Chapter 12 Elio #2
My hand closes over hers on the spine, the contact I’ve craved hitting me hard.
Her skin is warm and soft, the faint calluses on her fingers scraping lightly against my palm, and something in my chest cracks open just a fraction.
I don’t let go. Instead I pull her up until she’s standing.
She steps right, and I block her path. She tries left, and I block her again.
“Let me pass.” Her voice is steady, but I can see the pulse hammering at her throat.
“Ask nicely.”
Her jaw sets. That stubborn set of her chin, the defiance I’ve been methodically dismantling for two weeks. But something in her eyes wavers. She’s calculating, weighing whether fighting is worth it.
She decides it isn’t.
“Please.”
The word costs her. I can see it in the tight line of her shoulders, the way her fingers tremble beneath mine.
I don’t move.
“Again. Like you mean it.”
Fury flashes across her face. For a moment, I think she’ll spit at me, claw at my eyes, go for my throat with her bare hands.
But then she defies my expectations.
“Please.” Her voice comes softer this time, more broken.
I use our joined hands to pull her closer. She tries to step back, but I’m already there, closing the distance so she can’t escape. She retreats until her shoulders hit the bookshelf.
“You’re settling in.” It’s not a question.
“I don’t have a choice.” Her voice shakes, but defiance still threads through it. That fire that refuses to go out no matter how many times I smother it.
“You always have choices, Violet.” I lift my free hand slowly, letting her see every inch of the movement. “You’re just learning to make the right ones.”
My fingers trace the air along her jaw. Close enough that she can feel the heat radiating from my skin. Close enough that the fine hairs on her cheek lift toward my palm.
But not touching.
Not yet.
She’s frozen, not pulling away, not leaning in. Her chest rises and falls in quick, shallow breaths she can’t seem to control.
Her pupils are blown, her breath coming in short, unsteady pulls.
“I hate you.” The words come out as a whisper, barely audible. But she’s still standing there, not pushing past me, not screaming for help.
“I know.” I lean in, close enough that my breath moves her hair. Close enough that if I tilted my head, my mouth would find hers. “But your body doesn’t.”
Her breath catches in a single, sharp inhale as a tear slides down her cheek. She doesn’t seem to notice, but I do. I notice everything.
My thumb catches it before it reaches her jaw.
She gasps but doesn’t pull away.
I bring my thumb to my mouth, tasting the salt of it, when what I wanted was to lean in and lick that tear directly from her skin, to taste her fear and her want with nothing between us.
Control. I hold onto it, barely.
“Even this belongs to me now.” My voice stays soft, almost clinical. True. “Every tear. Every breath. Every thought that keeps you awake.”
She stares at me, something breaking behind her eyes.
Another tear falls. Then another.
“You’re a monster.”
“Yes.” I don’t deny it. Don’t apologize for it either. “But I’m your monster. And you’re starting to want that.”
“I don’t—”
“You do.” I step back, giving her space she didn’t ask for. “Not yet consciously. But your body knows. It’s just waiting for your mind to surrender.”
Every instinct screams at me to finish it, to close the distance, take her mouth, press her against the shelves and make her admit what’s happening between us.
But control is what separates us from animals. Control is how you win wars, build empires, break women who think they’re unbreakable.
I turn and walk away.
Her shattered breathing follows me down the corridor.
Back in my office, I pour whiskey with hands that won’t stop shaking. The glass rattles against the decanter, amber liquid splashing over the rim. I down it in one burning swallow and pour another immediately.
I pull up the library camera feed on the monitor, rewind the footage, and watch the moment again.
The way she froze when my hand covered hers. The tear sliding down her cheek. My thumb catching it, lifting it to my mouth. Her sharp gasp.
Cazzo.
My body responds to the screen the same way it responded in person. Heat pooling low in my gut, blood rushing south, every nerve ending alive with raw want.
I rewind and play it again. Her gasp when my thumb caught the tear. The way her breath stuttered. The way her pupils blew wide.
My hand moves to my belt before the thought fully forms. I unbuckle it, unbutton, unzip, then free my cock with a low hiss of relief and frustration, as I grip myself hard enough to sting. Punishment and pleasure blur together.
On screen, she freezes. My thumb catches her tear. Brings it to my mouth.
I stroke once, the leather of the chair creaking beneath me as my knuckles go white from squeezing my cock so hard. On screen, her expression shifts, confusion bleeding into something raw, something she’d kill me for putting a name to.
“Fuck.”
I rewind again and play it once more. The moment she doesn’t pull away. The moment she realizes exactly what I’m doing. That gasp.
That fucking gasp.
I come with my teeth clenched and her gasp still playing, the chair shoved back against the desk, her face frozen on the screen in that one unguarded second. Salt and whiskey still burn my throat.
After, silence fills the room. My pulse hammers in my ears, loud and steady.
Sweat cools on the back of my neck, sticky against my collar.
The footage keeps playing on the monitor, her face frozen in that exact moment of realization, eyes wide, lips parted, and I still can’t force myself to look away.
I tuck myself away, then pour another whiskey with hands that have finally stopped shaking.
You made her cry.
I’ve made men beg. Made them weep, scream, bleed. Never lost a moment’s sleep over any of it.
But her tears—
I drain the third whiskey in one long pull and let it burn all the way down.
Am I keeping her safe? Or keeping her safe from myself?
The question is new, unwelcome. I shove it aside and reach for my phone.
“Tell Rossi I need another month.”
Cicero’s silence stretches loud on the line. “They won’t wait much longer.”
“They’ll wait as long as I fucking tell them to.”
I hang up before he can say another word.
The monitor glows in the dim office, casting blue light across the desk. I pull up the library feed again and scroll until I find the exact frame I want.
Violet stands by the bookshelf, one hand still pressed to her cheek where my thumb caught the tear. Her expression is devastated, completely lost.
Very soon, she’ll stop touching her face like she’s trying to erase the memory of me and start touching it like she’s trying to hold on to it.
Thirty days. That’s all the time I have left.
It will have to be enough.