Chapter 8 #2
I slipped one arm under her knees and the other around her back. In a single movement driven by desperation, I yanked her out of the car.
She screamed, a shrill cry of fury and terror that echoed off the concrete.
“NO! PUT ME DOWN, YOU BASTARD! PUT ME DOWN NOW!”
I didn’t put her down. I hesitated, afraid of hurting her. Be quick.
She was pounding my back with her clenched fists, her weak kicks flailing in the air.
“I HATE YOU! MARCO, I SWEAR TO GOD, I HATE YOU!”
“You can hate me all you want!” I gasped, exertion making my voice hoarse. I carried her toward the private elevator, ignoring the shocked stares of my driver and a security guard who were standing near the ramp.
I scanned my fingerprint on the panel, and the brushed-steel doors slid open.
The elevator rose with only her furious, muffled sobs and my own heavy breathing.
The ding announced our arrival, and the doors opened. The room was dark, exactly as I’d left it months ago. The lights of Milan flooded the space through the glass walls, casting silhouettes on the expensive furniture.
I carried her to the center of the room and set her down.
She didn’t land gracefully. She stumbled backward, falling sideways onto the back of the vast white leather sofa.
The same sofa…
She recognized the place. She went rigid. The rage in her eyes was momentarily replaced by a spark of memory—the memory of that first night, when it all began.
She stared at me from the sofa, her green eyes wide and her chest heaving beneath her torn blazer. Her hair was wild, loose from that stern CEO bun. She looked like a defeated queen, and I’d never found her so beautiful.
I stood in front of her, blocking the city lights. I didn’t feel victorious; I was exhausted, my scratched arm was bleeding, and I was more terrified than I’d ever been.
“You…” she began, her voice trembling with hatred. “You’re a monster! A fucking monster.”
“Yes,” I admitted, my voice hoarse. The frenzy was wearing off, leaving behind the raw pain of reality. “Maybe I am.”
I stepped closer. She cowered in the corner of the couch, pulling her legs up, her arms instinctively shielding her belly. The sight of her, protecting herself from me, nearly broke me.
I dropped to my knees in front of her. Not in supplication. I dropped so she couldn’t escape my gaze, so I’d be lower than she was.
“You’re strong and determined, Bianca. I know that.” The frenzy was gone, leaving only my desperate truth. “I know words won’t fix this. I know you’d never forgive me if I just… asked. You hate me, and you have every right to.”
She stared at me, confused, her hatred battling her panic.
“I made an unforgivable mistake,” I continued. “I ran away when I should have stayed. I abandoned you, pregnant, at the altar. I won’t abandon you while you’re pregnant again.”
“So you’re going to kidnap me?” she spat, the venom returning.
“Yes!” I shouted, pounding my fist on the leather of the sofa next to her, making her jump. “Yes, I’ll kidnap you and drag you away. I’d do anything, Bianca! I’d move heaven and earth. Because desperate measures are all I have left.”
I grabbed her hand. She tried to pull away, but I didn’t let go.
“You’re not going to run away from me again,” I whispered. “You’re not going to go through this alone.”
Chaos erupted.
“Alone?” she screamed. “I was alone, Marco! For seven months! I was the laughingstock of Milan! And now you show up, broken and pathetic, and think you can ‘fix’ this?”
She stood up from the couch, pushing me back.
Her rage returned in full force, and she was magnificent.
Her blazer was open, and the simple black dress she wore was stretched over the high, proud curve of her belly.
She wasn’t just pregnant; she was powerful.
She was even more beautiful than on our first night.
“You took away my dignity!” she hissed.
“I know!” I shouted back, jumping to my feet, terrified of her and of what I was feeling. “I know, Bianca! And I’m here to give it back to you!”
“I don’t want anything from you!”
She tried to push past me, heading toward the door. I grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back.
The contact was electric. She pressed against me, firm and warm.
“Let me go!” she struggled, but I held her tight, pinning her against the glass wall overlooking Milan.
The whole city was our witness.
“No,” I murmured in a hoarse voice, feeling the struggle feed a thirst that had never gone away. Six months of agony and repressed desire.
“I hate you,” she whispered, panting and gasping.
“I know,” I replied. “But I love you.”
I kissed her.
It wasn’t a kiss of forgiveness; it was a kiss of possession, recrimination, and pent-up desire right there, against the glass wall.
Her mouth was hard against mine, but she didn’t pull away.
I bit her lower lip—the same one I’d bitten that first night—and tasted her mixed with my own blood.
My tongue dominated hers, exploring and claiming.
I tasted her anger, her panic, and, beneath it all, the addictive flavor that had haunted my nights for six long months.
I pulled her tongue toward mine, sucking on it, trying to rip her soul out through her mouth.
She let out a moan that was half rage, half surrender.
My hands went to her blazer, yanking it off her shoulders, tossing the expensive fabric to the floor.
“No…” she protested, but her hands, instead of pushing me away, closed around me, clutching my shirt, digging her nails into my chest.
I trailed my lips down her neck, biting, sucking, feeling her frantic pulse beneath my mouth. I was desperate. The thirst I’d felt for her for months had turned into a fever.
My hand slid up her dress, finding the warm skin of her thigh. I needed her. Now!
My cock was throbbing so hard inside my pants that it felt as if it were about to burst through the fabric, making my rationality even more irrelevant.
My eager fingers moved higher, finding the damp fabric of her panties. I didn’t even need to touch her clitoris; she was already soaking wet. A moan of pure excitement escaped from the back of her throat. Bianca could deny it all she wanted, but I wasn’t the only one consumed by desire.
“Marco… the baby…” she gasped, in a last attempt at sanity and a mix of pleasure and panic.
Terror struck me. I can’t hurt him. The thought was a blade through my fever, but desire was stronger.
In one swift motion, I turned her around, pressing her back against the windowpane. The temperature shock made her gasp. My hand cupped the high, firm curve of her belly, taut beneath my touch.
A kick. A sudden movement, a vivid protest against the palm of my hand.
God…
The ferocity of my need wavered, replaced by an admiration so deep it nearly suffocated me. She was mine…
Yet this realization—the physical proof that she was mine, that he was mine—only intensified my thirst.
“I won’t hurt him,” I whispered, more to myself than to her.
My other hand went to her dress. I didn’t take it off.
I lifted it, gathering the expensive fabric at her waist. My fingers found the waistband of her silk panties.
I didn’t slide them down… I ripped them off.
The sound of the fabric tearing was sharp through the charged air, and Bianca gasped against my shoulder.
Without removing my protective hand from her stomach, I unzipped my own pants. My cock sprang out, hard and urgent, throbbing with six months of agony.
I stared at her. Her eyes were closed, tears of anger and excitement streaming down her temples.
“Look at me, Bianca,” I ordered in a hoarse voice.
She opened her eyes.
With my hand on her belly like an anchor, I entered her. The thrust was deep but controlled. Not a single stroke, but a deliberate invasion.
She screamed, a high-pitched sound of shock and pleasure that was muffled against my chest. She was so hot, so tight… It was like coming home—a home that was on fire.
“Do you hate me, Bianca?” I asked, in a growl, as I began to move.
“Yes…” she gasped, throwing her head back, her hair slapping against the glass.
“Hate me, then.”
I started moving again, fiercely and desperately. My rhythm was wild, slamming my hips against her, but my hand on her stomach was the only thing that mattered, my arm acting as a shield, absorbing the impact, protecting her from me.
I was taking her, but I was protecting him.
My free hand grabbed her hip, sinking my fingers into her soft skin, pressing her against me. I was claiming her.
“You’re mine,” I hissed, each thrust a punishment. “Mine.”
“I’m not… I hate you… Marco…” The sound of my name was a broken moan, her final surrender.
The sound of my name, torn from her, pushed me to the edge. I felt her inner muscles contract around me, squeezing me tight. The pleasure was agonizing.
She screamed, throwing her head back, convulsing in an intense orgasm.
“I hate you!” she screamed as she came.