Chapter 17
BEA
The first thing that hits me is the heat.
Steam drags itself up the tile around us until the corner of the bathroom where the body is becomes blurred and far away. I let it drift into the back of my mind. Because what else am I supposed to do?
Raffaele’s hand rests on the small of my back, holding me in place.
The pink runs off him fast. Off his collarbone.
Down the inked plane of his chest. Out of his hair when he tips his head back briefly to push it out of his face.
The water carries it pink, then paler, then almost clear, swirling into a clean spiral at the drain at our feet.
I watch it go because I can’t look up at him yet.
“Bea.”
I force my gaze to meet his.
God, he’s fucking gorgeous.
His hand on my back tightens, fingers spreading wide across my spine, and he pulls me into him. My breasts press against his chest. The slick of him, the warmth, the sheer, planted size under the water—my body responds to all of it before my brain has registered it.
Then, he kisses me.
His hand slides up my spine. Tangles in my wet hair. Forms a fist.
He pulls.
My head goes back. My throat opens to him under the water, and his mouth follows it down—jaw, collarbone, throat. He bites there. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough that I understand the message: you belong to me.
His other hand is moving. Down my side, over my hip, around to grip the back of my thigh and lift it. I cling to his shoulders for balance, and he hooks me up against him until my leg is locked around his waist.
The tile is cold on my back when he turns me into it.
He pins me there with the weight of his chest. One forearm braced flat against the wall above my head.
The other hand still holding my thigh against his hip.
Water sheets down between us, hammering my collarbone.
I’m breathing in steam and the smell of him and the iron still ghosting off the tile, and I can’t tell anymore which part of any of this I’m supposed to be afraid of.
The hand on my thigh slides up and inward until he finds how wet I am for him.
“You’re going to remember tonight.”
“I—”
“No. Listen.”
His thumb starts to circle. A gasp rips from my lungs.
“Every time someone tries to put a hand on you,” he growls, “this is what comes back. Not him. Not what he tried. Me. This. The way I take care of it.”
“Raffaele—”
“Say it back.”
“What?”
“Say what comes back.”
“You. You.”
“Good girl.”
He pushes inside me.
“Mine,” he says, against my mouth.
“Yours.”
It’s out before I can decide whether I really mean it.
His grip on my thigh tightens until I feel each of his fingers individually. His rhythm changes. Even harder. He doesn’t stop. He fucks me until I’m clawing at his back, begging for more.
I come on him with my forehead pressed to the wet column of his throat. He follows two thrusts later, his teeth in the meat of my shoulder, his hand fisted in my hair so hard my scalp burns.
The water is still running. My leg is still around his hip. His weight is still pinning me to the tile.
He doesn’t pull out. He doesn’t pull back.
I let my eyes close.