20. Serena #2
I lower myself onto the bed slowly. He starts to stand. I lift one finger. He freezes.
“I can sit down while pregnant,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“Your face says you don’t.”
“My face is stupid.”
I blink. Then I laugh. Just once. Short and startled.
His whole face changes like I gave him water in the desert.
“They said you knelt,” I say.
“I did,” he says.
No defense. No drama. Just yes.
“Why?”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, then stops himself and sits back.
“Because I made it safe for them to disrespect you,” he says.
My breath catches.
“I believed the tape. I sent you away. After that, every person in my family knew your name could be questioned without consequence. Claudia used what I allowed. Vittorio used what I allowed. Men who should’ve been afraid to whisper about you got comfortable doing it because I’d done worse in our bedroom. ”
The room blurs. I hate this. I need this.
“So you knelt.”
“Yes.”
“And said the shame was yours.”
“Not yours. Not the baby’s.”
My hand presses to my stomach. The baby’s quiet now. Maybe listening. No, that’s insane. Let me have it.
“Did Claudia cry?” I ask.
Rocco’s mouth does something almost like a smile. “At first. Then she got honest.”
“That must’ve been new for her.”
“I doubt she enjoyed it.”
“Did you?”
He’s quiet. Then, “I enjoyed stopping her. I didn’t enjoy why she had to be stopped.”
That one goes straight under my ribs. I look away.
“What about Vittorio?”
“Removed. Inner council. Accounts. Security lines. Dock routing. Anything that lets him move men or money without me seeing it.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is.”
“Rocco.” He hears the fear in my voice. “No, you don’t get to just know. You have to tell me what dangerous means. I’m very tired of men deciding what level of danger I can handle like I’m a houseplant with anxiety.”
His face twists. “You’re right.”
That stops me. I recover. Barely.
“Rafe will hear the family split,” he says. “He’ll look for pressure points.”
The air changes. Hearing it out loud puts bones under the fear.
“Me,” I say.
Rocco’s eyes drop to my stomach. Then back to my face. “You and the baby.”
There it is. The ugly thing. Not hidden. Not softened.
“So why are you here alone?”
“Because you deserve a husband at the door, not an occupation.”
Oh. No. Absolutely not. He can’t say things like that while sitting in Lucia’s chair looking bloody and exhausted and careful.
“That was good,” I say.
“What?”
“The line. Very strong. Slightly annoying.”
He looks confused for one second. Then he laughs under his breath. It’s not much. But it changes the room.
“Serena,” he says. “I didn’t come here to collect anything from you. I need you to know that.”
“I do.”
“Do you?”
I look at him. At his careful hands. At the place where he’s staying in the chair because I told him to, even though every line of his body says he wants to be closer.
“I’m starting to,” I say.
His eyes close briefly. Like that hurts too.
For two years his danger pointed outward and I lived in the blast radius, collateral to whatever war he was winning that week. Tonight he turned it around. Stepped between a knife and a man I love. Knelt on a cold floor and let himself bleed so my name would stop being cheap in a room full of men.
He finally aimed the dangerous part of himself at protecting me instead of keeping me. That’s what undoes me. Not the apology. The direction.
Then I ruin my own moral clarity by wanting him so badly I almost make a sound.
“Come here,” I say.
Rocco goes still. “Serena.”
“I said come here. Not marry me again in the town square.”
“Are you sure?”
My cheeks heat. Not because he asks. Because I like that he asks. This Rocco waits. I don’t know what to do with how hot that is.
“I’m sure I want you closer,” I say. “That’s the only thing I’m sure about.”
He stands. Slowly. The movement pulls at his side.
“Your stitches,” I say.
“Sore,” he corrects.
“Better.”
He stops in front of me. Close enough that I can smell him. Rain. Soap. Hospital. Blood under clean cotton.
I don’t touch him yet. He doesn’t touch me either.
“I don’t forgive you,” I say.
He nods.
“If we have sex, I may panic after.”
His face changes. Not desire leaving. Care arriving.
“Then we stop. Before. During. After. Anytime you say.”
“You make that sound easy.”
“It should’ve always been easy.”
I reach for his shirt. Just the fabric at his waist. My fingers close in it. He inhales. That’s all. One breath. But I feel it everywhere.
“I want you,” I whisper.
His eyes go dark in the old way. Not cruel. Not angry. Hungry.
“I want you too,” he says. “So much I’m having trouble standing here like a decent man.”
“Have you tried being decent before?”
“Briefly. I was bad at it.”
I tug him down and kiss him. For one second, he doesn’t move. He lets me lead. Then I make a frustrated sound against his mouth, and he understands.
His hand slides into my hair, careful of the knot. He kisses me properly. Deep. Slow first, then not slow at all.
My whole body lights up. I pull him closer, forgetting his stitches until he winces.
I break away. “Sorry.”
“Worth it.”
“Do not be charming while injured.”
He smiles against my mouth. Then he kisses my cheek, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. Soft. Not rushing.
I pull at his jacket. “Off.”
He shrugs out of it. His shirt follows slower because of the bandage. I help with the buttons, my fingers clumsy and too eager.
When the fabric opens, I see the white dressing taped to his side. Clean. But the skin around it is bruised.
My desire gets tangled with fear. “You took a knife.”
“Yes.”
“For Matteo.”
His eyes hold mine. “For you.” I stiffen. He catches it immediately. “No. That came out wrong.” He breathes once. “I took it because Matteo was protecting you, and I should’ve protected both of you before that moment. It was not payment. It was not a claim. It was just the right thing.”
My fingers rest on his open shirt, right over his chest. His heart beats hard under my palm.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Then I push the shirt off his shoulders and he lets it fall.
He lowers himself carefully to one knee. I freeze. Not council. Not power. Here. In Lucia’s tiny guest room.
Rocco presses his mouth to the top of my stomach. My hand flies to his hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my skin.
The baby moves. He feels it. His whole body goes still.
His hand hovers near my stomach, not touching. “Can I?”
“Yes.”
He lays his palm there. The baby nudges again. His face breaks. Not fully. Rocco Castellano’s breaking is quiet, controlled at the edges. But I see it.
“Hi,” he whispers. One word. To the baby.
I start crying. Of course. Maybe I’m mostly water at this point.
He looks up immediately. “Stop?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m just angry. And turned on. And hungry.”
That one gets me a real smile. Small. Devastating.
“Later,” I say before he can offer food. “If you tell me we should be sensible, I’ll bite you.”
He reaches for my hem. “May I?”
“Yes,” I say, because apparently nods don’t count anymore in this new world of grown-up communication.
He lifts my shirt slowly. The air hits my skin. My stomach is round and high, the skin tight, a faint line running down the center.
I fight the urge to cover myself.
“Don’t hide,” he says.
“Bossy.”
“Begging.”
That shuts me up.
I lean down and kiss him again. He rises carefully and follows me onto the bed.
Lucia’s guest bed groans. We both freeze.
“If this collapses,” I say, “I’m blaming you.”
“Fair. Lucia will murder us both.”
He kisses me again, smiling now, and the smile disappears fast once my hands find his belt.
My body remembers him. That’s unfair too. How quickly want cuts through fear and grief.
His hands are on my hips, steady, not pushing. When I lift, he helps me slide my leggings down. It’s not graceful. The leggings catch at my ankle and I mutter something rude. He eases them off, then the one sock too.
“You were halfway dressed.”
“I got tired.”
“Do not make fun of me while I’m half naked.”
Heat flares in his eyes. “I’d never.”
That voice. Low and rough and mine in a way I’m not ready to name.
He kisses my knee. Then the inside of my thigh. My breath catches.
“Rocco.”
He lifts his head. “Tell me.”
“I want to be on top,” I say. “So I can control it.”
His eyes flare. “Yes.”
“And if I get tired?—”
“We stop or move.”
Then he’s on the bed, leaning against the headboard with pillows behind him, naked except for the bandage and all his terrible self-control.
I climb over him slowly. He grips my hips to steady me, then loosens his hold like he’s telling his hands not to claim what I haven’t given.
I settle over his thighs, not taking him yet. His cock is hard between us.
“Still okay?”
“Yes.”
I lift my hips while he rolls on the condom. His hand shakes once. I see it. He knows I see it. Neither of us makes it small with a joke.
When I sink down onto him, we both stop breathing. Just for a second.
He fills me slowly because I control the pace, because my body needs slow, because this time nothing is taken from me.
Nothing.
My hands brace on his shoulders. His hands stay open on my hips. Not pulling. Just there.
I start to move. Small at first. Careful. My body is tender from the hospital and from being pregnant, but the pleasure is there immediately, low and deep and familiar.
Better than familiar. Because he’s watching me like my face matters more than the sex.
Then he lowers his head and kisses the curve of my stomach. While I’m taking him. While I’m shaking. While I’m still angry.
My body clenches around him hard. He groans, rough and broken.
His thumb moves between my legs. Slow circles. Patient.
I drop my forehead to his. “Yes.”
“Like that?”
“Yes.”
He keeps the rhythm exactly where I need it. No showing off. No taking over. Just steady pressure while I move above him.
I come with my face against his, my hand fisted in his hair, my body tight around him. It’s not quiet. I try. But the sound breaks out of me anyway, and Rocco covers my mouth with his kiss like he’s catching it, not silencing it.