Chapter 32 Giulia
GIULIA
The whiplash is so startling that all I can do is hang on for dear life.
I thought I was going to lose the man I loved forever, that he might not ever be able to forgive me, and now not only is he saying he does, that he loves me, but he…
He wants me so badly, he can’t wait to have me. And I feel like I’m drowning in need, in pleasure, in—
His tongue slides upward between my thighs, up to my clit, his hands gripping me as he holds me down on his face.
I can’t help but think I’m going to suffocate him, but it seems like he doesn’t care.
His tongue lashes against me, his groans vibrating against my skin, and I can feel the pleasure taking over everything, driving every other thought out of my head.
He devours me like he’s starving, like he wants to drown in me, and I… all I want to do is let him.
I can feel my thighs trembling as he pushes the sensations higher, faster, my knuckles turning white against the bedframe as I cling to it. I can feel myself on the verge of coming apart, and he growls against me, urging me on.
When the orgasm hits, it’s so intense I feel dizzy, stars flashing in my vision as I lose all sense of control, my hips grinding rhythmically against his mouth until I’m sure I’m going to suffocate him.
And he seems to love it. I feel him shudder underneath me, and the moment my orgasm starts to ebb, he jerks down the waist of his sweatpants with one shaking hand, freeing his cock as he pulls his mouth back.
“I need your pussy,” he gasps. “I need to be inside of you. Fuck, Giulia…”
The need in his voice is devastating. I slide back, carefully, and as I straddle his hips, the look in his eyes is so hot and dark and all-consuming that I feel a fresh flood of arousal wash through me at the sight of it.
This is the man who fucked me, night after night, in the club. The one who showed me heights of pleasure I never knew existed, who unraveled me and put me back together. But he’s looking at me, Giulia, that way now. There are no secrets, no masks, no Valentina.
There’s only us, and the desperate desire that’s fueling us both.
He reaches down, gripping the base of his cock as he angles it between my thighs. “Please,” he rasps again, and although there might be a night when I’d find it fun to tease and deny him until I finally gave in, that moment isn’t right now.
Right now, I can’t wait, either.
I sink down, slowly, careful not to hit his bandages with my knee. The moment his tip slips inside of me, he hisses through his teeth, his hands flexing on my hips as I take another inch of him.
He’s so big. The stretch is delicious, the feeling of him filling me up so exquisite that I can hardly stand it. My body clenches, tightening around him, and Luca’s hips jerk.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuck, I want to come so bad…”
“I already came.” I bite my lip, sliding down another inch and watching his pupils darken. “You can…”
“No.” He shakes his head, his jaw tight. “I want it to last. Fuck, I want…”
He trails off, seemingly unable to speak as I take more of him, and then more still. I sink down on him fully, gasping as I feel the full length and thickness of his cock filling me, and Luca groans, rocking upward as I tighten around him again.
His hand settles between us, thumb stroking upward against my clit in the caress he knows I like best as I find a slow rhythm that won’t hurt him.
I rock against him, sliding up and down slowly, watching his face tighten and crease with pleasure.
His chest heaves, my hands sliding over his skin, and part of me can’t believe this is happening.
That we’re here, together, that he’s touching me like this, that we’re connected again without anger or recriminations or anything that the last weeks have been full of.
He throbs inside of me, and I know what he wants… for me to come again, to feel me tighten and clench around him as I give him my pleasure again before he gives me mine. I gasp at the insistent stroke of his thumb, my back arching, and I can see how hard it is for him to wait, to hang on…
When my orgasm comes, it’s as explosive as the first. I cry out, fingers curling against his chest as I grind into him, and his groan is almost pained as I feel him start to spurt inside of me, his hands gripping me hard.
We ride through our climaxes together, him holding onto me as if his life depends on it, heat filling me as I moan his name.
I want to collapse onto his chest as the pleasure eases, but I don’t want to hurt him.
I slide off, carefully, hearing him gasp at the sensation of his still half-hard cock sliding out of me, and I curl against his uninjured side.
A small sob rises in the back of my throat, and he turns immediately toward me.
“Are you alright?” His thumb traces the edge of my jaw. “I didn’t hurt you—”
“No.” I shake my head rapidly. “I’m fine. I just—I'm just so grateful you're alive. That we're both alive. That we get to have this."
He leans in and presses a kiss to the top of my head. "I know. I know, baby. Me too."
The sound of the endearment so casually on his lips makes tears well in my eyes all over again. I press my face against his shoulder, breathing him in, and he wraps his arm around me, just holding me in silence for several long minutes.
After a little while, he shifts slightly, wincing, and I immediately move to give him more room, worried I'm putting too much pressure on his injury. But he just pulls me back against his side, arranging us so we're both comfortable, his arm wrapped securely around my shoulders.
"Stay," he says. It's not a command, or a demand. It's a request. A plea. "Please.”
"I'm not going anywhere." I settle against him, my hand resting on his chest where I can feel his heartbeat beneath my palm. "I promise."
The silence that follows is comfortable rather than tense, and it feels like a relief.
How many nights have I lain awake in our brownstone, listening to the silence and knowing he was in another room, deliberately putting distance between us?
How many times have I wished for exactly this—the simple comfort of being held by the man I love, without anger or resentment poisoning every moment?
"What are you thinking about?" Luca's voice is quiet and curious.
"The future." The words come out before I can second-guess them, and I feel him tense slightly beside me. "Just—wondering what it looks like now. For us."
He's quiet for a moment. "What do you want it to look like?" he asks finally.
The question catches me off guard. No one's asked me what I want in so long—not my father, not Romeo, not even Luca himself during those terrible weeks when our marriage was nothing but punishment. The fact that he's asking now, that he actually cares about my answer, makes my throat tight.
"I want—" I blink away the wetness in my eyes. “I want this to be real. That’s all. I want us to love each other. I want our child to grow up in a house full of love instead of resentment. I want to wake up next to you and not wonder if you're going to look at me with hatred or disgust."
"Giulia—"
"I want you to forgive yourself," I continue quickly.
"For whatever you think you did wrong. For falling in love with Valentina, for not recognizing me sooner, for being cruel after you found out the truth.
I want you to understand that I forgive you for all of it, and I need you to forgive yourself too. "
His hand tightens on my shoulder, and when I tilt my head to look at him, his eyes are suspiciously bright.
"It’s hard," he says, his voice rough. "I don't know if I can forgive myself for the things I said to you, the way I treated you.
You were desperate and scared and trapped, and instead of trying to understand, I just—I punished you.
Over and over again. I made you suffer because I was hurt, and that's not something I'm proud of. "
"I know." I reach up and cup his face, forcing him to look at me.
"But you're not that person anymore. You're not the man who said those cruel things or who deliberately made our marriage miserable.
You're the man who came for me when I was kidnapped. Who took a bullet meant for me. And I know you loved me. We both did the wrong things. It doesn’t have to stay that way. "
"I should have told you sooner that I loved you," he says quietly. "I should have told you when I first started to realize that I couldn't keep punishing you forever. But I was scared that if I admitted I still loved you, it would make me weak. That it would mean you'd won somehow."
I lean forward and press a gentle kiss to his forehead.
"We can't change the past. All we can do is decide what we want the future to look like and work toward that together.
It's going to be hard. Probably the hardest thing either of us has ever done.
But I think—I think we can do it. If we both want it badly enough. "
"I want it." He leans his forehead against mine. "I want you. I want our family.”
The relief that floods through me is so intense it's almost painful. "Me too," I whisper. “It feels like a lot has changed. Everything feels different now compared to yesterday. Or last week. Or—or any time since you found out the truth."
"It does feel different." His hand moves in slow circles on my back, soothing and gentle. "I finally started fighting for you like you’ve been fighting for me.”
"I like that." I press a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. "Fighting for each other. That's what I want us to be."
“I’m sure Dante will be glad we’re not fighting each other any longer,” Luca says with a low, grim chuckle. “It will make things easier on him.”
"I wish—" I let out a slow breath. "I wish he cared about whether I was happy. Whether we were happy. Instead of just whether it looks good for the family."
"I know." Luca's arms tighten around me, protective and comforting. "But you have me, and Romeo, and Savannah. You have your friends. You have people who care about you as a person, not just as the don's daughter or a political asset."
"Do I have you?" The question comes out smaller than I intended, my voice cracking slightly. "Really have you? Not just because we're married or because of the baby, but because you choose me?"
"Yes." Luca says it firmly, his thumb pressing against my jaw so I have to look at him. "You have me, Giulia. All of me. I choose you because I want to, not because I have to.”
"I choose you too," I whisper. The words feel like a vow more binding than the ones we spoke in the church weeks ago. "I'll always choose you."
We lie there in comfortable silence for a while longer, and I find myself thinking about the future in a way I haven't allowed myself to before.
Not the future I was resigned to—a cold marriage, a resentful husband, a child growing up in a house full of tension and unspoken anger, but the future I actually want.
The one that feels possible now that we've finally stopped fighting each other and started fighting for each other instead.
I imagine waking up next to Luca every morning, his arms around me, no walls or defenses between us.
I imagine decorating a nursery together, arguing good-naturedly about paint colors and furniture placement.
I imagine holding our baby for the first time, seeing Luca's face when he becomes a father, watching him discover a capacity for gentleness and love that he didn't know he possessed.
I imagine family dinners where we're actually happy. I imagine growing old together, watching our child grow up, building a life that's ours rather than something imposed on us by duty or obligation.
The images are so vivid, so achingly real, that they make my chest tight with longing.
I feel him drift off next to me, and I close my eyes, letting myself fall asleep, too, comfortable and safe in his arms the way I’ve wanted to be for so long.
This won’t be simple. We’ll have to learn to trust each other again, how to navigate our marriage, what we both want out of it, and everything else that goes along with that.
But it feels like, as long as Luca is by my side, as long as he wants this as much as I do, there’s no way we won’t figure it out.
The future is finally, completely ours, to build into whatever we want it to be.
And this time, no one is going to stop us.