Chapter 35
I only lasted three hours.
Three hours of staring at the walls and wanting to rip my own throat out. I told myself I was done. I told her she was nothing special, a body, a biological release. I said it to push her back into the light where she belongs.
I was wrong.
Every word I spat at her felt like I was swallowing glass. I wanted to burn my own tongue off. I’ve killed forty men in a single night and felt nothing. I said five sentences to Charlotte, and I’m bleeding out from the inside.
I tracked her like a dog. I sat outside her apartment, then followed her to that diner, watching through the glass while that pathetic, soft-faced prick put his hands on her.
My hands—the ones that touched her skin yesterday—were shaking harder than they ever had.
I wanted to kill him. To kill any man who had the privilege of touching her.
Now, she’s in my car. I pull into a dark side street and kill the engine. I can’t do it anymore. The distance is a physical agony.
I peel the gloves off and drop them on the floorboards. I reach across the console and haul her over the center, pinning her into my lap. She’s stiff. Tense. A wall of ice between us that I built with my own hands.
“Don't,” she whispers.
I slide my bare hands under her shirt, my palms hitting her waist. Skin to skin. I touch her everywhere.
“I didn’t mean it,” I rasp. “You know that, right?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes are wet. “No. I’m not sure of anything with you, Valerio.”
The apology feels like dirt on my tongue. I don’t do this. Morellis don’t beg. But I’m not a Morelli right now; I’m just a starving man.
“I’m sorry. The thought of anyone touching me—anyone other than you—it disgusts me. I was lying. To you.” I lean in, my forehead resting against hers. “You were right. We did make love. We went on a date. I just… I didn’t know how to keep it.”
I take her hands, kissing the knuckles, the palms, the wrists. A single tear slips free and tracks down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb, the salt stinging a cut on my hand.
“Did you really mean it?” I ask. “Was I underwhelming?”
“I didn’t. I loved it. I just wanted to hurt you like you hurt me.”
“Are you still hurt?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
I lift her back into the passenger seat. I lean over her, pulling the seatbelt across her chest and clicking it into place. My nose brushes against the soft skin behind her ear. “Mine,” I mutter.
I put the car in gear and drive toward the penthouse. The penthouse door clicks shut behind us, and I set Charlotte down on her feet. Her body is rigid against mine.
“Are you still mad at me?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Good,” I smile, though there’s no humor in it. “I’m still mad at you too.”
I pull away, tearing my shirt over my head. “Do you still believe I’m going to touch any other woman but you?”
“I don’t know, Valerio.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the small razor I’ve been carrying all day. I’ve been thinking about doing this since the second I told her I’d find other fun. Charlotte’s eyes widen as she watches me.
“What are you doing? Stop it!”
I press the cold steel to my lower stomach, just above my cock. I carve her name into my skin. C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E. Small beads of blood well up along the letters. It hurts, but the pleasure I’m getting from marking myself as hers overpowers the pain. I toss the razor aside when I’m done.
“This enough proof for you?” I ask.
Her eyes are locked on the bleeding letters on my skin. “Valerio…” she whispers, reaching out to touch them but stopping just short. “You’re insane.”
“I am,” I growl. “I got my punishment. Now it’s time for yours. You want other men to satisfy you?”
I lead her to the bedroom. She doesn’t resist me in the slightest. The silk ties are on the bedside table, exactly where I put them for her punishment before I left to stalk her.
She said that I didn’t satisfy her. That she will go on a fuck vacation and fuck all men in sight. Just the reminder makes me want to commit arson. No one can touch her but me. No fucking one.
“Do you consent?” I force myself to ask, even as every fiber of my being screams at me to just take what I want. To be like him.
She nods, and I secure her wrists to the headboard. Inside, I’m disgusted with myself. I don’t want to ask for her consent. I want to own her in every way a person can own another. I push down the panic that rises in my throat—the fear that I’m becoming just like my father.
My mouth claims hers, demanding and punishing. My hands roam her body, pinching and teasing her nipples until they’re hard peaks. She arches against me.
I move down her body, my tongue tracing patterns on her skin. When I reach between her legs, I don’t tease. I devour her, licking and sucking until she’s writhing beneath me, until she’s begging for release.
“Valerio, please,” she cries out.
I give her what she wants, flicking my tongue against her clit until she shatters, her body convulsing with pleasure. But I don’t stop. Why? Because she fucking said she wanted to go to other men to satisfy her. I keep going, pushing her past the point of pleasure into overstimulation.
“Stop,” she whispers.
Every muscle in my body tenses. I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going until she forgets every other man who ever touched her. Until she only knows me. But I force myself to pull back, my blood boiling beneath my skin.
I’m not him. I’m not him. I repeat it like a mantra, but the rage doesn’t subside.
I look down at her, her chest heaving, her skin flushed. The possessiveness is overwhelming, a hunger that can never be satisfied. I know she feels it too—the same primal need to own and be owned. We’re two sides of the same twisted coin, perfect in our shared madness.
I hover over her, my cock resting against her slick entrance.
“You want it?” I hiss.
“Yes,” she whispers.
That’s all the permission I need. I drive into her in one brutal thrust, burying myself to the hilt. I don’t give her time to adjust. I pull back and slam into her again, setting a punishing rhythm that’s all about reclaiming what’s mine.
Every thrust is a question, a demand. You still think about them? The others? My hips snap against hers, the sound of flesh meeting flesh filling the room. You still wonder what it would be like with someone else?
I look down between us, at the freshly carved letters on my lower stomach. The blood has smeared, a wet stain against my skin. With each thrust, the blood transfers to her pale stomach.
I press my hand against her stomach, smearing the blood further, mingling it with her sweat. “That’s you. That’s me. There’s no fucking separating us.”
Mine. Mine. Mine. The image of another man touching her, of her looking at someone the way she’s looking at me right now, sends a white-hot flash of possessive fury through me. I want to ruin her for anyone else. I want to fuck her so hard she forgets her own name, only remembers mine.
I shift my angle, hitting that spot inside her that makes her cry out. Her back arches off the bed, her wrists pulling against the silk ties. Her moans are music to my ears.
“Tell me,” I snarl. “Tell me who you belong to.”
“You,” she gasps. “Valerio, I belong to you.”
The words are like gasoline on a fire. I fuck her harder, deeper. I’m unhinged, completely lost in the primal need to own every inch of her, to erase every memory that isn’t of me.
A part of me is disgusted by this raw, animalistic need to possess her. But a larger, darker part revels in it. This is who I am. This is what she does to me. She brings out the monster, and instead of running, she meets it with her own.
I feel her start to tighten around me, her body tensing as her orgasm builds. I reach down, my thumb finding her clit.
“Come for me,” I command.
And she does. The sight of her, lost in ecstasy, triggers me to follow her over the edge with a roar. There’s nothing but the sound of our ragged breathing, the scent of sex and blood filling the air.
And in that silence all I can think: Mine. Mine. Motherfucking mine.