Chapter 27 #5
My skin gleams with sweat, never having recovered from the ride home before he was on me in the doorway.
Driven by an insatiable need for each other, compensating for years of deprivation, we push ourselves beyond exhaustion, beyond what our hearts can withstand.
Sitting up, his tongue lashes my breast, tugging my nipple to coax the pain away sweetly.
My hands rake over him, determined to leave my mark and stake my claim over his body, just as he has done with mine. We’re both spent, using the last of our energy when he pins me beneath him, settling between my legs like a homecoming.
His hands capture my wrists, dragging my arms up over my head, pinning them there as he drives his hips forward, groaning. And just when I thought I was free from the past, free from any triggers, his firm grip on my arms forces me to tilt away from his kiss, losing. Losing desire. Losing myself.
Even this close to oblivion, he stops the moment he senses me stiffen beneath him, loosening my arms and bringing them to his face. “Too far?”
I nod shakily, worrying my lip, frustrated by how quickly my body can lose steam. “I'm sorry.”
“No, I'm sorry,” he says. “I’ve been too rough?—”
“No, I like this. I… I like this with you. I just have… things that trigger me sometimes.”
He closes his eyes, catching his breath. I watch him wrestle with that harsh statement in his mind, the horrible things he’s seeing, and wanting to erase them from his memory, I caress his jaw tenderly. “Do you still want this?”
“You?” His eyes clear. “Always.”
“Then, I need you to continue, just like you were. I need you to bring me there.”
It feels like an impossible request at first, as he kisses me, coaxing my mouth open with a slip of his tongue. Slow and sweet, letting me find security sealed in his arms, he lets his hands roam only after I’ve clamped my legs around his hips. Every graze meets sensitive flesh.
I'm not even sure how long we’ve been at this anymore.
Time suspends when he’s inside of me.
“Hold me,” he begs. “Touch me.”
Burying my hands in the damp roots of his hair, I drag my fingers through the silky curls until they cascade over his shoulders, tracing the wide expanse of his back.
Lingering on some of the healed scars marring his skin, I find desire in his intense gaze that doesn’t leave me.
His dark brows wince with relief when my eyes roll back just as he pitches his hips, knocking me flat with a single thrust.
In our craze before, we lost ourselves in bodily pleasure, pushed to each decision by a reaction. We find that hunger again through our eyes alone, in our fused souls, stretching to reach the other.
In merged breaths as our lips meet .
Xavier fucks me deeply into entangled sheets, his strokes fluid and fast, both gentle and rough, discovering an exquisite median we can both handle.
“I’ll always find you,” he breathes.
Already aware of what he really means, I urge him deeper, hands digging into his firm backside. “Only you.”
He agrees, ramming his response. “Only. Me.”
His mouth is a ravaging force, driving my head into the mattress as he licks deep past my lips before pulling on my bottom lip, claiming me again, never missing a single rhythmic thrust. “Give it to me. Give me what I want, baby.”
My smile widens, overheated but too desperate to care. “Don’t stop.”
He captures the nape of my neck to ground me, placing a hand beside my head to steady himself as he drives us to the brink of this. Our chests heave for the air we’ve forsaken. He is trembling as badly as I am, and we haven’t lost ourselves yet.
That delicious pull of ecstasy is all I have left, and I’ll give it all to him, push myself wherever I need to go to get there with him.
Already too sensitive from the previous brinks he’s made me reach tonight, this orgasm builds with exquisite raw pain, evoking whimpers rather than moans.
My hands claw at him, desperate to feel that pleasure again. “ Xavier .”
He moans.
I whisper it again, breathing the name intimately into his mouth, and he does it again.
God, I love him.
I love him.
It’s that singular thought that does me in, that makes me shake so hard my teeth rattle, my spine arching from the mattress as all of those nerves spasm with a violence that urges him into his own release, shuddering deeply as he pumps himself into me.
We collapse into a state of exhaustion .
Gazing at the piped ceiling, my chest heaves as I experience the toll that hours of pleasure can take on a person.
Lying next to me, Xavier’s arm extends over my stomach as he catches his breath, his cheek resting against the mattress. He acts before I can, his bronzed face glowing with fulfilled desire as he kneels, stretching across the bed to grab a tissue from the nightstand.
Too sluggish to react when he first pushes my legs apart, I expose myself to him. Only when his jaw tightens and his eyes darken multiple shades in mere seconds do I understand what he’s seeing.
Mortified, I shut him out, eyes widening. “Xavier, don’t .”
With a knowing smirk, visibly aroused by the eroticism of this, his hand caresses the inside of my thigh, coaxing them open again so he can clean me off. Even the slightest touch of the tissue makes me flinch, moaning through the dull ache.
Xavier stands, tossing it into the waste bin before returning to the bed.
He climbs over me, kissing every place available to him with no real motive before he levels himself onto me with a contented sigh.
His cheek warms my stomach while he cradles my hips.
And when my hands slip into his hair, my fingers brushing through those wild curls, he sighs, pressing a kiss to my navel. “How many times was that for you?”
I grin. “I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow.”
He hums appreciatively when my fingers graze his heated cheeks. “After that shitty gala, you deserve a day of rest.”
“Was it a success?”
“We’re alive,” he admits with a hint of amusement. “I’d say yes.”
“There was a chance for the alternative?”
His answer is surprisingly somber. “You know the answer to that.”
It’s not what I want to hear, but I accept it with a nod, returning my gaze to the ceiling, forced to think about Strata’s empty seat tonight, a surprising no-show, and what that might mean. Maybe his absence is a sign of discord, a lack of preparation.
Maybe he is planning something else… with my father.
Xavier rests his hand on my stomach, leaning his chin on it. Looking at him makes the unsettling thoughts in my head subside. He gazes at me, words clearly on the tip of his tongue. It’s then we hear the front door of the estate slam open, rowdy voices spilling into the foyer, calling out for us.
Dante bellows from the stairs. “We brought take-out!”
Mimi giggles. “Come down, you animals! Look! There’s clothes everywhere?—”
Xavier barely has time to drape a sheet over me before the footsteps from down the hall reveal Bo with an armful of clothing. Our clothing. Xavier shifts, blocking me from his view. “What the fuck?”
Bo tosses the heap of clothes into the bedroom. “Rosa and Caesar arrived when we did. They’re downstairs .”
Our savior isn’t even out of the door before I leap out of bed and rush into the closet. Still reeling from hours under my husband, my hands hesitate on the band t-shirt I’m considering. Is a dress better suited for this moment?
As I swipe through the hangers, I grimace at my options. A tattooed arm extends over my shoulder, taking the t-shirt I had initially chosen, dropping it into my hands. I look up to find Xavier smirking, already dressed.
“Don’t overthink it, Soph.”
After catching a glimpse of my disheveled appearance in the mirror, I can’t help but say, “It matters what she thinks of me. She’s Isabella’s mom. She was always really done up.”
“And who cares if she is?” He pulls me close, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “It’s not you. Show her who you are, and she’ll love you… just like we all do.”
“She suffered because of me.”
“No, she suffered because of me , Sophie. Because I didn’t love her when I went to her. She and I convinced ourselves that we could defy what we knew was inevitable. She wanted to experience a man of her choosing, and I wanted to enter my new marriage with a hardened heart.”
“She fell in love with you.”
“And I stayed the same,” he says. “When I saw you in her eyes, I already knew I was fucked.”
“Does she still love you?”
“I think she loves how she felt when she made a decision for herself that her father didn’t force on her. I'm tied to that feeling.”
He nudges my cheek with a kiss when I nod, understanding what he means all too well. It seems she and I are both rebels.
Pulling my messy hair into a side braid, I leave the closet wearing jeans and a T-shirt. After washing our lipstick-stained faces in the sink, struck by fits of uncontrolled laughter, Xavier leads me through his enormous childhood home.
With a steady hand in mine, he presents me to the room full of our friends, who hoot and holler in celebration of our successful night, surrounded by a table of half-eaten food.
Dante covers Mimi’s runaway mouth when she begins to tease about the state of the foyer when they arrived. She nips at him until he lets her go, too drunk to notice how flushed my face has become.
Caesar approaches us first. “Rosa wanted to stop by since we missed you at the gala.” His smile is unbelievably kind when he extends his hand to me. “You must be Sophie.”
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you. Xavier has told me so much about you.”
When he steps aside, I stiffen at the sight of his beautiful wife.
Not only because I traveled from halfway across the world, believing this was the woman who took my husband away from me, but also because Bellarosa Barbieri is connected to our turbulent beginning—the woman who objected to the wedding that was meant to free me from my prison.
“Rosa, hi. It’s so nice to meet you,” I say, genuinely meant. For Isabella’s sake, I want her approval. I need her approval.
I can tell within two minutes that this woman is deeply in love—and it’s not with her husband. She fixates on the crimson lipstick mark we overlooked at the curve of Xavier’s neck. I worry nothing will come out of this meeting when she averts her gaze.
It probably would’ve been better if we never met.
When she lifts her face, water brimming at her eyelids, my stomach recoils as I prepare for the worst. Because of that, I don’t expect it at all when she walks right into me seconds later, throwing her arms around my body, hugging me close.
Over her shoulder, Caesar smiles as if he somehow understands.
Everyone else is at a loss, glancing at each other uncomfortably.
For some reason, the way she holds me brings tears to my eyes.
I embrace her just as tightly, trying to understand why I ever thought she wouldn’t be as wonderful as her daughter.
Her first words to me are spoken from someplace deep, a place only someone in love with Xavier Marcello could understand. “Thank you… for coming back to him.”
Without needing to, she tells me what I already know.
That she’s seen him—hurt and alone.
That she would have done anything to change that.
That she loves him enough to want for him what he won’t accept from her.
“Isabella fell for you the second she saw you.” Rosa steps back to look me over. Whatever she finds prompts her to nod, smiling despite the tears. “I trust her judgment.”