CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Achilles
I tore the protective vest from Tierney’s torso, numb fingers fumbling the side where the bullet had hit her. She lay on the floor. It appeared she wasn’t seriously injured. In fact, the bullet hadn’t even scratched her.
Coppola lay next to us, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. His heart would give out soon, but he still had a few excruciating minutes to suffer through.
“You hurt?” I cupped her face, my fingers trembling.
“Nope. The vest did its job.” She shook her head, smiling dazedly at me. “I took out three of his soldiers,” she bragged. “I could’ve taken more.”
“You’re insane,” I snarled, bending down to kiss the shit out of her.
She looped her still-tied arms around my neck, arching and meeting me halfway, and I groaned into her mouth in approval.
My cock throbbed through my pants, pressed against her sweet cunt, and I pried my Bowie knife from my boot and sliced open the fabric of her flimsy top.
Her tits sprang out, small and perky and perfect.
I reached down and flicked one nipple with the tip of my tongue.
She shuddered beneath me, trying to reach me before realizing she was still tied.
Coppola was still coughing out his last breaths, watching us through glassy eyes.
Let him watch and choke on it.
“Technically, I won the bet. I got back in one piece.” I blew air on her nipple and watched it pebble. “Time to cash in my prize.”
She threw her head back and moaned. “Well, a bet is a bet.”
“We have an audience, though.” I switched to her other nipple, wetting it enough to make the cold air tighten it into a hard diamond.
Her gaze skidded to the trembling figure beside us. “Who cares? Release me.”
“Nah. I think I’ll teach you a lesson.” The tip of my knife trailed the skin of her belly, rolling south. Smooth, save for a jagged scar I now knew was from the loss of her uterus.
We both knew I’d never seriously hurt her. The shudder of anticipation and desire it sent through her made me even harder.
“Stefano, you have no idea what you’re missing.
She’s so sweet.” I tugged at the waistband of her pants.
She kicked them down dutifully, revealing no panties.
“So…” I dipped my head between her legs and took a leisured lick.
“Fucking…” My mouth fastened around her clit. “Sweet.” I gave it a good suck.
She cried out, thrashing as she tried to guide my head deeper between her legs with her hands, fumbling because they were still tied. “Please,” Tierney bucked.
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me.”
Coppola blinked once, and I knew he was registering everything. That this was the last thing he’d see before he died.
“Hear that?” I locked my eyes on his tauntingly. “She is begging for it. You could’ve never given her what she wants.”
“Fuck me until it hurts,” she growled.
She was a complete psychopath.
And I was so in love.
“Let’s give him a show, Piccola Fiamma. A nice farewell.
” I winked in Coppola’s direction. I flipped her to her stomach, but when she tried rising onto all fours in preparation for me, I pressed my knee on her lower back, restraining her flat against the floor.
“I want him to watch my dick coming in and out of you.” I unfastened my belt.
My cock was ramrod straight and ready to plow into her, the tip glistening with the first drop of my cum.
“Watch,” I instructed Coppola, propping Tierney by the hip bone so her ass was slightly in the air and guiding myself into her one inch at a time.
A shudder rocked through her body. I relished every second of sweet torture I handed her, knowing full well this wasn’t even the tip of what I’d been feeling for years, day in and day out, pining for her.
I leaned down and bracketed her with one hand on either side of her shoulders, then captured the back of her neck in a bite. “Watch how I hit her G-spot and fuck your little bride until she blacks out, Sangue Blu.”
She gasped when I lost the remainder of my self-control and started plowing into her like an animal in heat.
I couldn’t see straight as I rode her, fast and deep, feeling her walls milking the orgasm out of me. It had been too long since the night at my parents’ pool. I’d teetered on the edge of insanity the entire time, waiting for another hit of my favorite drug.
My bite on the back of her neck tightened, and I felt the warm pressure of my climax gripping the base of my spine. I needed her to come soon, or I’d embarrass the both of us.
Forever my guardian angel, Tierney’s gasps grew faster and more breathless. “I’m coming. Don’t stop. Bite me harder.”
I did, stopping just short of drawing blood. I couldn’t fucking do it. I could never hurt this woman, even if the future of the entire world depended on it.
Her insides quaked around my dick, squeezing my pleasure. We rode our orgasms together, and I was seeing goddamn stars it felt so good.
When I threw a glance at Coppola again, he was dead. His lips began to pale around the edges, and the look of horror in his eyes hardened into something lifeless.
I pulled out of Tierney slowly, smearing the side of my cock on her ass to clean it of our juices, and stood up. She stayed lying down, her hands still tied.
“Up,” I ordered.
She rolled to her back and pushed up. I grabbed my knife and cut the zip ties.
Something inside me iced to a frightening degree.
Now that the pleasure of the orgasm had faded, it reminded me that we hadn’t actually made love yet.
All we ever did was fuck. We’d had no connection beyond the physical.
Nothing to cement those words I’d told her before I boarded the plane.
Words I doubted she could ever say back.
“What did you think you were doing?” I untucked my dark shirt, zipping up my pants.
“Saving you.” She massaged her wrists with a wince.
“I didn’t need saving.”
“Everyone needs saving every once in a while.” She circled her arms around my neck and nipped at the lobe of my ear. “And I’m glad I took a bullet for you, because now you know that this is a two-way street. That I care for you just as much as you care for me.”
Categorically impossible, but I wasn’t going to burst her little bubble.
“Care or love?” I demanded.
She blinked in response, taken off guard. “They’re one and the same.”
“If that’s the case, you wouldn’t mind telling me that you love me back. Because I, Tierney, love the shit out of you. Have been in love with you since the first fucking day I laid eyes on you.”
She physically recoiled, trying to step away from my embrace. I snatched her wrist, tired. Tired that we’d fucked instead of making love. Tiptoed around her feelings instead of forcing her to feel them.
“Say it,” I hissed. “Truth.”
She swallowed. Stared at me like prey caught in a predator’s clutches. She had nowhere to go. She had to face this. Us.
“I love you,” she whispered. Barely an audible rumble, really.
The satisfaction was immediate and maddening. Still, I didn’t let her off the hook.
“Louder.”
“I love you,” she grumbled between clenched teeth.
“Can’t hear you.”
“I love you, you bastard!” She pushed at my chest, heaving with anger.
Finally—fucking finally—I was able to draw an emotion out of her.
“Like you needed to hear it to know it to be true. It’s always been you.
There was never anyone else. You completely dismantled my life, and still, the brightest moments of each of my days were knowing you were there, lurking, watching, yearning. ”
I stepped into her face. “You liked driving me insane?”
“Yes!” She pushed me harder. “It was the only indication I had that you still cared.”
“Of course I cared.” I bared my teeth. “Every moment you weren’t mine felt like trying to survive underwater. I love you,” I asserted.
“I love you too, asshole.”
“Are you ever going to listen to a simple instruction?” I clutched her waist. She melted into me immediately. I loved that she did that now. Let herself be vulnerable. Or simply not as tough all the time.
“Probably not.” At least she had the decency to make an apologetic face. “It’s ingrained in me. The need to rebel burns through me. I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it.”
I dipped my head to kiss her. “I don’t know what I did to deserve falling in love with a woman so maddening.”
She sighed. “Well, you did kill a bunch of people, traffic drugs, meddle in—”
I pressed a finger to her mouth. “Shh. It was a rhetorical question.”
She grinned up at me, and I kissed her again.
I couldn’t stop.
She was too delicious, too sweet.
And too temporary, unless I found a way to lock this shit down.