CHAPTER 22 #2
He’s the great, unkillable Angelo Ferraro, and he is literally shaking because he’s terrified I’m lying to him.
I reach up, grabbing the lapels of his ruined coat, and pull his head down.
My lips brush against his, rough and deliberate.
"I am yours. Only yours." I open my mouth and bite down hard on his lower lip.
He flinches as the skin breaks, the hot metallic taste of his blood flooding my tongue.
"Finish what you started in the ball, Angelo. Erase me."
A deep, animalistic groan rips out of his chest. He lunges.
His mouth crashes against mine with a violent, starving desperation.
This isn't the bruising, punishing kiss he gave me in the bunker.
This is absolute reclamation. He hauls me up by my thighs, pulling me directly onto his lap.
My legs instantly wrap around his waist, locking him to me as he devours my mouth.
His tongue pushes past my lips, tasting his own blood, hot and slick, consuming every breath I try to take.
"Finally," he gasps against my mouth, his hands moving frantically over my body. "Fuck."
"Don't stop. Don't ever stop," I beg, my fingers tearing at his coat.
He grips the thin, ruined straps of my silk slip.
With one violent yank, he snaps the fabric, ripping the garment completely down the middle.
He strips the ruined silk from my body and tosses it into the dirt, leaving me completely naked and shivering violently in the freezing mountain air.
But before the cold can even settle into my bones, he crushes me against his burning chest, his heat branding my bare breasts.
He grabs both of my wrists in one massive hand and pins them against the freezing stone wall above my head.
He pulls back just a fraction to look at me in the weak moonlight.
"Beautiful ruin," he breathes, his chest heaving. His dark, obsessive eyes drag down the line of my throat, over my breasts, down to my stomach. "You look like a goddess in this light. A vengeful one."
The contrast is driving me insane—the icy stone biting into my spine and the absolute furnace of his body pressing into my front.
I wrench my hands free from his grip and go straight for his belt.
My fingers are clumsy, frantic with desperation.
I need these fucking tactical pants off him.
I brush my knuckles against his wounded shoulder by accident, and he lets out a sharp grunt of pain, but instead of pulling away, he pushes his hard hips flush against mine, the thick ridge of his erection pressing heavily against my bare core through his denim.
"Help me," I demand, struggling with the heavy metal buckle.
"I’ve wanted this since the moment I saw you in that mask," he growls, his large hands dropping to help me tear his belt open and shove his pants down.
He stands up just enough to kick his boots and pants away, grabbing a thick, scratchy wool shepherd's blanket from a crate.
He spreads it over the dirt floor with a violent snap of the fabric.
Then he grabs my waist and lays me down on it with a reverence that actually terrifies me.
He follows me down, kneeling between my legs.
His hands trace the line of my throat, smoothing down over my ribs, his calloused thumbs brushing over the dark bruises on my hip bones.
He leans down and presses his open mouth against the scars on my foot, his tongue tracing the very edge of the makeshift bandage he just tied.
"Every inch of you," he murmurs against my skin, his breath hot. "I’m going to make you forget you ever had another name."
His mouth begins to move up my body with agonizing, deliberate slowness.
He is exploring me like he’s memorizing a map, his tongue and teeth leaving a literal trail of fire up my calf, across the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, and over my lower stomach.
I arch my back violently off the floor, my fingers digging into the wool blanket, ripping up coarse tufts of fiber in my fists.
"Angelo, please..." I gasp, my head thrashing side to side.
"Not yet. I want to feel you break first," he says, his voice a low, primal vibration right between my thighs.
He settles his mouth over my center. The slick, scalding heat of his tongue against my freezing, oversensitive flesh makes me scream.
He engages in this slow, torturous worship, lapping at me with relentless precision.
My breath starts coming in short, jagged hitches.
My brain is completely short-circuiting.
I tangle both my hands into his thick, dark hair, alternatively trying to drag him closer and push him away because the overstimulation is pushing me right over a cliff.
"I can't... I can't breathe," I sob out, my hips bucking wildly against his mouth.
"Then don't breathe," he growls against my wet skin. "Just feel me."
He doesn't stop until my vision literally starts to blur at the edges, my body trembling on the absolute brink of a terrifying climax. I pull up hard on his hair, dragging his face away. I need the crushing weight of him. I need the fullness to ground me before I float away completely.
"Now. Do it now," I command, my voice unrecognizable.
He moves up, positioning himself right at my entrance. He is slick with sweat, his corded muscles straining in the silver light as he holds himself back for one agonizing second. His black eyes lock onto mine, making absolutely sure I know exactly who is taking me.
"Look at me, Fiorella. Tell me who I am," he demands, the head of his cock pressing right against my swollen opening.
I wrap my legs tightly around his waist, locking my ankles over his lower back, and dig my heels in to pull him forward. "Angelo."
He drives into me with one single, slow, incredibly deep thrust. The sheer size of him stretches me open, filling me completely.
It leaves us both totally breathless. The friction is electric, a violent collision of the freezing mountain air and the boiling heat inside my body.
He buries himself to the hilt, groaning as my internal muscles clench tightly around him.
"My name. Say it again," he grinds out, pulling back almost completely before slamming deep inside me again. The old floorboards beneath the dirt floor give a rhythmic creak under the wool blanket.
"Angelo," I gasp out, my nails biting into his shoulders.
He sets a slow, consuming, brutal pace. This isn't the frantic, panicked sex we had in the bunker. This is a ritual. It’s him staking absolute ownership.
Every single deep, rolling thrust is a physical hammer driving my confession home.
He grabs my right hand, interlacing his thick fingers with mine, and pins my arm to the blanket above my head.
"You're mine. In this world and the next," he spits out between heavy thrusts, his hips snapping forward with devastating force.
"Always. Fuck, yes, always," I cry out, my body bowing upward to meet his relentless drive.
The intensity builds until it is a literal physical pain.
I rip my left hand down his scarred back, dragging my nails deep enough to leave bloody crescent moons in his skin.
He bites down hard on my bare shoulder to stifle his own roar of pleasure, his teeth leaving a bruising mark right over my collarbone.
"Don't let go," I scream, the blinding, white-hot pressure centering perfectly in my core.
"I've got you," he snarls against my neck, his thrusts turning rapid and completely uncontrolled. "I've always had you."
We shatter at the exact same second. My climax rolls over me in a violent, paralyzing wave, ripping a loud, broken scream from my throat that echoes off the stone walls.
Angelo buries his face deep into the crook of my neck, his massive body locking up and convulsing violently as he unloads weeks of rage, starvation, and obsession deep inside of me.
"Cazzo... Fiorella..." he groans, his voice completely wrecked. He collapses entirely, his dead weight crushing me into the floorboards.
"Stay. Don't move," I whisper, wrapping my arms tightly around his sweat-slicked back.
We lie there in the ringing aftermath, our bodies still firmly joined together.
The sweat begins to cool instantly, raising goosebumps over every inch of my exposed skin.
Angelo shifts his weight just enough to allow me to breathe, reaching out to drag the heavy, scratchy edges of the wool blanket tightly around us.
He cocoons us together in the dark, tangling our limbs until it is absolutely impossible to tell where my body ends and his begins.
He presses a slow, exhausted kiss to my temple. His heavy hand slides up my chest, resting fully over my heart to feel the frantic, hammering rhythm finally starting to slow down.
"Sleep now," he mutters against my hair. "I’m not going anywhere."
The storm outside is still completely unhinged, rattling the loose stones of the roof and howling through the cracks in the wood. Whatever. I pull the wool tighter over my bare shoulder, burying my face into his scarred chest, and close my eyes.