Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Lorenzo
Ishould be gone by now. That’s what I tell myself as I lie here at dawn, watching Bella sleep.
Normally, I would have been out of this bed hours ago, back to the world where I don’t have to think about the things that make me weak and vulnerable.
The things that remind me I am still human beneath all the blood and violence.
But I can’t seem to move. I don’t know if it’s because of what I told her last night.
How I opened myself up in a way I never had before, admitting without saying the words that she has become everything to me.
Or maybe it is the look on her face when she thought I was fucking someone else.
That pain. The raw jealousy that mirrored exactly what I would experience if I thought another man had touched her.
Just contemplating it makes my blood boil. It makes me want to put bullets in the heads of every man who has ever looked at her. She is mine, and I will kill anyone who tries to take her from me.
But none of them will die the way Arturo Serrano will die. That bastard will pay for what he has done to her.
He did something unforgivable. He took a young girl and broke her by forcing her to watch him kill the boy she loved. All while she begged and pleaded for mercy that never came.
Her own fucking father used her heart as a tool to teach her a lesson about loyalty, obedience, and what happens when you defy him.
He took the one pure thing she had in this fucked up world and he murdered it right in front of her.
And then expected her to fall in line to smile and obey and forget that he had just ripped her heart in two.
The fury that consumes me when I reflect on it is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It makes me want to do things that would make even the most hardened men look away.
I am going to kill him. I’m going to make him suffer in ways he cannot even imagine. Make him beg for death and make him understand exactly what he took from her and what he destroyed. Because I know what that does to a person.
It will not bring back the boy she loved. It will not erase the trauma or the damage, but it will be justice.
And it will be mine to deliver for her.
My eyes roam over Bella the way they always do.
I can’t help myself. The sheet is down around her waist. Her hair is spilled across the pillow, dark and wild from where I had my hands fisted in it hours ago when I fucked her in this bed, making her scream my name loud enough for the entire house to hear.
One arm is thrown up over her head in complete surrender. Her tits are right there—full and perfect. Those nipples are peaked even in sleep, begging for my mouth. I want to lean down and suck one right now. I want to wake her up with my tongue on her skin and my cock buried inside her pussy.
No other woman I’ve encountered rivals her beauty. And looking at her fucking hurts.
For the first time in my life, I want something I can’t control. Something that could destroy me. I’ve spent fifteen years building walls on the graves of my parents and my little sister, constructed from grief, rage, and the kind of pain that turns boys into monsters.
I kept people out. Fucked women and forgot their names. I killed without hesitation and became exactly what this world needed me to be. Cold. Ruthless. Untouchable.
And then she walked into my life and tore down every single one of those walls without even trying.
I should hate her for it. For causing me to experience emotions I vowed not to experience again. For making me care about something other than power, control, and keeping myself safe from the pain of losing someone I love.
Instead, I’m lying here, watching her breathe and experiencing something that feels dangerously close to peace.
My chest rises and falls in sync with hers. My heartbeat slows, and for the first time since I was that boy who lost everything, I am not pondering death, revenge, or the next move. I am merely thinking about her. She owns my fucking heart, and I have no idea what to do about it.
I reach out and brush a strand of hair from her face. My touch is gentle, so different from the brutal way I handle everything else in my life.
She stirs slightly but doesn’t wake. Her lips part.
I lean down, unable to resist any longer. My mouth closes over her nipple, and I suck gently. She tastes sweet, warm, and perfect. I swirl my tongue around the peaked bud, feeling it harden further against my lips.
A moan escapes Bella’s lips, soft and sleepy, and it goes straight to my cock.
I suck harder, drawing her nipple deeper into my mouth while my hand slides up to cup her other breast. My thumb brushes over that nipple, teasing it into a hard point that matches the one between my lips.
“Lorenzo,” she breathes, my name barely a whisper in the quiet room.
I release her nipple and press a kiss to the curve of her breast, then another to her sternum, then back up to capture her other nipple between my teeth.
She gasps, her hand coming up to tangle in my hair, and I sense the exact moment she begins to wake.
The way her breathing changes and the way her fingers tighten against my scalp.
I lift my head and look at her. Her eyes are still closed, but her lips are parted. This woman has ruined me, and I don’t even believe she fully grasps the power she has over me.
My cock is already hard. Has been since I woke up next to her.
I settle myself between her thighs, and she opens for me without hesitation.
Even half asleep, her body wants me. I position my cock at her entrance and feel the slick heat of her already waiting for me, and it takes every ounce of control I have not to slam inside her the way I usually do.
But on this occasion, I want her to feel something different.
I push in slowly, watching her face as her eyes finally flutter open. The sleepy confusion clears instantly, replaced by awareness and desire as I fill her inch by inch. Her mouth opens in a silent gasp as I bottom out inside her.
“Good morning, Bella,” I murmur, voice rough from the effort of holding back.
I start to move, and everything about this is different from every other time I have been inside her. I am not rough or demanding. This time, I make love to her.
I have never done this to anyone. I have fucked, taken, and used. But I have never focused on her pleasure more than my own. Never looked into someone’s eyes and experienced this overwhelming need to show them, without words, what they mean to me.
But with Bella, I want to.
The realization should terrify me, but instead it feels right in a world that has never made sense.
I lean down and capture her mouth with mine, kissing her with a tenderness that is completely at odds with the man I have always been.
My tongue glides against hers and she kisses me back with the same gentleness.
Her hands slide up to cup my face. A rupture of some kind is happening internally in my chest.
This is what it means to love someone. Not the desperate need to own, control, and keep.
This quiet moment when nothing exists except her and me and the way our bodies fit together perfectly. This feeling of being completely present with another person.
I break the kiss and rest my forehead against hers, our breaths mingling as I continue to move inside her.
“You feel so fucking good,” I tell her, and I mean it in a way that goes beyond the physical.
I pour everything I cannot say into the way I kiss her and fuck her with a reverence I did not know I was capable of.
My hand slides between our bodies to find her clit. She moans and I have to grit my teeth to keep from losing control.
“That’s it, Bella,” I murmur against her lips. “Let me make you come.”
“Lorenzo,” she says sacredly.
Her orgasm builds, and I can feel it in the way her body tenses beneath mine. In the way her breathing becomes shallow and rapid as she looks at me with those eyes that see everything I try to hide.
When she finally comes, it’s beautiful. Her pussy pulses around my cock in waves as she cries out my name.
I keep moving through her orgasm, drawing it out, making it last as long as possible because her pleasure has become more important to me than my own. When she finally goes limp beneath me, her eyes glazed and satisfied, only then do I let myself chase my own release.
I fuck her harder, my control finally slipping as her pussy clenches around my cock. The feeling of her coming undone beneath me is enough to send me over the edge.
I bury myself as deep as I can and let go.
My orgasm rips through me with an intensity that steals my breath, my entire body going rigid as I empty myself inside her.
I fill her with my cum, pump after pump, marking her from the inside out.
She is mine in every possible way, and I need her to feel it, to know it, to never forget it.
But even as pleasure crashes over me in waves and my muscles shake with the force of my release, I don’t look away from her. I keep my eyes locked on hers, watching her lips part with soft gasps, watching her stare back at me with something that looks dangerously close to love.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “Fuck, Bella.”
My entire body is shaking, and it has nothing to do with the physical release. It is about the emotional weight of this moment. This is not just sex or me claiming what is mine. This is me giving her everything I have, everything I am, everything I never thought I could give anyone.
I stare into her eyes and let her see it all. Let her see the man who would burn the world down for her. The monster who would kill anyone who tried to take her from me. Let her see the broken boy who lost everything and never thought he would feel this way again.
I love you. I would die for you. I would kill for you. You are mine, and I am yours. Nothing will ever change that. The words remain trapped in my throat.