Chapter 10
VALENTINA
Istand nervously in the middle of Luca’s bedroom, quivering under the crystal chandelier.
Catching glimpses of myself in the mirror, I see the woman I’ve become.
To my surprise, and perhaps to my dismay, I feel beautiful.
I look beautiful, with pearly satin and lace hugging my figure in all the right places, with diamonds and pearls adorning my ears and neck.
My hair is weaved into an elegant bun with threads of gold and white silk. My makeup is delicate, accentuating my favorite features.
“Valentina,” Luca’s voice reaches my ear.
Yet the fear in my eyes confuses me.
I do not fear the man walking toward me as the door closes behind him with a decisive click. I fear my inability to resist him as the distance between us shrinks with each passing breath.
“Mr. Petrucci,” I reply, my chin up.
“Mrs. Petrucci,” he says, then comes around to face me. “It’s almost over. Or it’s just beginning. It depends on how you look at it.”
I frown, sullen. “Just finish it, already.”
“Is that what you want?”
It’s an honest question. I suppose it deserves an honest answer.
“No,” I manage, turning my head to avoid his gaze.
My voice trembles. My heart thuds furiously. My skin feels too tight. Every cell in my body screams for this man, while my reason fights for control, for the freedom to defy him at every turn, to make his life miserable for forcing me into this.
“We don’t have to rush into anything,” Luca says.
The words take me by surprise, and I glare at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Marriage is supposed to be about mutual respect, Valentina. I cannot force you into this, but I already know you want it. I’m merely willing to give you a chance to take the first step.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I almost laugh and move away from him.
I open the windows wide to let the warm summer air into the room. It’s accompanied by a cool breeze from the lake, and it carries a subtle hint of pine trees on its wings. I close my eyes, welcoming each deep breath, wishing I had more strength in me.
“Is it? Or have you forgotten our little moment after your shower? Or those smaller moments that followed,” Luca says. “Your body tells me everything I need to know, even now.”
“It’s just a chemical reaction. Hormones playing games.
“You don’t believe that.”
“I have to,” I mumble, staring into the darkness of the night.
Luca steps closer. My heart skips a beat. I feel his presence behind me. “Why?” he asks, his voice low, almost a growl in my ear.
“Because otherwise, I’d have to admit I’m attracted to you,” I foolishly confess. “And that would make me the ultimate idiot, wouldn’t it?”
“How so?”
His lips brush gently against my earlobe as his fingers trace the contour of my neck. I hold my breath when he finds the ribbons at the back holding this dress together. I feel him fiddling, the satin bows loosening.
“I was fooled by one Petrucci brother once. Then the other came after me and forced me to marry him. The ultimate idiot. That’s me,” I say, a knot tightening in the back of my throat.
Luca grunts slightly, and the bows come undone. With one swift yet decisive, unforgiving move, he peels the dress off me. My skin breathes for the first time in what feels like forever while I suck in a deep, tremulous breath. Luca turns me around, the dress resting around my bare feet.
“You should be kinder to yourself, Valentina,” he says.
I cave in, tears filling my eyes as every intrusive thought I’ve ever fought against comes back to drown me.
“Why? I deserve this. It was my reckless decision that got me into this. I stupidly thought Stefano actually wanted me. Me. The fat girl. The Mancuso reject. The pretty one who’d look perfect if only she lost a few pounds.
I’ve heard it my entire life, and when Stefano came along, I really believed I was the one for him. Until he… he…”
“Until he what?” Luca asks, suddenly still.
His gaze darkens. Desire and anger swirl in his eyes. I can see grief there, too. And I want to hurt him, maybe just a little bit, maybe enough to make him pull back and stop this before it’s too late, because my core is burning up. Desire will destroy me if he doesn’t stop this.
“Until he told me,” I say, “the truth.”
“What did he tell you, Valentina?”
“That I was too fat to become his wife. That being Mancuso’s stepdaughter and the only one able to bear children in that family was the only reason he came to me in the first place.
He hoped he’d put a baby in me so it would piss my stepfather off.
That I’d never be more than that to him. And then he left.”
Luca takes a deep breath.
For what feels like an eternity, he doesn’t say anything.
I expect him to blow up, to curse at me, to call me a liar.
But none of that happens. Instead, his gaze softens as he measures me from head to toe—taking his sweet time to admire, to smile gently, to let his fingers record every inch of my body.
“I can’t erase what Stefano did,” he whispers. “But I can tell you something with unshakeable certainty.”
“What?”
His eyes find mine. Time stands still, and I lose my breath.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
Your curves, your fullness, they do this to me,” he says, then takes my hands and turns it, so my palm fits precisely over his massive, throbbing erection.
I can feel it through the layers of fabric.
The desire. The pulsating longing of this man.
“Your grace, your kindness, your softness, they all crown what is already there, which is pure beauty, Valentina. My brother was a fucking idiot. I like to believe I’m not, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken you as my wife. ”
“Oh, please,” I mumble, though I can’t peel my hand off his ginormous bulge. “It’s merely a strategy to keep my stepfather miserable and at bay.”
“In part, yes. But it’s not the whole reason.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Does this feel like a lie to you?”
I’m forced to face the truth, the hard truth—literally. Luca slowly takes off his jacket and vest, his eyes never leaving mine. I shake my head slowly. He unbuttons his shirt and throws it to the floor. A pile of clothing gathers around us as Luca prolongs my agony.
He inches closer and closer. My lips tingle.
Demanding him.
All of him.
“Do you want it all to be a lie, Valentina?” he asks.
“No…”
“Then let it go. Do what you’ve wanted to do from the moment we met,” Luca replies. “It’s written all over your face. I hear it on your ragged breath. I see it in the vein pulsing on the side of your neck.”
“Oh, fucking hell,” I gasp and throw my arms around his neck.
The most wonderful disaster unfolds from the moment our lips meet and our bodies crash together. All bets are off, and I forget who I am and what brought me here in the first place.
Luca welcomes me with ravaging hunger, our tongues clashing.
Our hands roam freely, shamelessly, as if we’ve spent eons keeping apart from each other. His fingers reach and press, digging into my flesh as they memorize every line, every curve, every stretch mark.
“You’re burning up,” he whispers, unhooking my bra.
A moment later, I arch my back as he leans in. He grabs my breast and closes his lips around my nipple, licking and suckling with feverish madness, while I listen to his moans of raw pleasure. He applies the same merciless treatment to my other breast, while I hold onto his strong, muscular arms.
I end up on the bed, splayed like a queen as he towers before me, naked and hung like a king.
“My God, you’re a fucking goddess,” Luca declares and hooks his fingers into my panties. He makes them disappear, then spreads my legs to get a full view of a wet, aching pussy that needs him.
“Oh, Luca,” I moan when he dives in head-first.
It’s madness.
It’s mindless delight.
It’s heaven on earth as his tongue slides between my wet folds, tasting and exploring me, worshiping my core like I’m the tastiest treat he’s ever put his lips on. I love the sound of his ragged breath, the feel of his fingers slipping through and deep inside me.
“Fuck,” I whisper, and he reaches upward to grab and squeeze my breast.
Pinching my nipple between his thumb and index finger, Luca sends me straight into the stratosphere, simultaneously licking and suckling my clit and finger-fucking me into the sweetest oblivion.
My hips tilt upward in response to his hand movement.
The pressure builds and quickly rises past the point of no return.
I glance down to admire this man as he devours me, and I cry out when the orgasm hits me deep and hard.
I come gushing and quivering like a leaf in the night’s cool breeze as Luca sucks my tender clit, squeezing every drop of pleasure out of me.
By the time I unravel and soften against his lips, he comes up to kiss me.
“You’re perfect, Valentina, precisely the way you are,” he says, our mouths locking in delirium.
“I need you,” I say, my hands caressing his sculpted shoulders, reaching around his muscular back. “I need you, Luca. Deep inside me.”
“It’s a dangerous request, my darling,” he says with hooded, dark eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I might become addicted. Then what will I do?”
The tip of his cock tests my entrance. Slowly, he lets it glide between my folds, then spears me with his full length.
“OH, FUCK!” I gasp, suddenly split in half and filled and stretched beyond my wildest dreams.
“Tell me, Valentina, what will I do?”
I’m hanging on by a thread, running my fingers through his hair and showering him with hot, wet, needy kisses. “Then take me, over and over, Luca. Take me.”
“As you wish,” he replies.
The rhythm builds. Slowly, at first, with our gazes locked. He moves faster, sliding in and out, deeper and harder with every thrust. My breasts bounce, and he pins me into the mattress, crushing me under his massive weight, but I love it.
I love every goddamn second as I wrap my legs around his waist and rise to meet him. Deeper and harder, fucking me until I witness the world disappear from everywhere around us.
“Come for me,” he commands.
I’m clenched tightly around his gargantuan cock, and I feel the vein thickening and throbbing against my walls. He pounds into me, turning into a veritable beast, as he bites into the side of my neck.
The pressure builds, the temperature rises.
I’m on the surface of the sun, turning to ashes as Luca claims he. I hold onto him with everything I’ve got, struggling to breathe as the climax unfurls in my center.
“Don’t stop,” I beg him. “Please, Luca, don’t stop.”
“I can’t stop, Valentina. You’re making it impossible for me to ever… stop…”
Harder.
Deeper.
Faster.
His rock-hard balls slap shamelessly against my buttocks. I scream in sheer ecstasy as he pumps me full of him, as he tears me apart and rebuilds me into a whole new woman, a whole other version of myself.
“FUCK!” he snarls and tightens his grip on me, his mouth crushing mine.
Faster.
Harder.
I feel him so deep inside me, I fear my heart will explode.
But my core releases first, and I feel the gush of liquid heat, the ripples of my orgasm reverberating and wrapping around his cock. I feel him fucking me like it’s our last night on earth, breaking me until there’s nothing left.
“Oh, Valentina!”
He stiffens inside me. I feel the pulses. The release. It’s mutual. It’s simultaneous. It’s all-consuming. Tears of joy trickle from my eyes, my lips still glued to his. Our hearts pound against each other.
Sweating and trembling, I lie softly against his chiseled body as he trails kisses down my neck. As he thrusts his last thrusts, filling me with his hot seed, his essence flows through me.
“You’re mine, Valentina,” he growls in my ear.
“I’m yours.”
Sweat drips from his forehead onto mine as he looks at me. There’s a glimpse of clarity between us. A split-second in the vastness of time where I realize this won’t end well for me.
Petrucci.
The name spells tragedy and death.
And I just walked into it, wet and wanting and desperate for more.
So much more.