Chapter 20
Sophie
“It’s going to storm.”
Xavier heaves the swinging shutters closed, stronger than the unsettled squalls. In the span of a minute, the cottage has darkened several shades. A cleft cloud has begun to drift in from the north, thick and heavy with a dark underside, threatening to unleash chaos at any moment.
Hovering by the entrance, waiting as he told me to, I hear him locking doors, securing the house, shutting the windows. A disquieting rolling noise, like vibrations on metal, reverberates through the living room.
I’m just like that fearsome cloud, withholding a goddamn torrent. A flood.
The villa is quiet now that Xavier’s moved into the rooms.
A powerful emotion has been building within me all day, as overwhelming happiness began to overshadow pain.
He’s stayed by my side throughout every second, never more than an arm’s length away, ensuring that I am well cared for and that the thoughts I’ve buried for years finally deserve answers.
Even after all this time, he still says the right things, even if it’s to his own detriment .
My eyes dart to the open door leading to the bedroom, reminded of waking alone, reaching out, and finding the sheets cold and empty.
Remembering what happened when he dared to touch me and how agonizing the aftermath was.
It was exactly as I feared. When I pulled myself out of bed this morning, I was determined to remember who I came all this way for.
My husband.
Something in me is broken, raging like that storm outside.
Its siren song lures me to part the doors, landing on the sand.
The wind, wild and untamed, whispers against my skin.
Let go.
Let it all go.
My chest tightens, my body aching to feel anything but restraint. My legs stumble over the sand dunes until my feet meet the wet shoreline. Without hesitation, I stride into the restless waves, driven by something beyond sense.
The waves pound against my delicate frame, powerless to withstand their force. Rather than struggle, I shut my eyes and descend. Deep, deep into the depths, just as I witnessed Xavier doing through the windows earlier today. In a place like this, you can surrender it all.
The rage. The anger. The desperation. Hopelessness.
Let the water wash it away. Let it try.
My straining eyes reopen, and I’m enveloped in darkness, granted a momentary reprieve. The demons struggle to find me here. Not even the crashing waves over my head terrify me as much as they do.
But they always find me.
The past topples over my head, an onslaught of memories tearing me apart, memories I can’t bear to relive.
Decades in my father’s lifeless home, nothing but a pawn to an evil man who somehow fails to rival my father-in-law .
Most of my life has been spent in some form of prison, surrounded by those determined to erase my very being.
That unloved feeling shouldn’t overshadow the immense love Xavier provides, yet its strength is overwhelming, having built over the years. Thomas was the catalyst—the first person to suffer for loving me. I was never able to repay him, just as I’ll never be able to repay Xavier.
His love requires no payment.
I nod to myself, a tightness building in my esophagus.
Breathe. You need to breathe.
The depths of my panic are strong enough to anchor me and keep me from breaking the surface.
Many times now, I’ve lost myself like this.
In a hotel room with my fiancé, his hands capturing my carved wrists, the wounds healed only on the outside.
When my father’s hands curled around my throat on the night of my wedding, determined to drown out my voice, even if that meant forever.
In that fucking cell—so many times. I lost count over the last four years.
This morning was just another episode… except it happened at my most vulnerable. At his.
My body yearns for him. The fact that it can’t decipher his touch and theirs infuriates me.
They can’t win.
None of them. Not Vito. Not Arturo. Not those bastards who followed their orders.
Breathe . You need to breathe, Sophie.
My eyes locate the surface and that soft, inviting light. The ripples of rain already dancing upon the sloshing water. My heart pounds as fast as that reverberating metal rolling across the sea.
You need to breathe .
That burning, that desperation, builds into something impossible to withstand. My body tenses, my hands covering my face as I will it all to cease .
Let go .
Let it all go.
Fucking hell, you deserve it.
The Atlantic swallows my piercing scream, hurling it all into the dark abyss. It’s endless, mighty, carrying the unbearable weight of my life—until it isn’t. Until hands are seizing me from above, dragging me out of the depths.
Xavier’s eyes are wide with terror, his drenched hair plastered to his skin as the waves come crashing. He captures my face furiously, shaking me. “What the fuck are you doing ?”
Coughing, trying to figure out how to breathe properly again, I grab his wrists. He growls, yanking my hand, tugging me towards shore.
Tension hasn’t left my body—It’s transformed .
My eyes, still disoriented, fall to our hands, to his fingers squeezing warmth back into mine, easing the stiffness. They drift to the sheer fabric clinging to his back, dipping into the crevices of his muscles that strain as he battles the water.
Don’t fight it.
“Xavier.” My voice is deeper… changed.
There’s no restraint, no need to hide.
Let him hear the pain. The fury. Let him hear my desire.
He ignores me, reaching back to haul me in front of him, but I push him, tearing my hand out of his. “ Xavier .”
He whirls around, his glare lethally beautiful . It’s fitting that lightning clashes in the distance. His chest falls and rises, his green eyes so piercing, bursting with restraint.
I nod, not needing to say the words. The electricity—it’s all around us. In the air. In the distance between us. In his hands as he pushes through the waves, dragging me to him.
Xavier’s lips crash to mine, just as the surf crashes into our bodies. He hauls me out from the strong, foamy current, groaning deeply when my nails rake back his hair, my tongue savoring the saltwater coating his skin .
We don’t even make it out of the water.
The shoreline crushes his back as he lays me flat, tearing the mesh material with blunt fingers. The bikini, needing less force, slips away from my breasts, splashing into the water that carries it away.
Matching the might of the tempest over our heads, he’s surrounding my breast, consumed, his passion too vehement to adhere to caution. His hands continue to roam as he heaves out words against me. “I need you.”
I nod, succumbing to fogging desire, concentrating on his calloused hands, the lesions scattered over him, as common as birthmarks. His fingers dig into my hips as he hauls me off the sand, capturing my nape, drinking in my lips.
We crash into the side of the building, losing our bearings as I back into the house, snatching his hand when he follows me in, scooping me off my feet. My spine protests as he pins me to the pillar, knocking down one of the pictures nailed to the sound structure.
He looses a low growl of approval as my restless fingers scatter his buttons, a dangerous smile taking shape on his face. “That was my last shirt.”
My lips are wet against his. “You won’t need one.”
The fabric clings to his body, unable to clear his massive arms without assistance. Breathless and intoxicated, our laughter resonates in the vacant space, bouncing off the walls.
His hips keep my feet from the ground, the unmistakable presence of him against the thin bikini birthing desire back into my body. My eyes close as I discard his linen shirt onto the tile, encircling his broad shoulders, kissing the hollow dip that links his throat to the rest of him.
Warmth spreads through me, charging through my veins like wildfire.
It’s sweltering, building between my thighs as I pitch my hips back and forth, failing to restrain a moan when his concealed, rigid erection chafes my sex through the thin fabric.
It’s so damn freeing to feel this again, to hold him, to know it’s not just a memory.
His touch has become so overwhelming that none of those demons can penetrate it.
His fingers unravel the strings on either side of my hips, letting the material slacken between us. Xavier tears his mouth from mine, heaving as he stares down unabashedly, drinking in all of me greedily, having prevented himself yesterday. “Fuck, I'm going crazy.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” My lips dust across his chin, so sure of him. “I trust you.”
My mouth melts into his, my tongue slipping past his with decision. He falls into me like a man starved, unable to restrain himself. The bikini falls to the ground alongside his shirt when he lifts me. He turns, using one hand to navigate through the darkened room.
Another clash, and I’m falling onto the bedding, watching years of sand that the wind has blown into these rooms swirl around us as I ease back, sliding my legs apart to make space for him.
His chest extends so wide that I'm convinced I would fear him if I didn't know him so well. If I didn't trust him with my life.
Rain droplets battering the window dance across his inked skin, sketching shadows over a shredded core, pronounced strength taking form in the shape of veins charting across his forearms as he unclips the buckle of his belt.
He slides off his jeans, then the black briefs clinging to the most intimidating part of him. My gaze drifts between his legs, my teeth sinking into my soft lip as he plants one hand on the bed and then the other until he's hovering above me like I've dreamed so many times.
His hands glide over my sides, navigating my curves like a sailor would navigate a winding stream. Expertly. His breath is a gust as he lays flat between my legs, his mouth drifting over the peak of my breast.