Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
VIOLA
When he said he would assign extra men to guard me, for a second my old instincts had flared, the automatic wariness that comes from years of living under constant watch. But then I’d looked at his face, and realized he’s not trying to cage me. He’s just concerned. He’s trying to keep me safe.
While the old Viola would have stiffened and seen it as another way to control her, this version of me, the one who ugly-cried in his arms and let him hold me while I fell apart, felt something different.
Gratitude. Warmth. A strange, fluttering relief that someone actually cares enough to want to protect me instead of own me.
And now he’s asking me about my interests before I married Salvatore. No one has ever asked me this, wanted to know what I wanted to do. Certainly not my own father. No, for him I was leverage and a thing to be bartered with.
I take a sip of wine and feel the warmth spread through my chest, then I tell him the truth I’ve kept buried for years.
“I was interested in pottery at some time,” I say quietly. “I loved it. The feel of the clay under my hands, the way it took shape when I worked it. It felt… real. Like I was creating something that was only mine.”
He looks at me thoughtfully. “I remember. I noticed a few pieces drying in the sun during the first year of your marriage.”
I blink, surprised. He remembers.
“Why did you stop?” he asks, his thumb brushing slow circles on my knee.
“Salvatore hated the way my hands and nails looked because of the pottery. I had to keep my nails short, and my hands didn’t look as dainty and well-oiled as he preferred, so he told me to drop it.
” The words feel bitter on my tongue, but saying them out loud feels like releasing something I’ve carried for too long.
Ricci is quiet for a moment. Then he takes my hand in his, turning it gently so he can look at it properly. His thumb traces the pretty manicure on my nails, the soft skin, the short, neat shape I’ve kept out of habit.
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you,” he says, voice low and warm, a small smile tugging at his mouth, “but I detest dainty and well-oiled hands. I like them stubby and stained with clay. That is the only way this arrangement between us can work.”
A burst of laughter bubbles up before I can stop it, and I nearly choke on my wine. I have to set the glass down fast, coughing and laughing at the same time until my eyes are watering. I can’t believe him. I can’t believe myself.
“Are you okay?” he asks, one big hand sliding up to pat my back gently, soothing the last of the cough.
I nod and straighten. “Yes… I’m okay.”
He smiles again, the kind that reaches his eyes. “You should take pottery up again. Practice as much as you want. If you want to go to a studio, let me know, or if you prefer to do it at home, I’ll make a studio here for you.”
I can’t take it anymore.
The tears sting my eyes before I can stop them.
They are hot, sudden, and overwhelming. The kindness, the freedom he’s offering me so easily, the way he’s looking at me like my dreams actually matter…
it cracks something wide open inside my chest. I can’t hold it back anymore.
I move without thinking, swinging my leg over so I’m straddling him fully on the couch.
My knees sink into the leather on either side of his thighs.
I don’t say a word. I just lean in and kiss him long, deep, and desperate, pouring everything I can’t put into words into that kiss.
My shirt is gone in seconds. His follows right after.
Somehow, I don’t quite know how, his pants are lost. My greedy hands are everywhere, sliding down his chest, over the hard ridges of muscle, until I wrap my fingers around his cock.
He’s already rock hard. The thick shaft twitches in my palm.
I stroke hot, velvet-smooth skin slowly at first, feeling him jerk and thicken even more under my touch.
We don’t speak. We don’t need to. The fascination, the pull, the growing need between us is louder than any words could ever be.
I rise on my knees, position him at my entrance, and sink slowly, taking my time, savoring every thick inch as it impales me.
He groans loud and raw, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine.
His hands grip my hips hard enough to leave marks, fingers digging into my flesh, but I don’t care.
I want the marks. I want to feel him tomorrow.
I ride him slow and deep, rolling my hips in languid circles, loving the way he fills me so completely, the way every ridge drags against my insides.
The friction blooms into delicious heat, and I almost come right there: shaking, head falling back, a whimper tearing from my throat.
But I manage to hold on and make the pleasure last. I continue to ride him, taking him deeper, harder, chasing that edge with every roll of my hips.
He lets me set the pace for a while, but I can feel his control fraying. His fingers dig deeper into my hips, guiding me, urging me faster. I ride him harder; my nipples are tight and aching. He leans forward and catches one in his mouth, sucking hard, teeth grazing just enough to make me cry out.
It makes me lean forward, brace my hands on his shoulder, and ride him with abandon, grinding down on every stroke so my clit rubs against his pelvis. The pleasure coils tighter and tighter in my belly until I’m shaking, thighs burning, moaning his name like a prayer.
“Ricci… Oh God… Ricci…”
Suddenly his control snaps completely. His hands clamp down on my hips, holding me in place as he starts ramming up into me — hard, fast, relentless.
The angle change means he hits that perfect spot inside me with every powerful stroke.
He fucks me like he’s trying to claim every inch of me, like he wants to erase every bad memory of Salvatore and replace it with him.
The couch creaks dangerously beneath us.
My breasts bounce with every brutal thrust. Sweat slicks our skin.
I come first: hard and shattering, my walls clamping down around him like a vice as the orgasm rips through me.
I scream his name, back arching, body shaking violently in his lap.
He keeps thrusting through it, drawing it out, prolonging every wave until I’m gasping and sobbing with overstimulation.
Then he follows.
He buries himself deep with a guttural groan, his cock pulsing inside me and jets his hot and thick seed deep inside me. The thought of his seed deep inside me pushes me into another smaller, shuddering aftershock. We stay locked together, trembling, breathing raggedly into each other’s mouths.
I collapse against his chest, boneless and spent, his arms wrapped tight around me.
His heart hammers against my ear, the sound strong and steady.
I can still feel him inside me, softening but not ready to slip out yet.
And in that moment, wrapped around him, feeling him still inside me, I realize I’m falling.
Hard.
And I’m not sure I want to stop.