Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Yana
It feels like ages since it was just you and me, Lupa.
I haven’t seen him properly in days, only glimpses across rooms, brief exchanges in front of others, the constant eyes on us.
But I quickly shove the thought of missing him away; there are things I need to tell him about Fabiano’s behavior.
I hadn’t gotten the chance to meet him while Fabiano was not around, and I was too busy with Yana to come at night.
This was the perfect time. The way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking.
I asked Lucia not to say anything to Giovanni until I did.
He would overreact if he heard it from her.
I wanted the right moment. But right now, with his hands on my face and the lamplight illuminating his features, the words won’t come.
He kisses me again, his mouth moves against mine, and my breath goes with it.
I have not let myself admit how much I wanted this — his mouth and nearness.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer.
My hands slide down his back, over the lines of muscle, over the faint scars I know by heart now.
His tongue meets mine, and I let it, and my pulse throbs in my throat.
He tastes like the wine from the picnic, porridge, and hints of toothpaste.
My palms move up under the hem of his shirt and find bare skin.
I trace the ridges of his stomach, the curve of his chest, the strength in his shoulders.
He moans into my mouth, and the kiss deepens.
His hands drag down my sides and slip under my shirt to stroke the bare skin of my waist.
He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine. His breathing is ragged.
“Lupa,” he says roughly, “I want to sleep with you tonight.”
My heart stutters against my ribs. The words feel intimate in a dangerous way. I lean in to kiss him again, chasing the heat of his mouth, but his fingers come up gently against my lips.
“Not that way,” he says. There’s a small smirk on his mouth, but his eyes are soft.
He steps back and pulls his shirt off over his head — the bare chest. The snake appears, watching me, and so do the scars and the muscles I have learned. He reaches for me and draws me toward the bed.
We slip under the blankets together. He arranges them around us and then pulls me into his arms until I am against him, my head on his chest. His skin is warm, and his heartbeat is steady.
This isn’t what I expected, not after the kiss, not after his hands moved over me like that.
But his arm bands around my back, and he breathes me in, and a strange quiet settles over me.
My body relaxes against him before I can decide whether to let it.
This is the second time I’ve rested on his chest like this.
And like the first time, it feels safe. It shouldn’t; he is a man with every reason to be my enemy, a man I still don’t understand, but it feels safe anyway.
His fingers move along my spine, tracing nothing in particular. I tilt my head up to look at him.
“Are you okay?” I ask
He smiles, and he kisses the tip of my nose.
I pull away.
“I’m going back to my room.”
He catches me before I’m off the bed and wraps both arms around me from behind, pulling me back against his chest. His breath is warm at the back of my neck.
“Stay,” he says into my hair. “Please.”
I don’t understand him tonight- the softness. I don’t understand it, and worse than that, I like it, and I know better than to like it. A man like him is not gentle for no reason. There is always a reason. There is always a thing underneath.
I breathe out.
“I was going to tell you something. About —”
He kisses my cheek. His lips are warm and dry against my skin. He turns me in his arms and pulls me in and holds me.
“We’ll talk tomorrow. I swear I’ll listen.
Please, Lupa.” The plea in his voice cracks something open inside me.
I nod, and he kisses me again, his mouth on mine with a tenderness that steals the air from my lungs.
His lips are soft yet firm, tasting of the red wine from dinner mixed with the clean hint of mint from his toothpaste.
I part my lips, and his tongue slides in, stroking mine in unhurried, deep caresses.
I haven’t let myself admit how much I craved this exact taste, this exact closeness.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer.
My hands slide down the bare expanse of his back, tracing the strong lines of muscle, the faint raised scars I now know by heart.
He moans softly into my mouth, the sound vibrating through me, and the kiss deepens.
His hands drag down my sides, slipping under my shirt to stroke the bare skin of my waist, my ribs, then higher.
He cups my breasts, thumbs brushing over my nipples until they tighten into aching, sensitive peaks. I arch into his touch with a gasp.
“You feel good,” he moans into my mouth.
He pulls my shirt up and off, then tugs his own discarded shirt over my head instead.
The fabric still carries his warmth and scent, draping loosely around my body and falling to my thighs.
He lays me back against the pillows, covering me with his body while keeping most of his weight on his forearms. His mouth trails down my neck, sucking gently at my pulse point before his teeth graze my earlobe.
A shiver races through me as he nips and licks the sensitive shell of my ear, his hot breath sending sparks down my spine.
He pushes the borrowed shirt up, exposing my breasts. His lips close around one nipple, hot and wet, sucking slowly and deeply while his tongue circles and flicks the stiff peak. Pleasure shoots straight between my legs.
“Giovanni,” I gasp. He lavishes the same attention on the other, licking, sucking, gently biting until both nipples are glistening, swollen, and throbbing. I’m trembling beneath him, wetness slicking my thighs.
His hand slips between my legs. His fingers find me soaked.
He strokes my folds gently, circling my clit with his thumb before sliding one thick finger inside me.
He soothes me with more kisses, deep-tasting kisses that make my head spin while adding a second finger, curling them slowly, stroking that sensitive spot inside until pleasure sparks bright and sharp.
He fingers me patiently, thumb on my clit, until I’m rocking against his hand, panting into his mouth.
“Lupa, can I fuck you?”
I look at him, and I want to tell him it’s my first time, but what if he stops? So, I nod. He smiles and kisses me again, then sheds the rest of his clothes and settles between my spread thighs. His cock is thick and hard, the heavy length pressing hot against my entrance. He kisses me again.
“Look at me, Lupa,” he whispers.
I meet his eyes. He enters me. I yelp in pleasure and pain.
The stretch is immediate and intense. I hiss sharply as the broad head of his cock breaches me.
It hurts, a sharp, stinging pressure that makes my eyes water.
He pauses, holding perfectly still, kissing away the tears that slip down my temples.
Inch by slow inch, he sinks deeper. I feel every thick vein, every ridge as he fills me for the first time.
The fullness is overwhelming, almost too much.
Then comes the sharp flash of pain as he pushes through my virginity — warm blood trickles, smearing against the hem of his shirt bunched between us.
He looks at me. “It’s your first time?”
I nod, and he kisses my forehead.
“Breathe,” he murmurs against my lips, voice strained with the effort of holding back. “I’ve got you. Just breathe.”
He stays buried to the balls, not moving, just kissing my mouth, my cheeks, my eyelids, my neck while his hand strokes my side and thigh soothingly.
Gradually, the burning ache fades into a deep, throbbing fullness.
When I shift my hips, testing, a spark of unexpected pleasure cuts through the discomfort.
He feels so big inside me, stretching me wide, pressing against every sensitive wall.
The sensation is strange, intimate, and… good. So good I whimper.
“You like it, Lupa?”
I nod. “I like it,” I gasp.
Only then does he begin to thrust, and it’s the gentle roll of his hips. Each thrust is deep, grinding against that perfect spot inside me. Pleasure builds, and I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer.
After several long, tender minutes, he kisses me deeply and whispers, “Turn over for me, Lupa.”
He helps me roll onto my stomach. I feel him behind me, his hands gripping my hips as he guides me up onto my knees, keeping my chest pressed to the mattress.
His shirt still drapes over my back. He enters me again from this deeper angle.
The new position makes him feel even bigger, the head of his cock dragging against entirely new places inside me with every thrust. I moan loudly into the pillow, gripping the sheets.
It feels incredible, fuller, more intense, the angle letting him hit that sensitive spot over and over.
He leans over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other reaching around to cup and squeeze my breast, pinching the nipple as he kisses and bites gently at my ear and the back of my neck.
His thrusts stay steady and loving, deep and rhythmic, his hips pressing flush against my ass with every stroke.
The wet sounds of our bodies meeting fill the room along with my moans and his low groans of pleasure.
“Don’t stop,” I cry into his mouth.
The pleasure coils tighter and tighter. His hand slips between my legs, rubbing my clit in circles while he keeps thrusting.
I come hard with a quiet, shuddering cry, my walls clenching around his thick cock.
He follows moments later, burying himself as deep as possible and spilling inside me with a low groan, his face pressed to my neck.
He pulls out, and he kisses my shoulder, my ear.
After we both take a shower, and he washes me clean, kissing my body. He hands me a clean shirt of his, and we cuddle in bed.
I feel the rasp of stubble, the warmth of him, the small movement of his jaw as he breathes. I let myself be drawn back down and folded against him.
“Do you regret coming here?” he asks.
I wonder if it’s a trap. What is he really asking? Is he feeling guilty about being my first?
“I’m not baiting you, Lupa.” he reads my mind. “Do you regret meeting me?”
I think about it. I have felt a great many things since I walked into this house. Fear was not one of them, not the way it should have been. Anger, suspicion, the slow betrayal of my own body. But not regret.
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
“Meeting you is the best thing that has happened to me in a long time,” he whispers.
I brace.
This is a game. This is him teasing me, pulling at me, waiting for me to soften, so he can laugh, at best or at worst… I turn to give him a piece of my mind. But his eyes are half closed. His breathing has gone quiet. His grip on me has loosened.
He’s asleep.
I soften before I can stop it. I prop myself up on one elbow and look at him.
The moonlight comes through the gap in the curtains and lies pale across his face.
His features are loose. The hard thing he carries in them during the day is gone.
I let my eyes move over him, then my fingers follow, light along the line of his nose, over his mouth, to the curve of his ear.
His breath stirs against my wrist. I lower myself and press a kiss to his earlobe. His skin feels warm under my lips.
Then I catch myself.
I shouldn’t be in his bed at all. I am Kirill’s person. Somehow, I am lying in his sheets in the dark, pressing kisses to his ear like a girl with no sense.
How will I ever explain this mess to Kirill?
I move to slide out of the bed. The air hits my skin where the blanket lifts. In his sleep, his arm tightens. He pulls me back down, and his mouth finds mine, half-aware, still tasting faintly of wine.
“Lupa,” he murmurs. “Stay with me.”
I go stiff.
He’s still asleep. His face hasn’t changed.
I look at him for a while.
One night can’t hurt. Tomorrow, I’ll tell him everything — about Fabiano, about the medications, about all of it — and I’ll go back to being what I’m supposed to be.
But tonight, I can stay. I lower myself into his arms. His warmth comes around me, and his arm settles over my back.
I close my eyes, and I let myself drift.
* * *
I wake up to his mouth on my neck. His lips slide against my skin, just below my ear, and warmth goes through me as I fully awaken. I open my eyes. The sun is hitting the window strongly. It’s almost afternoon. I look up at him.
“Good morning,” he whispers. “How did you sleep?”
I pull away in embarrassment. How did I sleep so deeply? I haven’t slept through a full night in two months, and last night, I went under in his arms and didn’t surface once.
He draws me back against him and kisses my chin. What is wrong with him this morning? The softness from last night is still there, and it feels so wrong. Surely softness has a price with this man. What trap is this?
“I’ll miss you,” he says.
I look at him, confused at first, but then I remember that the deal with Kirill is almost done. It’s a couple of days at most a week. Then I go home.
“Just keep your word,” I say. “Do the split.”
He cups my face. “If you want me to do that,” he says, “then kiss me.”
His eyes are desperate. I don’t know why. There’s a thing underneath them I can’t reach. I lean in and kiss him despite myself.
He bites my lips gently, the upper one first, then the lower one. Then he kisses me, his hand warm against my jaw.
A sound comes from beneath us; it’s the commotion of raised voices.
I pull back as footsteps pound up the stairs, more than one set, fast. I look at him.
He isn’t alert; there’s something detached in his face, like he is somewhere else, like he was waiting for this, and it has just arrived.
I stand to get up, put my back to the wall, and be a guard again. He grabs my hand.
“Whatever happens next,” he says, “trust that I would never hurt you.”
He kisses my cheek as the door flies open.
I’m up off the bed. He rises behind me, and I look at the door. Fabiano comes in with men behind him. He lifts one hand, and the men raise their guns and point them at me.
“What is this about?” Giovanni asks.
Fabiano turns to him.
“The maids went to check on your sister this morning,” he says. “She’s been poisoned.”
He pauses and looks me dead in the eyes. “She’s dead.”
He says it so calmly, but the words resound in the room as if he had screamed them. My leg gives out under me, but I grip the edge of the vanity just before I fall to the floor.