Chapter 68
Zeno kisses me like I’m the air he needs to breathe.
He touches me like I’m glass that’ll shatter.
He holds me like I’m his .
But I’m not. No matter the reason I called him back, why I can’t let him go quite yet, I won’t go deeper than this—than a momentary physical connection to work my addiction of him from my veins.
I can’t put myself in such a vulnerable position…no matter how tempting it is.
After tonight, I have to avoid the reminders, which means there will be no more communication with Zeno and his organization. The thought slices me deeper than a blade being jammed into my heart, but it’ll be safer this way. When Zeno later walks away, I plan on tucking him and these past few months into the past, to a place where I’ll never dredge it up.
A place where I’ll pretend I hadn’t tossed away what could very well be my entire world out of fear.
When he pulls back, a million statements run through his intense gaze, but they all fade with his blink. He kisses down my neck again, and this time, no material interrupts his path. He nips down toward my breasts and my head falls back, granting him more space so he can take me wherever he desires to.
He follows the path toward my nipples, and just when I assume he’ll grant me what I need, what my sensitive buds strain for, he skirts by them, earning a frustrated groan from me and him to chuckle viciously against my skin.
“Patience.”
Patience is impossible to have when we have such limited time.
His hands band around my wrists again as he slides off the couch and between my legs, his mouth continuing down my stomach until the ache inside me grows impossibly tight. I’m getting the sense he enjoys my submission, especially when he gives my wrists a gentle squeeze.
I’ve never enjoyed handing myself over to others, but with Zeno, it’s different. I know he won’t tie me to the bed or pin me in any way that’ll make me uncomfortable. He makes me want to surrender control and see the kind of man Zeno becomes when in charge of another’s pleasure.
I trust him.
When he blows over my pussy, I’m about ready to demand my hands back so I can grasp his head and shove him down on me, but I remain good in my agreement to be his for tonight. He kisses across my stomach, ignoring the needy whimpers that escape between clamped lips, revealing how fucking insane I’m becoming.
Then he grants me precisely what I need and wraps his lips around one of my nipples, biting down lightly. Lightly, but the sparks that erupt inside me are everything but. He releases my wrists, but I keep them in place, letting him move me to his own desires. He cups my other breast while his hand dips between my legs and strokes through my wetness, making me jolt. His touch is featherlight, and I rock into his hand wanting more.
He switches nipples, even while continuing his strokes. His gentle caresses are opposite from his intense kisses earlier, or his needy licks when he was between my legs.
“Lie down,” he whispers into my skin and I obey instantly, a feeling foreign to me.
Once I’m stretched on the couch, Zeno climbs over me, his hand remaining between my legs as he strokes away the quell of panic that immediately hits. I haven’t shown any distress signs that I can tell, but he just knows. He kisses the skin between my breasts, sucks my nipples, and laps at my skin until my worries completely evaporate and all I can think about is him and his mouth.
“You’re here with me, Vanessa. Not there.”
Of course he read me. He’s always read me correctly.
“I know.”
“Good.” His fingers slip inside me, and the look he gives me is entirely boyish and unlike the Zeno I’ve come to know.
I lift my hips to match his thrusts, but it’s not enough. Despite the two orgasms he’s given me, I want him inside me. I open my mouth to tell him that but when Zeno pulls his fingers out, I assume I won’t have to. He rubs his fingers alongside another, and then dips them back inside me, this time with a third slowly stretching me.
My head falls back and Zeno nips the skin beneath my ear, distracting me through the stretch. The delicious burn that makes me mindless and electrocuted.
“You’re doing well, signora. You feel so fucking good. All tight and wet and… mine .”
His teeth gently sink into my neck, imprinting his possessive proclamation there. It feels so damn right that I don’t correct him. I don’t want to direct him.
Zeno lets out a small sound and mumbles into my neck. “How are you so perfect?”
Between paced breaths, I manage, “Careful with the compliments, Mancini. A girl can get used to those.”
My words crash down when I realize what I’ve said, the way he could take them.
Thankfully, Zeno’s focus seems to be entirely on my body and his fingers pick a pace that has my eyes rolling in the back of my head, so before he completely sweeps me away, I push out my only demand of the night.
“Zeno…I want you…to fuck me.”
He smiles into my skin. “And I want another orgasm from you. You’ve handed me your submission for tonight, and it’s too late to turn back.” Like a bucket of ice water dumped on him, he freezes, his eyes jerking to mine. “It’s not. Say the word if you’re uncomf?—”
I shut him up with a kiss.
His fingers continue fucking me. His tongue matches his pace.
My body climbs to the uppermost height and when I crash down, it’s with a pain I’ll never know again—longing. My sounds echo around the club, my core impossibly tight around his fingers, even as he slowly tugs them out.
Zeno leans back until he’s kneeling between my legs, his hunger apparent. Gaze mated to mine, he reaches for his belt. Just when I think I’ll finally get to see him, he suddenly releases his belt and tips his head to the side, a smirk dancing along his lips.
“I have a better idea. Get up and walk toward the balcony.”
I glance toward the glass balcony I once leaned on with Anastasia while scoping out the dance floor. It was when I first saw him, when my life changed.
Swiftly, I get to my feet but not before reaching down to unclasp my heels—the only article of clothing I’m still wearing—but his gruff command stops me. “No, leave those on.”
His demand sends a pleasurable shiver down my spine and I continue toward the balcony.
“Keep your back to me. Face down below.”
I take my time striding across the floor to the same section of the railing I last stood, propping my elbows on the railing in an eerily identical position.
The air prickles with an energy that both eases and excites me. He’s too silent and I don’t hear him undress, but suddenly, he’s right there, hands clasping my hips, his chest against my back, his thick cock deliciously hard against my ass.
He leans forward until I’m partially bent over the railing. His head dips into my neck, and he breathes deeply. “The end of our story will occur where it began. I’m fucking you against this balcony while you stare at the place we met.”
He readjusts himself, his cock sliding against my wet pussy. I stop breathing, waiting for what he’ll give me.
“Hands on the railing.”
Without a second thought, I obey him, my fingers curling tight with anticipation.
“Sei così dannatamente sexy.”
His words tattoo themselves on my skin, along with all my others. This one isn’t a symbol of being a criminal, but a sign of what Zeno is to me—what I’ll never label.
He lifts my right leg up, holding beneath my knee and spreading me wider. “Hold on tight,” is his only warning before he sinks inside me.
Given how wet I am, it’s not long before he’s fully seated inside me, and our shared moans become the club’s music. His thrust the beat. My cry the tune. His cock stretches me, fills me and he grants me mere seconds to adjust to him before setting the pace.
His hand tightens around my knee to keep me immobile and steady, while his other fists my hair and arches my head back until it touches his shoulder. He’s controlling me utterly and completely, my body contorted to stare at the strobe lights above.
“Ti odio.”
Thrust.
His fist tightens in my hair, a stinging pain radiating over my scalp.
“What?”
“Ti amo.”
Thrust .
His fingers dig into my thigh.
“Sei dentro di me.”
Thrust .
“Non voglio lasciarti andare.”
Thrust .
“Perché mi fai soffrire?”
Thrust .
Whatever he’s saying rolls over my neck and down my chest. He isn’t offering up the translations, and I’m too mindless, boneless, to ask as a delicious warmth spreads through my body. All I can do is grip the balcony as tight as possible while Zeno works me to his pleasure.
This won’t take me long, and based on his own sounds, it won’t take him long either. Then it’ll be over.
We’ll be over.
His speed increases, his thrusts quickening. The grip on my hair tightens until I’d believe he could pull strands out.
It feels like he’s punishing me in the only way he can. He’s not gentle like how he was on the couch, kissing and licking me tenderly. This isn’t a moment for flowery words or pretty sentiments, but rather possessive desires and broken vows. He’s punishing me for not chasing this, for being able to let him go.
“Zeno,” I sigh.
“Say my fucking name, Vanessa.”
His speed picks up and I lift onto my toes, trying to match his pace.
“When you come, you better fucking say my name. You better know whose cock you’re riding.” Pause. “Who you own.”
“Who you own.” There wasn’t possession in that statement. Nothing claiming that I’m his, but rather, his own submission. An offer for me to take him.
“Zeno.”
“Sì, mia regina?”
“Break me.”
His teeth graze my shoulder, threatening to bite me in a place his claim would be seen by all. “You were never a broken queen, Vanessa. It was a stupid nickname. You’re too strong to be broken by anyone.”
His cock teases just the right angle, my orgasm building until it’s all I can focus on. He could ask me for anything right now, and I’d agree, my mind no longer present. My stomach clenches, and still, I fight the sensation.
“Come, Vanessa. I feel you. You want to. You’re holding back.”
I’m holding back so this doesn’t end. But his command strikes through me, and I have no choice but to orgasm. With his hand fisted in my hair, his other one holding me immobile, I come screaming his name in the club where our lives first intersected.
Zeno drops his forehead to my shoulder as he too shudders through his own release, his warmth coating the deepest parts of me.
The orgasm ends much too soon.
We end much too soon.
With a pining sigh, Zeno gently slides from my body and turns me to face him. Without meeting my eyes, he drops a kiss onto my forehead and breathes in. For a moment, neither of us moves, but much too soon, he releases me.
As he redresses, I don’t move. Can’t watch him leave me for good. Finally is what I should think, but it’s not what comes to mind. It’s longing that drives me to step toward him as I’m moments away from losing the one person who managed to do it, who managed to break me. He claims it was a stupid nickname, but I think it was a prophecy of what was to come. Maybe I wasn’t broken then but I am now.
Stay.
My mouth doesn’t work. It’s bound by Papa, Boris, Ivan, and every other person who had any power over me. Zeno’s included in that list, even if he doesn’t know it. He’s broken me in ways no one else has.
He has the absolute ability to destroy me, which is why I have to let him go.
Once he’s dressed, he takes a final swig of the alcohol from earlier, then glances my way.
There’s so much to say. So much to bury in silence.
He shoots me a half-smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “It’s been fun, Volkov.”
My throat is dry. “For sure, Mancini.”
He walks toward the staircase. One step, two, before he looks my way. “If you ever need anything…”
“I won’t.”
He smiles and I believe it’s genuine. “I know you won’t. Never let anyone control you, Vanessa. You’re too strong to bow to another.”
And then he walks away, down the stairs, and the door opens. There’s a long pause until it shuts and I’m alone.
Mentally. Physically. Alone.
Empty.
With only unfulfilled promises, unhealthy longing, and an engagement ring left behind.