Chapter 19 #4
I bucked beneath him, but I couldn’t get away—not from his grip, not from the inevitability. “Rafael—” My voice cracked, breathless.
He didn’t let up. He never did.
“You’re going to come for me,” he said against my ear, words rough and raw and absolute. “Right here. Right now. While the whole fucking church listens.”
I shattered.
My orgasm tore through me like a flood. No warning. No grace. Just a wave of pure, white-hot sensation that left me sobbing against the wall. My knees gave out, but he held me up—thrusting through my release like he owned it, like it was another part of me he’d conquered.
My cry was swallowed by the ringing bells and the hollow hush of the saints.
I wasn’t just undone. I was his . Completely. Utterly. Unapologetically.
I was still shaking when he pulled me upright.
One brutal tug on the sash bound around my wrists, and I was wrenched back into him—my spine pressed to the hard heat of his chest, the tremors of my orgasm still echoing through me like aftershocks.
My legs barely held me. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
But Rafael didn’t care. His hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head back until my neck arched, exposing my throat to the cool air and his hot breath.
“Look at you,” he rasped against my ear, voice rough with hunger and something darker. “Still trembling… still wet.”
I whimpered, caught between overstimulation and craving. I was already spent, and still I wanted more. Still I needed it.
“You think I’m done with you?” His grip tightened, his hips snapping forward, thrusting back into me so deep I gasped.
“Rafael—” It was a whisper. A plea. A prayer he never taught me how to say.
“You belong to me,” he growled. “Every fucking part of you.”
Each word landed with the force of his body, sharp and possessive. He was using my tied wrists and my hair as leverage now, pulling me down onto him with every punishing thrust, his rhythm brutal and unforgiving.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t escape. But I didn’t want to. He was unraveling me again—mercilessly, masterfully. And I was letting him.
The church bells were still ringing. Fainter now. Slower. Like even heaven had grown tired of trying to drown us out.
“You feel that?” he hissed against my neck. “The way you’re squeezing me? You were made for this. Made for me.”
I moaned, my body helpless in his grip, head swimming, every nerve raw and exposed.
“I’m going to come inside you,” he said, voice low and shaking with restraint. “I’m going to fill you so deep you’ll still feel me tomorrow.”
My breath caught.
And then— He slammed into me one final time, rough and deep, and froze.
A guttural sound tore from his throat—half snarl, half vow—and I felt him spill into me, hot and possessive, as if marking me from the inside out. His grip on my hair and wrists tightened as he emptied himself, every pulse claiming me again and again.
He held me there, flush against him, still trembling from the force of it. My skin was slick with sweat, my lungs dragging in breath that felt borrowed.
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just pressed his mouth to the side of my throat, lips parted, breath ragged.
And then, in the quiet between echoes, he whispered— “I warned you, dolcezza . I don’t take what isn’t mine…
And now?” A pause. A kiss, right below my ear. “You’ll never be anything else again.”
My knees hit the stone floor hard enough to echo. But I didn’t flinch. The cold seeped into my skin, sharp and grounding. My breath was ragged, chest rising and falling like I’d been pulled from the bottom of the sea.
The silence after was deafening. No more bells. No more whispers. Just the fading ghost of his voice in my ear.
“You’ll never be anything else again.”
I didn’t feel owned. I felt claimed. Like territory marked. Like a secret no one else would ever know how to read.
My arms were still tied behind me, wrists sore from pressure, muscles trembling from release and restraint. But I didn’t ask him to undo it. I didn’t ask for anything. I’d given what I wanted to give. Taken what I wanted to take. That was the difference.
Behind me, I heard the soft scrape of his belt being threaded back through the loops, the faint shift of fabric as he adjusted himself. There was no shame in it. No flinching or fumbled movement. Just precision. Control, sliding back into place.
Like nothing had changed. Except everything had.
He stepped around me, his shadow brushing over mine. Then—he knelt beside me. His hands reached behind me without a word, loosening the knot. The silk slipped from my wrists slowly, cool and damp now with sweat, and I let my arms fall forward. They tingled, blood rushing back in waves.
I didn’t look at him. Not right away. But I felt his eyes on me.
“You’ll bruise,” he said, like he was stating the weather.
I flexed my fingers, then looked up at him, breathing through the lingering ache in my muscles. “Good,” I said. “Let it remind me.”
A flicker of something—approval, amusement—passed behind his eyes. But he didn’t speak. He stood, and I followed the movement with my gaze.
Then, without ceremony, he shrugged off his jacket and dropped it around my shoulders. It smelled like him—clean, expensive, and dark. Not cologne. Just him.
I didn’t thank him. He didn’t expect me to. The edges of the ruined shirt still hung from my arms, sliced down the middle, useless. But the jacket was heavy and warm. It swallowed me.
I slid my arms into it and stood slowly, the leather creaking as I zipped it closed, the lining brushing over bare skin and lace.
It wasn’t comfort. It was cover. Protection that came with a price.
I felt his eyes track every movement, the subtle shift of muscle beneath skin. Not possessive now. Just watchful.
I straightened, brushed a hand through my hair, and met his gaze head-on. “So,” I said, voice calm, level. “Do we pretend this didn’t happen again?”
He didn’t smile. “No one would believe it if we tried.”
I stepped past him, boots silent on the cathedral floor, the weight of everything lingering behind me like smoke.
He followed. Of course he did.
The light near the altar had dimmed now, candles burning low. The silence stretched between us like velvet pulled too tight.
“You knew I’d come here tonight,” I said, not looking at him.
“I always know where you’ll go,” he answered. “The question is whether I’ll let you leave.”
I snorted softly. “You think you could stop me?”
“No,” he said simply. “But I think you’d let me.”
That settled between us heavier than any silence.
We passed the pews without speaking, the echo of our footsteps chasing us up the aisle. The stained glass no longer threw color across the floor—just faint shadows.
My hands still tingled. My skin still buzzed. But my head was clear. There was no shame in what happened. There was power in it. In the way he touched me like I was his and I let him. In the way I wanted it.
The massive wooden doors stood ahead, heavy and ancient, the chill of the outside night bleeding through the cracks.
“This isn’t over,” I said, just before we reached them.
He reached for the door beside me, pulling it open with one hand.
“No,” he said. “It’s just beginning.”
And we stepped out of the cathedral. Together.
The night air hit my skin like a blade as we stepped out of the cathedral. Cool. Still. Sharper than before.
I didn’t say anything at first. Just adjusted the weight of his jacket over my shoulders and kept walking, boots striking stone in steady rhythm beside his.
My body ached—not painfully. Not in a way I’d complain about. But in a way that reminded me . Of what we’d just done. Of who I’d just let inside me. Twice.
We walked in silence for a while. The city around us was asleep, save for the occasional flicker of headlights in the distance or the low hum of a moped somewhere blocks away.
The streets narrowed the closer we got to the hotel, old stone buildings casting long shadows, shutters closed tight like the city itself was holding its breath.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Calm. Composed. Like he hadn’t just tied my hands behind my back and ruined me in a cathedral.
Of course he looked like that. He always did.
“You know,” I said finally, voice casual, “for someone so obsessed with control, you’re rather reckless.”
He looked over at me, one brow raised.
“Reckless?”
“Mm,” I hummed, biting back a smile. “You keep forgetting one little thing.”
“Do I?”
I glanced away, fingers trailing along the edge of his jacket zipper. “You never use protection.”
The words dropped like smoke between us—light, but meant to sting. To cut. His jaw ticked—barely—but I caught it. And then, slowly, he smiled. Not soft. Predatory.
“I don’t forget.”
“Then what is it?” I asked. “Some god complex? You want to brand me from the inside out?”
He didn’t flinch. “No. That would imply I want to share.”
My steps faltered for half a second. Just enough to feel the weight of that answer. He kept walking. And I followed, heart thudding harder now, the implications slithering into the space behind my ribs.
“You realize that’s not how any of this works,” I said flatly.
“Isn’t it?” he said.
“It’s not a tattoo, Rafael.”
“No. But it’s better.”
I scoffed under my breath, trying not to let the unease rise. Because for all my confidence, for all my fire—I wasn’t stupid. I knew what could happen. I could feel it sitting at the edge of my thoughts, waiting
for me to look it in the eye. But I didn’t. Because that would make it real. And Rafael Romanov already owned too many pieces of me.
Still—I couldn’t help it. “You don’t care at all, do you?” I asked. “About the consequences.”
He didn’t answer right away. We turned down another quiet street, the hotel rising in the distance, just visible beyond the old iron lamp posts and trailing ivy.
Then— “I care about exactly one thing,” he said. “And I already have it.”