CHAPTER 45
ROXANNE
The party was loud. Sahil, Priya, Vihaan, Santino, and I took shots. I introduced Santino to everyone. Ritu had flown in from Singapore that evening, apologising for missing the wedding.
Her hug lingered. Her eyes scanned the room for Marcello. I told her he had fallen asleep putting Kyra to bed. Her eyes slid past me—then stopped. On Santino. Lingering a second too long. Then she smiled like she’d clocked something interesting.
“So,” she said lightly, eyes still on Santino, “how does one even begin to choose between that and Marcello?”
“Who says I had to choose?” The music pulsed. So did my ego.
I leaned into Santino, laughing—my hand grazing his chest. His hand found the small of my back. Warm. Steady. I was laughing a little too loud—the kind of loud that hides nerves—that pretends nothing is slipping.
He pulled me in just enough to remind me he was there. Just enough to make me notice. His skin was warm, but his gaze sharpened—predatory, assessing. He took a large sip of his whiskey and gulped it down. His throat flexed and my pulse did too.
“You’re gonna get in trouble,” Santino said, voice low. “And get me in trouble too.”
“Hope it’s worth it,” I winked.
He leaned in, lips brushing the shell of my ear.
“Oh, it would be,” he said. “But I don’t think either of us is drunk enough for that mistake.”
His smile faltered just for a second and that was everything. His gaze deepened like he could visualise the mistake he spoke of. My skin tingled.
God, he was hot. Ridiculously so. And I didn’t know how I’d missed it.
But it wasn’t just the alcohol talking. And it wasn’t just the music. The tension between us wasn’t accidental. It was deliberate. The kind that waits. The kind that watches. The kind that doesn’t need permission to exist.
Ritu pulled me onto the dance floor. We danced dirty, provocatively. Our hands on each other’s hips, dancing wild, reckless, too close for common sense. We laughed, bodies moving with the beat.
Santino waited a beat, then slid himself behind me, hands loose at my hips. His breath brushed my neck. His chest hovered near my back. I rolled my hips once—slow, deliberate. I moved without thinking. That was the problem.
He didn’t push me away. Instead, he gripped my waist firmly, pulling me closer.
“Couldn’t resist?” I murmured—half-teasing, half-breathless.
What was I doing?
His lips brushed my ear. “You keep testing me, Volpi.”
The way he said it—low, rough, like a warning—made my stomach flip.
“I’m holding on by a thread,” he said. His hand tightened around my hips, grounding me flush against his chest. “If it snaps…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Whatever lived beneath his calm was straining hard against it. My breath caught. I leaned into him just for a second and felt him—solid, restrained. His breath heavy.
A thought: This was going too far.
Then he pushed off me. Ritu pulled me in, laughing, her arms around my waist as we screamed lyrics into the air. The music throbbed. My body moved without thought. But there was a noise inside me I couldn’t mute.
I saw Santino retreat into the corner, drink in hand, eyes locked on me. He didn’t smile. Didn’t speak. Just watched—like he was holding back something that wanted to break free. Like he’d already made a decision and was paying for it.
I let myself ignore it—because ignoring was easier than naming. Not because I didn’t feel it. But because I knew who I belonged to.
The air suddenly shifted before I felt him—a hand on my waist. Gripping me tight. I didn’t brush it off. My body knew too well who it was.
Marcello.
His touch was a claim. His grip was firm. Like he was reclaiming territory. Just as I leaned in, the song Tempted to Touch started playing.
I swayed my hips to the rhythm, grinding back into him.
I moved like I was made for him. Like the song was written for this exact moment—my hips moving in instinctive sync with his growing arousal, his breath hot on my neck.
My hands found his hair, pulling him closer.
He spun me around and pulled me in for a kiss.
I let him. My hands fisted his hair as his hand slid down to my ass, grabbing it slightly. Everyone cooed.
I smiled against his lips. Let them see what obsession looked like. For once, I wasn’t shrinking into guilt or fear. I was choosing what—and who—set me free.
Across the room, I caught Santino’s gaze with that unreadable expression. It wasn’t jealousy. It was restraint. Like something had clicked into place—quietly, decisively.
Then he turned, leaving the room without a glance back. Just the deliberate calm of someone choosing control.
“Let’s get out of here,” Marcello whispered.
His voice was gravel and heat. And I was already burning. We left without saying goodbye.
He didn’t lead me back to the room. Instead, he led me to the beach. To the far end, where the hotel walls curved into a cave-like structure.
The moonlight shimmered on my dress as I giggled, letting him twirl me with my heels dangling from one hand. With the wind lifting my hair and the sand kissing my feet, Marcello looked at me as if I were sacred.
He lifted me easily, one hand firm on my ass, steady as if it belonged there. I wrapped my legs around him on instinct, my body answering before my mind could catch up.
I kissed him hard—no hesitation, no softness left. My mouth moved against him with urgency, with want that had nowhere else to go. His mouth claimed mine like he already knew how this would end.
His grip tightened, anchoring me, holding me like he wasn’t about to let me slip away again.
I wanted him to feel it—the pull, the pressure, the way I came undone in his arms. I wanted to bruise him with my need. I wanted him to feel the way I did for him.
Every kiss felt inevitable. Every breath stolen, claimed. Like we were already past the point of stopping—just standing at the edge of what came next.
No matter how many times we kissed, it wasn’t enough. Every kiss felt like the first. Every touch, like a secret. He was my drug. My high. My crash. And I wanted to overdose. He was an addiction I never wanted to recover from.
“I love you,” he said—quiet, breathless, smiling against my lips as he slowly set me back on my feet.
The words didn’t strike like thunder. They settled. My heart thudded.
We walked to the edge of the shore and sank into the sand, the waves crashing close to soak our feet.
I sat between his legs, his body folding around mine, his chin resting against my shoulder.
His arms wrapped around me, anchoring me to him.
His fingers traced slow, absent-minded circles along my thighs.
The ocean roared and my body whispered. But my heart—my heart finally exhaled.
He’d said it.
He said I love you.
And something inside me unclenched—something that had braced for loss for so long it had forgotten how to stand down. Tonight, I let myself feel the possibility of something else—
of having, not losing. Of choosing, not being chosen for.
I didn’t say it back. Not yet. But I felt it—everywhere. In the way my breath slowed. In the way my skin softened beneath his touch. In the way my body leaned into him like it had always known where it belonged.
I’d waited for those words, not just from him, but from the universe. From fate. From whatever cruel hand had stitched my life together with longing and restraint.
And now, here they were. Simple. Unadorned. True.
I turned in his arms, my fingers tracing the edge of his jaw, my thumb brushing his mouth. I kissed him tenderly—not to answer, but to receive. To let what he’d offered sink into me fully, irreversibly like moonlight into tide.
He kissed me back harder. Hungrier. Like he’d been waiting too. Like he needed me to understand that love wasn’t just spoken. It was felt. Held. Lived.
His hands slid higher and my breath hitched. The stars blurred overhead, the sand warm beneath us, the night closing in like a promise. And I let go of fear, of doubt. Of everything that had kept me from stepping into this.
“If you keep touching me like that…” I whispered against his mouth, my hands gripping his thighs. I shifted closer, pressing myself into him
“…you’ll have to take me under the stars.”
He brushed my hair aside and traced my neck with his —each kiss a vow. I arched into him, opening myself without hesitation, without armour.
I didn’t say I love you. I showed him. With every gasp. Every tremor. Every sound my body gave him, like a promise already kept.
One hand kneaded my breast—slow, purposeful.
The other slid higher, tracing the edge of my panties, testing my breath, my patience.
His fingers moved with a familiarity that made my breath stutter—like they remembered the map of me.
Like they’d been waiting. They knew exactly where to go. And how deep.
“Your body speaks to me, what words cannot,” he breathed slowly, warm against my ear.
His voice was a spell and my body, the altar. I was ready to be worshipped. And he worshipped like a sinner—desperate, devout, unrepentant.
I matched his rhythm as his fingers pushed inside me. My hips rolled to meet him. My lips found his, and we were consumed in our own bubble of lust and passion. Swallowed whole by heat and hunger. By the kind of passion that doesn’t ask permission. It just takes.
I never felt this way with Vihaan. With Marcello, I wasn’t just seen—I was undone. Exalted. Pulled apart and rebuilt somewhere rawer. Truer.
He didn’t awaken desire in me. He summoned something ancient—the Aphrodite in me. Something that wanted to be claimed, devoured and worshipped—not gently, but completely.
I turned into him, needing closeness more than air, my body moving on instinct. The world narrowed to heat, breath, skin. To the way he held me like I wasn’t fragile—but necessary.
I locked my legs around his hips, sitting on his lap. I wanted all of him. Wanted the way he fit against me, into me, like we were made to meet here—half dressed, half wild, wholly ours.
Fabric clung to sweat. Zippers dug into skin.
Nothing stopped us. Not the sand beneath us nor the night watching. Not the crash of the roaring waves. Not the way everything in me trembled with want. We were primal. Beautiful. Brutal.
I held onto his shoulders as I rode him. The burn in my thighs was nothing compared to the pleasure of having him inside me. A small price to pay.
He held me tighter with each thrust—each movement deeper, more certain. It felt like he reached something deep inside me—something I’d kept locked away.
We moved together—unrestrained, unguarded—until thought fell away and only feeling remained. Until the past loosened its grip and the present claimed me entirely.
He took me like he was trying to rewrite my past.
And I let him. Every thrust, a new chapter.
“Oh, Roxy.” He said breathlessly. “I’m close.”
My inner walls involuntarily clenched, and we came undone.
We didn’t just climax. We collapsed.
“Being in you—nirvana.” He said breathlessly, in between kisses.
“Like I found my very own Shangri-La”
We lay there afterwards, spent and silent, the stars stretched wide above us. My head rested against his arm. His thumb traced slow, grounding circles into my skin—anchoring me back to myself. He turned towards me and kissed my temple. Then his voice shifted.
“We found Lorenzo,” he said quietly.
The night stilled around us.
“We leave in two days.”
The weight of it settled between us—not fear, not doubt—but inevitability. My heart dropped, throat closing in on every word. The man who had just filled me was now preparing to leave me. Again.
“If I don’t return—” he said quietly.
“Don’t,” I cut in, my voice breaking.
He exhaled slowly.
“I’ll be gone for a week. If anything happens, arrangements are in place—for you. For Kyra.”
“Amore…” I traced his cheek with the back of my fingers, grounding myself in the warmth of him.
“I just got you back.”
“I know.” His forehead rested against mine. “That’s why I have to finish this. For us. For her.”
“Promise me you’ll come back,” I said, forcing a smile through the ache.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll be mad at you. Really mad.”
A soft breath of laughter left him. “I promise.”
I kissed him—slow, lingering, like I could seal the vow with my mouth into his skin. Then I pressed my face into his neck, breathing him in. Salt. Heat. Him. Something broke loose in my chest, and the tears came anyway.
He didn’t try to stop them. Just held me while I shook, while everything I’d been holding back spilled out. No fixing. No judgment. Just arms around me, steady and sure, letting me fall apart without fear.
In that moment, the rest of the world faded. I didn’t care about fate or war or vengeance or the ghosts waiting in the dark.
All that mattered was this—his heartbeat beneath my cheek.
His arms around me. Here. Now.
Mine.