Chapter Twenty-Four
Seraphina
He hooks his arm beneath my thigh, lifting it just enough to slip inside me. His hot breath caresses my shoulder as he presses in from behind. I gasp, the sound caught between a whimper and a plea. His hand anchors at my hip, keeping me still as he sinks deeper.
“Just one more,” he murmurs, his voice rough with hunger. “Give it to me, my love. I want to feel you fall apart just one more time.”
His plea coils like a snake around my body and I arch into him, chasing the friction, the fullness, the ache of him filling me. Every movement is his body asking me for more and every movement of mine is answering by giving into him freely and fully.
“Sergio,” I moan. “Fuck me.”
“That’s it my love. Give in to me.”
He doesn’t rush as my arousal rises. He just watches and listens to the way my breath hitches, the way my fingers clutch the sheets, and the way my pussy pulls him in deep.
His reaches around me, then rubs light circles over my clit.
“Come for me, baby.” He shifts his hips and lifts my leg higher. “Come all over my dick. I need to feel it.”
“Fuck, Sergio!”
I cry out as the wave of nothing but pure ecstasy tears through me. My body arches and trembles as he releases a deep, guttural groan behind me like he’s never felt a better feeling than me coming.
“That’s it, baby,” he breathes, his voice thick with lust. “God, that’s it.”
His hands tighten, one at my waist, the other splayed across my belly like he’s holding on for dear life.
“Sera.”
As my name leaves his lips, he pulses inside me and it feels like every nerve in my body is singing as I slump against him. Sergio doesn’t move. He just stays pressed against me like he’s breathing me in.
“You’re so beautiful when you break for me.”
His lips brush against the back of my neck. I turn over, causing him to slip from inside me and cum to slide down my thighs. Our faces are only inches apart.
“I want you to break me,” I confess.
It’s always like this when we haven’t seen each other in a while. It’s like we can’t get enough of each other.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?”
His fingers trace the curve of my cheek as he moves my hair, before kissing my forehead.
I can’t help but laugh because there hasn’t been a day that has gone by since we were kids that he hasn’t told me how beautiful I am. If he doesn’t do it in person, he’ll call or send a text. But he makes sure he tells me.
“You tell me every day.”
I trace the Puglisi name tattooed across his chest that he got when he was sixteen years old. According to him all the Puglisi men have it tattooed across their chest, even Gianni. But he wouldn’t tell me why they all have it. But I think I know what he had to do to get it.
Sergio isn’t very forthcoming about his family other than he doesn’t get along with his brothers.
What I know has come from Phoenix and the bits I’ve caught in conversations with Finley and Kai that he’s had around me.
But he’s tried to keep our relationship separate from his life as a member of the Puglisi Family.
I can’t say he’s done a great job, but he tries.
We haven’t been able to spend much time together since he’s always busy with doing work for his father, but I miss him.
So, when he called and told me to pack a bag, I was so excited.
Our time together is getting shorter and shorter.
We’ve been together for three days, but I know it won’t last. It never does.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t been around.”
I stop tracing the ink along his skin, my fingers stilling as his apology settles between us. It’s an apology that’s becoming a normal thing for him to say.
He props himself up on his elbow and I shift backwards, giving him some space. He’s waiting, expecting me to accept it like I always do, but I’m not ready to. Not yet. I know what he hopes I’ll say. I know what would make this moment easier for him. But my truth isn’t the one he wants to hear.
Do I think he’s sorry? I’m not so sure anymore.
Will things change? They won’t.
“You have other things you have to do, Sergio,” I say even though I wish he did make more time for me.
“You’re my life, Sera. Even if I don’t show it all the time.”
Once again, he looks at me with confusion as he tries to figure out why I’m not accepting his words like I always do.
Sergio says some of the sweetest things, especially when we’ve been apart for a while.
He may want them to be true even when they aren’t our reality.
He wants me to be the center of his world, but I’m not.
His father will always come first. And deep down he knows that.
He feels guilty about not spending time with me, that’s why he’s apologizing.
But I’m not one to throw the truth back in his face.
I’m here to spend time with the man I love. Not to argue.
“You don’t believe me?”
There’s a tinge of hurt in his voice and I sigh. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you, Sergio. But it’s not true. You love me, but I’ll never be the center of your world. You’re a Puglisi. Your allegiance to your father will always come before me.”
“That’s not true.”
Just at that moment, his cell phone rings. The sound slices through the room like a blade. Sergio’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t move right away because it will prove what I’ve just said. But I see the shift in his eyes, and I know he’s already out the door.
I don’t say anything. I don’t need to.
He reaches for the phone, glancing at the screen. His expression hardens, and I know it’s his father or someone who outranks me in the hierarchy of his life.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed. “I have to take this.”
“Of course you do.”
He glares at me over his shoulder as I pull the sheet around me.
My fingers curl into the fabric as I watch his back moving away from me.
He doesn’t look back. He never does when it’s his father calling.
The bathroom door shuts behind him, and the silence that follows isn’t angry because his absence doesn’t anger me anymore.
I’m just tired.
I’m tired of playing second fiddle to his father. I’m tired of always having to accept his apology and that this is my life if I’m going to be with him. He doesn’t know how to balance a relationship and being a Puglisi. And I realize he’s got to want it as much as I do.
I lie back, staring at the ceiling as the ache settles in my chest. I love him. But loving him means knowing he’ll always leave when he calls. It means having to swallow my disappointment and pretend it’s not him abandoning me for them.
This is our reality. I have to accept it or walk away.
After a few moments, the bathroom door opens, and he steps out, his shoulders tense. He snatches his clothes from the floor and begins dressing. “I have to go.”
I don’t respond, just continue to stare at the ceiling as my vision blurs. I close my eyes at his deep sigh.
“I meant what I said, Sera. You’re the most important person in my life.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” I say before I can stop the words from coming out of my mouth.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He slides his shoes on, then shoves his arms into his blazer.
“I’m done, Sergio.” He stills. “I love you, but this is too much.”
He walks toward the bed as anger blankets his face. “You don’t get to walk away from me, Seraphina. This,” he motions between us, “is forever.”
Before I can respond his phone rings again, and I laugh but there isn’t any humor in it. I raise my brow, daring him not to answer. Daring him to choose me. He glares at me as the phone continues to ring.
“Answer it, Sergio. That’s what’s important, not this. Not us.”
I turn over, giving him my back. Do I expect him to answer it?
Yes. Do I expect the slam of the door followed by the deafening silence?
I do. And he proves me right when he walks out without another word, just the sharp slam of the door.
The sound reverberates through the room, through my chest, through everything I’ve been trying not to admit. This will never work between us.
I lay here in the silence he leaves behind with my heart splintering into a million pieces. I wanted him to stay. I wanted him to fight for this. For me. But he didn’t. And that tells me everything I need to know.
It hurts. But I can’t keep waiting for him to choose me when I already know what he’ll choose instead.
So, this time, I choose me.