Chapter 23
I woke up to the weight of an arm around my waist and the morning sun streaming through the linen curtains of our home in Brera.
The panic, which had been my constant companion for months, didn’t come. In its place, there was a deep stillness.
I was in his bed. No, in our bed.
The previous night came back to me in soft, warm flashes. The conversation, the tears, the salty kiss, and the wordless adoration with which he touched my scarred body. There had been no penetration—just an intimacy so deep it felt as though it had sewn my soul back together.
I turned slowly in his arms.
Marco was awake.
His green eyes were clear, free of the fog of guilt or fear that had haunted them for weeks. He was just… looking at me. As if I were the only thing in the world worth seeing.
“Good morning,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with sleep.
“Good morning.”
He brought his hand to my face, tracing the line of my jaw with his thumb.
“Did you sleep?”
“For the first time in months.”
He smiled—slowly and lazily—and it made my stomach churn. He leaned in and kissed me, a gentle touch of lips that promised everything.
“Leo’s awake,” he murmured against my mouth. “I heard him grumbling five minutes ago.”
“And you didn’t go check on him?”
“I was busy looking at his mom.”
I laughed, a soft sound that surprised me. I hadn’t laughed in so long.
***
The following weeks were a process of rebuilding. Slow, brick by brick.
Leo was growing. He was no longer the fragile baby in the ICU; he had become a chubby, smiling little tyrant. The house in Brera, which had started out as a neutral refuge, had become a home. There were toys in the living room and photos of us on the mantelpiece.
Marco kept his promise. He didn’t run away. He was there through every colic, every fever, every laugh, and learned to give baths with surgical precision. He learned to sing off-key lullabies that made Leo (and me) laugh.
And we… were learning to be a couple. There was no rush, but stolen touches in the kitchen, long kisses on the couch after Leo fell asleep… Whispered conversations in the dark about the future, about Ferraro Uomo, about the Valentis…
Yet there was a growing tension, an electricity buzzing beneath the surface of our domesticity.
My scar had healed. My strength had returned, and the way Marco looked at me had changed. It was no longer just adoration and care… it was hunger.
One night, three months later, we returned from dinner at Villa Ferraro. My parents had finally accepted Marco enough to sit through a civilized meal, during which he and my father discussed Asian mergers over brandy.
We put Leo in his crib. He fell asleep instantly, exhausted from being doted on by his aunt and uncle.
I went to our bedroom. Marco was taking off his tie, his movements slow and deliberate. He saw me in the mirror and his eyes darkened.
“Bianca…”
I didn’t say anything. I stepped closer to him and placed my hands on his chest, feeling the warmth through his white shirt, and began to unbutton it.
“The doctor cleared me,” I whispered, without looking at him, my fingers still struggling with the third button of his shirt.
His hand flew to mine, stopping me with a firm, warm, protective grip.
“Are you sure?” His voice echoed in a low growl, vibrating against my chest. “Bianca, it’s been three months. The surgery… We don’t need to rush…”
I looked up. I saw the conflict on his face: desire darkening his pupils, battling the sheer terror of hurting me.
“I’m not rushing this,” I said, holding his gaze with the same firmness I used in the boardroom. “I’m dying to be with you, Marco…”
His restraint evaporated.
Marco kissed me. This time, it wasn’t the gentle touch of lips we’d exchanged over the past few months. It was hungry—a kiss from the man who had waited, who had restrained himself, who had adored me from a distance, and who was dying of thirst.
His tongue invaded my mouth, claiming, taking, reminding me of the taste of whiskey and danger I’d become so addicted to.
He lifted me off the floor effortlessly, and my legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, seeking friction. Marco pressed me against the hallway wall, and the impact took my breath away in a delicious way.
“Dio, Bianca…” he moaned against my neck, biting the sensitive skin there.
Marco carried me to the bed, moving with an urgency that bordered on desperation. There was none of the hesitation from before, when he’d merely worshiped me with oral sex… there was haste.
My clumsy hands reached for his belt. The sound of the leather being pulled and the zipper sliding down echoed loudly through the quiet room.
Marco ripped off his shirt, the buttons flying across the floor, irrelevant.
He pulled off my blouse and my bra, exposing my heavy, sensitive breasts. Marco didn’t stop to admire them from a distance; he took them in his hands and with his mouth, sucking with such force that it made me arch my back and moan loudly.
When he removed my panties and hovered over me, naked, magnificent in the dim light of the lamp, I saw the fierce love in his eyes, but I also saw the fear when he looked at my scar, the pale line on my lower abdomen.
“I won’t hurt you,” he swore.
“I’m already healed, Marco.” I pulled him down.
He positioned himself between my legs, and the head of his cock brushed against my entrance, wet and painfully empty.
“Mine,” he growled, as if it were a decree.
“Yours,” I replied, opening myself wider to him.
He entered me… It wasn’t gentle, but a single fluid, relentless thrust of possession.
I screamed. Not from pain, but from the shock of intense, almost violent pleasure at feeling him fill me. He was big, hard, and hot, stretching me and filling the emptiness I had carried inside.
Marco stopped deep inside me, buried to the hilt, shaking with the effort of not moving.
“Dio… you’re so tight…” he hissed, his neck muscles taut as steel cables.
“Don’t stop,” I begged, digging my nails into his back, leaving marks on him.
“Look at me,” he commanded in a tense voice. “I want to see you feel this.”
I looked and saw the man I loved losing control for me. The mask of the CEO, the protector, the father… it all fell away. Only the man remained.
Marco began to move, pulling out almost completely only to thrust deep inside me again. The friction was maddening. My hips found his rhythm, slamming against his, flesh against flesh, with an obscene and wonderful sound.
He found my sensitive spot and attacked it mercilessly.
“Marco… Marco!”
The sensation began to rise up my spine, a liquid heat that clouded my vision.
We made love with a passion that made up for all the lost time, all the pain, and all the blood. It was sweaty, vocal, and messy—a physical affirmation that we belonged to each other.
When the climax came, it wasn’t a wave; it was an explosion that swept away the past. I clenched violently around him, squeezing him tight. I screamed his name, and Marco lost the battle.
With a guttural roar, he picked up the pace—one, two, three brutal thrusts… and buried his face in my neck, moaning my name like a prayer as he came inside me.
We lay there, entwined, sweaty and panting, his weight crushing me in a way that felt like protection. The world outside didn’t exist… just us and the soft sound of our son’s breathing in the next room, the living proof of our love.
Marco kissed my shoulder lazily, his breath still uneven against my skin.
“You know…” he murmured. “The doctor said you were cleared, but didn’t he say anything about birth control?”
I froze for a second; the logistical panic tried to creep back in, but then I laughed. A light, happy laugh.
I playfully tapped his chest.
“Valenti, don’t you dare. One baby at a time. I’ve just recovered.”
He laughed, pulling me tighter against his chest, with no intention of pulling out of me anytime soon.
“All right… But you can never have too much practice.”
I smiled, feeling his sweat mix with mine. I was tired, sore in all the right places, and completely, irrevocably happy.
“Shut up and kiss me, Marco.”
He obeyed.