Chapter 17 Bianca
BIANCA
HE LOVES ME.
The words make my chest tight with something I wasn’t expecting—pure relief.
I didn’t realize how desperately I needed to hear that until he said it.
After everything that’s happened, after discovering I’m capable of breaking someone apart piece by piece and enjoying it, after watching myself become something darker than I ever imagined—he still loves me.
Not despite what I am, but because of it.
The relief is so overwhelming I have to press my face against his shoulder to hide the tears that spring to my eyes.
Happy tears, grateful tears, tears of someone who thought she might be becoming unlovable and just discovered she’s wrong.
“I love you,” he confirms, his hand still moving in gentle circles on my back. “I love watching you kick ass. I love that you’re not fighting your nature anymore. And I love that you don’t need me to save you. You just need me to stand beside you while you save yourself.”
Calmness floods through me so powerfully that I have to close my eyes for a moment.
He’s not going to try to fix me.
He’s not going to play savior, attempt to soften my edges, or redirect the violence I’ve discovered I’m capable of.
Thank god.
I would have been so fucking angry if he’d tried.
“You’re not afraid of what I’m becoming,” I say, breathing him in as I stroke the hairs at the nape of his neck.
“I’m fascinated by what you’re becoming.” His thumb brushes along my spine, sending heat through me despite everything that just happened. “You are exactly who you are supposed to be, and it’s sexy as hell.”
The hunger in his voice makes my pulse quicken.
When I shift against him, I can feel he’s still hard, and my thighs clench in anticipation.
“Show me,” I whisper against his throat. “Show me how much you love what I am.”
Alessandro smiles wickedly as he leans forward to kiss me while also cupping my breast with his hand.
Before I know it, he’s ripped his mouth away from mine and I can feel his lips close around my nipple.
I cry out at the sensation, wetness pooling in between my legs as his tongue gently swirls around my hardened nipple.
He suckles hard then uses his tongue again, flickering rapidly.
“Oh god,” I moan. One hand reaches up to curl around Alessandro’s head, holding him to me as I lean back on the other hand, arching upward to give him better access.
The bastard takes his time, switching between both breasts and bringing me to such a fever pitch that I think I surely can’t bear another moment.
Suddenly, he stops and pulls away. My eyes pop open at the cool air hitting my nipples.
“What the hell?” I demand, pressing my hips into the ground. I’m so fucking desperate for any friction right now.
“Lie back,” he orders as he unbuttons his shirt and tosses it to the side, exposing his sculpted body. I push myself up to my forearms and admire him.
Alessandro is all muscle—lean and toned with a well-defined chest.
A light sprinkling of hair forms a dark patch in the center of his chest and a dark line trails down into the waistband of his pants.
Alessandro quirks a dark brow at me. “Do you see something interesting?” he drawls.
Smirking, I get up onto my knees and look up at him, sliding my hands along his inner thighs. “Yeah, you.”
He fumbles with his belt and pants and they slap against the ground, his belt buckle pinging as it hits the hardwood floor.
But I pay it little attention as I slide my hands up to grasp his ass. God, what a work of art.
“Bianca,” Alessandro rumbles warningly.
I hush him as I massage the muscles of his ass and thighs. “You got to tease me earlier. It’s my turn.” I pull my hands out and slide them over the material of his boxers instead before pressing a kiss just below his navel, letting my tongue flicker over the downy line of hair.
He groans, sliding a hand over my hair.
With one swift motion, I yank his boxers down and help him step out of them, tossing them aside with the rest of our clothes.
Alessandro’s cock is before me now, erect and beautiful. Mouth drying, I wrap my hand around him and stroke gently.
Alessandro leans his head back, breath hissing in through his teeth. “I—oh fuck,” he manages to get out.
God, I love it when he can’t form coherent sentences.
It’s so nice to see other than the calm, collected Alessandro.
I bend forward and swirl my tongue around the head of his cock.
“Fuck!” he moans as his hands move to thread through my hair, guiding my head up and down his length.
I slide my mouth up and down his cock, enjoying the feeling of his hands curling around my head.
The sounds he is making causes my blood to boil as well as making me completely soaking wet.
I lose myself in what I’m doing: in the velvety texture of his cock, the spicy scent of his skin, the salty, musky flavor in my mouth, the rock-hard muscles of his body where my free hand caresses in small circles—and always the sounds: throaty, masculine, needy.
And all for me.
Alessandro yanks my head back so hard that I’m pulled away from his cock. “I can’t take it any longer,” he rasps. “I’m going to fuck you.’
About fucking time.
I was going mad earlier when he had me pinned against the door and was eating me out. “Then get on with it,” I counter, tossing my head with a smirk, my lips swollen and tingling.
He pounces on me and rolls so I’m on top of him.
Well, this is surprising. I would have thought he’d want to be on top.
Kneeling astride his hips, I reach down to take his cock in my hand again.
He moans as I position it at my entrance, then he groans again, louder, as I sink down onto him, taking every last thick inch of him fully into my warmth.
I throw my head back, reveling in the feel of him within me, of being filled and stretched and joined with him.
Then I look down at him and meet his gaze as I begin to move.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes against my ear as I arch above him, his hands resting on my hips. “Dangerous and perfect and absolutely fucking mine.”
I set a slow pace at first, slow and languorous and smooth; but as we fall deeper into each others’ eyes, the pace quickens, until I’m leaning forward, my hands bracing on either side of his head as I rock back to meet him.
He pulls his knees up and thrusts upward into me.
Our faces are only inches apart, our breaths ragged and our skin gleaming with a fine sheen of sweat.
Something uncurls in my belly, a tingling sensation that starts off small but slowly grows—like a fire beginning to spread in a forest.
“Mine,” I whisper to him, my hips meeting his.
“Yours,” he agrees, his voice tight with need. “Yours. Forever.”
Those words push me over the edge and Alessandro falls with me, shuddering our releases together as I collapse onto his chest.
We lie tangled together on his office floor, both of us breathing hard and sticky with sweat.
The late afternoon sun streams through his windows, casting long shadows across our naked bodies.
“This is what it feels like,” I murmur, tracing patterns on his chest.
“What?” His voice is low and husky as he drags a hand through my hair.
“Authentic connection. Being wanted not despite my darkness but because of my complete self.” I look up at him, studying his face in the golden light. “Including the parts that other people fear or try to change.”
Alessandro frowns. “Matteo never tried to change you.”
The mention of Matteo makes my chest tighten with complicated emotions—anger, hurt, loss, and something that might be guilt about how I treated him and his—mine, I don’t know—family.
“Matteo tried to protect me from what I am. You’re helping me become it.” I press a kiss to his collarbone. “There’s a difference.”
He pulls me up so I can stare into his eyes. “And what are you becoming?” His gaze is piercing.
I consider the question seriously. “Something dangerous. Something that takes the best parts of all of them and makes it mine. I don’t have to be just like Giuseppe or just like Sophia anymore—I can be all of it.”
He hums. “That’s a dangerous combination.”
“The most dangerous.” I smile against his skin. “But also the most effective.”
Alessandro’s arms tighten around me. “Are you ready for what that means? For how people will see you once they understand what you’re capable of?”
I shrug. “I stopped caring what people think when I realized I could make them scared of me instead. Being feared is way more useful than being liked.”
“And us? What are we now?”
I look up at him. “We’re…I don’t know. We’re fucked up, probably. But we work together. We both like the dangerous stuff, and we don’t try to change each other.”
Alessandro’s chuckle is throaty and low. “Even knowing it might mess you up?”
The question makes me think.
Because yeah, there’s definitely a cost to this.
Every time I enjoy hurting someone, every time I choose to be violent instead of nice—it’s changing me.
“I liked it too much today,” I admit, fingers trailing over his chest as I gather my thoughts. “Hurting Torres. Not just because I had to, but because it felt good to have that kind of control over someone.”
Alessandro keeps running his hand through my hair, waiting.
“I should probably be more freaked out about that, right? Normal people would be.” I pause. “But I’m not. I don’t regret it at all. Is that bad?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says simply.
That’s what I needed to hear.
Not some big philosophical speech about the nature of love and violence, just the promise that I won’t have to navigate this alone.
“I want this,” I tell him. “Whatever I’m becoming, whatever we are—I want it. Even if it’s dangerous.”
Alessandro pulls me closer, and I settle against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow back to normal.
The office grows quiet except for the distant sounds of the city below.
But as I lie there in the growing darkness, a thought creeps in that I can’t shake.
Loving Alessandro and having him love me back exactly as I am—it’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt.
It makes me invincible, fearless, like I can become anything and still have someone who sees me as worth everything.
But that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?
Because when someone loves you unconditionally, when they find your worst impulses beautiful instead of terrifying, when they encourage you to embrace the darkness instead of fighting it—that’s when you stop questioning yourself.
That’s when you stop pulling back from the edge because there’s no reason to anymore.
Alessandro loves me for me, even if that means I’m Giuseppe’s daughter.
But what happens when I become so much like Giuseppe that there’s nothing left of who I used to be?