ‘Sofiya, there’s no need.’
No need.
Like I wouldn’t want to. Like I couldn’t handle more. The words land wrong. The burn of them flares beneath my skin, sharp and instant. He thinks I can’t take it. Because I’m a virgin?
My pulse kicks up again, this time from something fiercer. Lust? Guilt?
No. Defiance.
Shirt loose and chest bare, he’s beyond mouthwatering. He stretches beneath me, scarred torso gleaming and feral eyes watching. Danger personified. I want that danger on my tongue.
I crouch and nudge his waistband down far enough to free him and wrap trembling fingers around his thick heat. His hiss is a shotgun blast in the quiet room. ‘Easy, bedda. Slow or I’ll embarrass us both.’
‘I’m not as green as you think,’ I breathe.
I pull out his thick girth and… oh… God, he’s hung. And beautiful. Veins I want to lick hands-free the way he just licked my breasts. What did he say?
…the perfect weight and beautifully sensitive for maximum sensory overload.
My fingers snag over a bump and my breath catches.
Silverware. Oh holy hell.
Rafa’s pierced. At the top and just beneath his crown. The promise of that… inside me, caressing the bundle of nerves I’ve yet to discover… is a blend of terror and feverish anticipation.
He’s watching me. Waiting. Weighing.
Before I chicken out, I bend, slide my lips over the crest of him. I’m clumsy, too wet with climax and nerves, yet his groan tells me clumsy still feels good. He fists the carpet, dropping into mentor mode.
He murmurs directions – filthy, velvet-rough encouragement that sparks my own heat back to life. Possessiveness coils in his words. ‘That better not be you telling me you’ve done this before.’
I don’t respond. I’m busy learning the taste of Rafaelle Salvatore’s cock. And Jesus. Another first. Because he’s addictive. Insanely moreish.
But he snatches my chin, his touch none-too-gentle. I freeze with his crown in my mouth, my eyes pinned by his.
‘No one else gets this mouth. Do you hear me, Sofiya?’
My nostrils flare with my exhale. With my delight at hearing my name on his lips.
‘Fucking answer me, just so we’re on the same page.’
I release him with a decadent pop, jerking when the sound electrifies my bloodstream. ‘I hear you.’
His fingers tighten. ‘Flirting with semantics, bedda? You’re either foolish or death-wish baiting. But fuck, you look so good with your mouth wrapped around my cockhead. I’ll let it slide. Go on,’ he encourages. ‘Take me down your throat, tigra. Let me ruin you for other men.’
It should scare me.
Instead, it brands something – ownership I should reject – but my traitorous body arches into it. I lick and suck in sloppy greed I can’t control.
And he seems to love it. Growing feral by the second, hips piston higher with each push of his length down my throat.
‘Fuck!’ His control splinters when I hollow my cheeks, and he pulses hard once, twice, spilling down my throat. He mutters a long, guttural ‘Cristu.’ I swallow – proud, shaky, a little stunned at my own boldness.
He drags me up over his body, kisses me – tasting himself on my tongue – then rolls me under him, forehead resting against mine. ‘You’re lethal everywhere, aren’t you?’
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer. He swoops in for another long, tongue-tangling kiss. And the suite is still humming with the aftershock of what Rafa’s mouth did to my body when a sharp rap jolts us both.
Three measured knocks, then the latch kicks.
Rafa swears, snatches his discarded trousers, and stalks into the living room, shutting the bedroom door behind him with a controlled click.
I sit up, clutching the towel to my chest, pulse ricocheting. Voices carry through the wood.
‘The fuck—’
‘You weren’t answering your phone – again,’ a voice growls. Deep and unmistakable.
Cesare Salvatore.
He sounds tired and irritated, the way only an arrogant heir and older brother can. ‘Thought you might be dead. Should I even bother asking where you were?’
Rafa’s answer is dry, a little smug. ‘You know better than that, frate.’
There’s a pause – Cesare probably taking stock: Rafa shirtless, hair wet, no trace of contrition. I imagine his jaw tightening.
‘Well, while you were busy doing something you should know better than to do, the Chinese reached out.’
I hear a hiss of irritation. ‘Let me guess. They want to meet at the casino?’
‘No. In Nice,’ Cesare continues. ‘We’re wheels up in thirty.’
‘We? You’re coming?’
‘Might as well, since I’m in the neck of the woods anyway. Not letting you have all the fun.’
A grunt. Then, ‘Copy. But I thought you’d be reluctant to leave Maddie.’
‘She’s fine. And speaking of Maddie—’ Cesare raises his voice, directing it at the closed door.
‘Sofiya, if you’re behind that wood, my wife’s asking for you.
She’s restless and irritated and pregnant.
And apparently you brushed her off this afternoon.
Think you can keep her from tearing the place apart while we go negotiate with some Triads? ’
I clear my throat, hot embarrassment crawling up my neck. But I bite my lip for a moment, then mutter back. ‘Sure.’ It’s barely audible but he hears me.
Apparently Salvatore men have bat-sharp hearing.
‘Good,’ he mutters. ‘Because I’m trusting you to keep her calm. Both of you, try not to kill each other while the grown-ups handle business.’
Rafa’s low chuckle filters through. ‘Speak for yourself.’
Shoes scuff, then the door thunks shut. Silence swells until the bedroom door eases open again. Rafa steps inside, now half-buttoned and wholly predatory.
‘You okay?’ he asks, sweeping me with a gaze that still burns.
‘Peachy.’ The adrenaline of combat returns – different flavour, laced with embarrassment this time. ‘He knew I was here?’
‘He’s suspected for days. Now it’s confirmed.’ Rafa strokes a thumb across my swollen bottom lip.
‘Great, now I can look forward to an interrogation from my very pregnant big sister to top off the night? What more can a girl ask for?’
His eyes gleam. Savage and deranged as he crosses to me, fingers trailing from my neck to my shoulder to the top of the towel tied over my breasts. ‘I can think of two dozen. Easy.’
I shove at his chest but with not much force, more flustered than in protest. ‘Well, unthink them.’
The guilt pockets from earlier? Gone. Burned to ash by a man who devours sin for breakfast and praises my darkness like it’s a crown. I don’t know if that should frighten me or free me.
Maybe both.
Rafa hangs back at the doorway, watching with that unblinking focus that always makes me feel skinless. ‘Remember the agreement,’ he says quietly. ‘Do nothing foolish, Sofiya. I’ll know.’
Something almost… tender edges his warning. I tamp down the flutter it sparks.
‘I’ll head out to see Maddie,’ I reply, summoning composure. ‘Try not to burn Nice to the ground.’
He smirks and it’s equal parts threat and promise, then he leans in, pressing a kiss to my temple, surprisingly gentle.
But his eyes are anything but when he rears back.
‘Be here when I get back, bedda. Don’t make me hunt you.
’ His lips graze my ear. ‘We’ll finish what we started when Nice stops burning. ’
When the door closes behind him, the suite feels twice as big and far too empty. I stare at the rumpled sheets, at the wetsuit half-rolled on the floor, and touch the spot his mouth branded on my skin.
Only forty-eight hours ago, Rafa was lining up a sniper’s shot at my baby brother.
Now he knows what my pleasure tastes like and I’m standing in the middle of his suite, craving him again while my pulse still beats to the rhythm of his name.
My skin still tingling where his mouth branded me – a reminder that war has more than one battlefield, and tonight, somehow, I survived both.
But… what kind of war is this – where the enemy feels like the only shelter I want?