CHAPTER 10
Marcello
Relief broke across her face the second she saw me. By the time she reached me, she was running. She didn’t hesitate when she crashed into me, arms wrapping around my neck, breath pressing into my collar, as though she’d been holding herself together too tightly.
I breathed her in, her scent grounding me, cutting through the storm like warmth against cold stone—the faint sweetness that always clung to her hair easing the tightness inside my chest.
We had been apart a week. Long enough for the absence to settle under my skin. And I already knew this was temporary. Duty would pull me out of her orbit again soon enough.
“You came,” she whispered against my chest.
“I said I would.”
I kissed her forehead and held her tighter. From the corner of my eye, I saw him, still, watching.
Her.
Then he looked away.
She pulled back just enough to look at my face.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
She nodded too fast.
I saw the lie. I saw the tightness around her mouth, the way her fingers curled into my jacket. But I didn’t expose it. Not in front of him. Not while she was still holding herself together.
“You should tell him to leave,” she said, voice stern.
“Let’s talk inside.”
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and walked toward the cottage, leaving him leaning against his bike.
The house smelled like her the moment I stepped inside. Vanilla, citrus and warmth beneath it. As soon as the door clicked shut, I grabbed her and kissed her. Her shoulders finally loosened.
Roxanne was all softness where I was hard edges and control, her body fitting against mine with devastating familiarity.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, and I already missed the weight of her against my chest. The loss of contact irritated something primal in me.
I hated that she was away, even if I understood why she needed to work. I’d built space for it long before she asked.
But understanding it never made the distance easier. The distance suddenly felt far longer than it had any right to. Long enough for me to notice every room that didn’t have her in it. Long enough to reach for her in the middle of the night and find nothing but cold sheets.
The house felt wrong without her in it. I did too.
“Aren’t you going to ask him to leave?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Her jaw tightened. “It was all too simple for him last time.”
Yes. Yes, it was. And I know what it did to her.
I kissed her forehead. “He’s here for a reason.”
“Oh. So now you’re choosing him?”
“I’m choosing the option that keeps you breathing.”
I rubbed my thumb on the side of her jaw.
“Right now, that includes him.”
“How?” She frowned, angry.
Anger only made her more beautiful. Eyes dark and narrowed, lips tight, thinking three steps ahead even when furious.I’d always loved that about her. Even when I’ve wanted to ruin it with my mouth. Consume her.
Not now. Focus.
“He said someone’s been digging. About you. Personal details.”
“How do you know he’s not bullshitting?”
“Because when it comes to your safety, he doesn’t gamble. Not ever.”
“Do you think it’s because of him?”
“If it was,” I replied calmly, “he wouldn’t be standing.”
She huffed and smoothened the crease in my shirt.
“I don’t want him here.” Her voice cut sharp, brittle with anger.
“I know.”
“I mean it. Marci.”
She always used that name when she wanted to make a point, knowing very well I’d fold like goddamn paper.
“So do I.”
I brushed my knuckles on her cheek. She leaned in.
“This isn’t about comfort, mia metà,” I said. “It’s about keeping you safe.”
She hated when my voice turned into strategy instead of comfort. Hated when I stopped sounding like the man who loved her and started sounding like the man people feared and obeyed.
“You always do this,” she murmured. “You decide.”
“I don’t decide lightly.”
She was still angry. Still vibrating with it.
I leaned down and kissed her again, deeper this time, until the anger between us blurred. Her hands fisted in my shirt.Mine slid beneath her sweater like I needed proof she was still here. Still mine to hold.
A week apart had hollowed me out. Long enough for old instincts to come crawling back.
The kind that left bodies behind and silence in their place.
And now she stood in front of me, flushed with anger, eyes blazing, body tense beneath my hands. I wanted to ease the fury out of her.
Kiss it out.
Fuck it out until she stopped carrying it in her shoulders.
And if that failed, I’d deal with the man responsible for putting that look in her eyes.
I could still taste her anger between us. But anger had never stopped us from reaching for each other.
This woman was my undoing. One look from her and years of discipline started splintering beneath my skin. One touch and my entire body lit up with want sharp enough to turn violent. My cock already ached for her.
“I’ve missed you,” I said, nipping at her jaw.
A sound left her throat—low, involuntary. Her fingers dug into my shoulders like she needed something solid to hold.Clothes fell where they fell.
I lifted her without breaking contact. She wrapped around me instinctively, arms locking around my neck, legs around my waist as though her body remembered the shape of mine before either of us had a chance to think. My fingers dug into the cheeks of her ass and squeezed.
I backed her into the wall in the hallway, kissing her before another word could be said.
The knot inside my chest loosened for the first time since I’d arrived. Her hands slid into my hair, holding me there.
“I missed you too,” she whispered.
The words should have eased something. Instead they made me kiss her harder. Deeper. Like I could make up for every empty night in a single breath.
With her between the wall and me, I buried my face against her throat, breathing her in like I’d been starved of oxygen.
One of her feet found the floor, the wall taking the rest of her weight as I crowded closer. She tilted her head back, fingers tightening in my hair.
Mine.
Not because I owned her. Because she kept choosing me. Every time.
I hooked at the back of her thigh, and thrust into her hard. She gasped—low, sharp, tightening around my cock immediately. She never hesitated with me.
Her nails dragged down my shoulders. Her mouth moved along my throat. Her body arched into mine as though proximity itself settled the restless inside her.
I buried myself deeper, holding her against me as her breath caught, her body tightening around me like it remembered every inch. Like it was always meant to be there.
My home.
“Fuck Roxy,” I murmured against her mouth. “Every day without you was torture, but your body still remembers mine.”
An involuntary growl left my throat. I held her tighter, fingers digging into her thigh.
“You feel that?” Thrust. “Feel how tight you get around me when I come home to you.” Thrust.
I twisted her nipple with one hand, and she responded with a moan, biting her lip. Her nails dug deeper, her leg locking tighter, like she was just as desperate to erase the distance between us.
“Fuck… you’re squeezing me like you’ll never let me leave?” Thrust.
She met me with the same hunger and fierce kiss that she always did. The world narrowed to heat, breath, and the sound of us finding our way back to each other.
“Oh… Marci…”
“Let go, amore.”
My hand slid to her throat, anchoring her.
I tightened just enough to feel her pulse beneath my thumb.
She came with such intensity, screaming my name like I had torn open heaven and dragged her through it.
Her body locked around me, pulling me with her, and I followed hard enough to leave us both breathless.
I kept thrusting into her, forehead against hers, chasing the aftershocks, dragging us down from the high like I couldn’t let go.
Sex with her had never been indulgence. It was anchoring. Regulating. The only thing capable of stilling the storm inside.
She dragged me into the shower, steam fogging the glass, her fingers tracing the scars on my side and shoulder as if memorising them again.
She dropped to her knees and started stroking my cock. I was hard in an instant again.
“Amore—,” the words stuck in my throat as her thumb circled the slit, spreading precum across the swollen head of my cock.
I watched her lips wrap around me, her body kneeling in devotion, while I stood over her, shielding her from the spray, the water sliding down my back like a silver curtain, blurring the world until there was only her mouth, her hunger, and my surrender.
Her eyes locked on mine through the steam, lashes dripping, lips stretched around me. That look ruined me more than her mouth ever could. She licked from the base to the tip, flicking her tongue across the slit before taking me all in.
“Oh yes,” I grunted. “Just like that.”
My one hand braced the wall, and the other fisted her hair. Her nails dug into my thighs as I pushed deeper into her. Moisture gathered at the corners of her mouth, dripping down her chin in a messy mix of spit, tears and water while she took more of me.
And Christ—she looked beautiful like this. On her knees for me, eyes glassy, lashes wet, completely unguarded—devoted in a way that hit somewhere deep enough to hurt.
“Merda…” I breathed, thumb brushing beneath her eye gently, catching the wetness there before I gripped her hair tighter and pushed back into her mouth harder, losing the battle to stay controlled.
Her one hand worked at the base, twisting, driving me to the edge. And when she hollowed her cheeks, I knew I was a goner. My balls tightened and my body went rigid. She hollowed her cheeks again, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Rox… I’m coming.”
I thrust into her mouth one final time, spilling down her throat with a broken groan against the shower wall, fingers tightening helplessly in her hair while she took everything I gave her without looking away. Devotion and hunger in her eyes undid whatever restraint I had left.
Dio santo,
I loved this woman. At forty-three I should have been predictable. Measured. Slower. Untouchable by this kind of need.Instead, she made me reckless. Hungry—a man half my age with twice the need.
She met me stride for stride, fire for fire, and somehow always demanded more.
I pulled her up against me and kissed her until neither of us could breathe properly. My fingers slid between her thighs, slowly curling inside her before adding another, stretching her open while she rocked against my hand desperately.
I kept kissing her through every shiver, every fractured sound, until her body finally gave out beneath the pressure and she shattered against my fingers, trembling.
Afterwards, wrapped in each other’s arms on the bed, when her breathing evened, I brushed my thumb along her collarbone.
“Are you sleeping well?” I asked gently.
She nodded.
“Nightmares?”
She hesitated.
“I don’t remember.”
Which meant she was. I watched her face as she pretended to be calm. The way her lashes lowered. The way she turned her mouth away.
I kissed her temple and held her there a second longer than necessary.
“I’ll be back.”
I stepped outside. Santino was near his bike again, tightening something that did not need tightening. He looked up briefly at me, an unreadable flicker in his eyes gone before I could pin it down. The air between us shifted instantly. Whatever softness existed when she was present evaporated.
“You handled it. Neutralised the person.” I said. “You can step back now. I have men watching the perimeter. You stepping in was unnecessary.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Chiddi dui strunzi?” he asked.
My jaw tightened.
“I slipped past them three times since last night.”
There was a tinge of pride yet irritation in his voice.
“Once through the back treeline. Once from the ridge. Once while they were arguing about football.”
I stared at him. He held my gaze steady.
“They didn’t see me.”
“And you’re proud of that?” I asked, irritated.
“No,” he replied. “I’m concerned.”
Like two useless stronzi materialising on cue, they approached from the side of the property.
“Boss,” one of them said, slightly out of breath. “If we’d known you were coming, we would’ve met you at the airport.”
I didn’t look immediately. My eyes stayed on Santino.
“You didn’t know I was coming,” I said flatly.
“No, boss, but—”
“You’re done.”
Silence. They looked at each other and blinked. Too stunned to speak anything.
“Collect your things,” I told them without looking. “Before sunset.”
They didn’t argue. Just left. They knew they fucked up. Santino standing here was proof.
“You made your point,” I said.
He shrugged slightly. “Wasn’t trying to.”
I stepped closer. Close enough that old loyalty and old fractures stood between us like ghosts.
“You follow my rules.”
He huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.
“When have I ever?”
It was true. Santino did things his way. Not always to my liking, but he got the job done. His eyes flicked briefly toward the house.
“I operate on instinct. My way.”
His gaze came back to mine, steady, unblinking.
“And you know better than anyone, she’ll be safe.”
There was no bravado in it, no ego. Just certainty.Because men who spoke like that either died trying or succeeded.
The next day settled into a rhythm that felt almost disciplined. At dawn, we walked the perimeter, checked sight lines, and shifted cameras a few degrees. We tested blind spots from the treeline and ridge, his silence constant, his presence heavier than the wind itself.
Inside, she worked, and we pretended this was normal. He kept his distance while she held her spine straight, the air between them tight enough to hum.
I had seen her angry with him before—playful, sharp, alive. But this was different. This was restraint, unfinished. And restraint always precedes something breaking.
The weekend ended soon. Too soon to my liking.
She stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, watching me pack.
“Do you really have to go?”
“Yes,” I said.
She didn’t like that answer.
“Call me if anything feels wrong. Anything.”
Her chin lifted.
“I can handle myself.”
“I know.”
I kissed her slowly this time. Deeper. Reassuring.
Outside, Santino stood by the car, hands in his pockets.
“Keep me updated,” I said.
He nodded once in response. I held his gaze longer than necessary. Then I got in the car.
As we pulled away, I looked back once.
At her. At him.
Something had shifted between them while I wasn’t looking. The air between them felt altered somehow. Too aware. Too unfinished.
And for the first time in years, an unfamiliar unease pressed beneath my ribs. The instinctive understanding that the most dangerous things rarely force their way inside. They’re invited.
I finally allowed the thought to surface—not all threats come with weapons. Some arrive wearing loyalty long enough to be invited inside. And I had left them under the same roof.