Chapter 34 Nicolo
NICOLO
The restaurant hums with low voices and expensive silence. Silver cutlery, crystal chandeliers, the faint scent of truffle and rain.
I chose it because it’s neutral ground—public, controlled, a place where I can pretend we’re nothing more than two civilized people sharing dinner. It isn’t working.
She sits across from me in the soft light, pink silk brushing her shoulders, hair falling loose down her back. Every movement she makes seems designed to test my restraint. She doesn’t even have to try.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“Am I?” I keep my tone mild, though I can feel the tension in my jaw.
She nods once. “You seem to be doing that a lot tonight.”
I lean back, reaching for the wine and letting the stem turn between my fingers. “I notice things. Occupational hazard.”
“Like what?’ she presses. “Every time you look at me, it’s like you’re cataloguing something. Filing away information about something you own.”
I set the glass down. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” she echoes softly. “Then tell me what last night was. Tell what that day in the office was. Because pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t make it disappear.”
The air changes—thicker, sharper. A vein of heat crawls up my neck. Around us, forks scrape against plates and a laugh breaks at another table, but it all feels far away.
“It was a mistake,” I say, each word cut clean. “Both times.”
She laughs under her breath, incredulous. “A mistake that keeps repeating itself.”
“Watch your tone.”
“Why? You can command everyone else, Nicolo. But you don’t get to order me around as you please.”
I look at her—really look—and the thing I’ve been keeping buried claws up from my chest. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that this can’t happen again, and that it already has cost too much. Instead, what comes out is low and unsteady.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispers. “You’re the one pretending not to.”
The knife in her voice finds its mark. I push back from the table before I say something I can’t take back.
“We’re done talking about this.”
“Of course we are,” she mutters, folding her arms. “Talking isn’t your strong suit.”
The rest of the meal unravels in silence.
She toys with her fork, and before long our waiter brings the check over.
I sign it without looking. The candle between us burns low, casting her face in flickers of light and shadow.
When we stand to leave, the tension between us feels like another presence at the table—something alive and waiting.
Outside, the rain has stopped, but the city still smells like the storm hasn’t passed. I open the car door for her. She slips inside without a word, and as I circle to the driver’s side, I realize my hands are shaking—not from anger, but from everything I won’t let myself want.
The drive back is smothered in silence. She sits curled against the passenger door, arms crossed, eyes on the rain-slicked road as it slips past the window in a blur.
Her silence isn't passive. It’s weaponized. Each second of it lashes against my skin harder than the slap I know she’s holding back. My jaw clenches. Fingers crush the steering wheel, gripping it like it's the only thing keeping me from snapping—either at her, or for her.
When we pull into the Castello's courtyard, she moves first. Her hand reaches for the door handle. She's ready to escape before I’ve even cut the engine.
No.
I press the lock button.
Click.
Her spine stiffens. Her head jerks toward me, eyes wide, pupils already starting to dilate with the adrenaline.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I don’t answer. I don’t give her the time. I unbuckle her seatbelt, reach across, and grab her wrist. Not gently. I haul her into my lap with a jerk that has her gasping, hands slamming against my chest.
The moment she lands on me—straddling, caught—I feel it. The heat of her thighs. The tremble in her breath. The shock. The want, buried under the anger she’s wearing like armor.
“You think you can run?” I growl, voice low and feral. “After everything that happened? After I warned you that I would ruin you beyond comprehension?”
“I’m not the one who’s been running, Nicolo.” Her breath stutters.
Her hips betray her first, grinding down against the hard line of my cock through my slacks. I kiss her before she can say more. But it’s not a kiss. It’s a fucking punishment.
My mouth crashes into hers, tongue sweeping past her lips like I own the space. Like I’m taking back every ounce of control she thought she had. I devour her moan, let it vibrate down my throat like the first swallow of something forbidden.
She bites me. Good.
I growl, and my hands go to her dress—shoving the hem up her thighs, dragging the fabric so roughly it stretches, warps, and rides high until I can feel the heat of her pussy through the sheer lace of her panties.
“You’re soaked,” I mutter against her mouth, teeth grazing her bottom lip. “Fucking dripping, and all you’ve done is glare at me for the past forty minutes.”
She claws at my shirt, frantic. Her hips are already rocking. She wants friction. Contact. Ruin.
I give it to her. My belt’s off in a second, the clink of the buckle loud in the enclosed space. One hand is on her throat, the other pulling her panties aside—not off. I want them in the way. I want her to feel how little I care for neatness right now.
“Wait,” she breathes.
But her hands are on my chest—not pushing, just trembling. Wanting. Hesitating.
“I am done waiting,” I growl. “I told you not to push me, but what did you go and do? You pushed me every chance you got.”
And then I push into her. No preamble. No soft words. Just the blunt, stretching pressure of my cock forcing her open inch by brutal inch.
She gasps—sharp, shocked—head snapping back, hands scrambling against my chest as she adjusts to the intrusion. Her pussy is tight, hot, greedy. She clenches around me like she hates it. Like she needs it.
My head drops to her shoulder, breath hot against her neck.
“You feel that?” I whisper. “The way your pussy clenches around me? The way my cock is pulsing? That’s what you do to me every fucking time you walk around pretending you’re innocent.”
Her hips snap forward—once, twice, finding a rhythm, already chasing the edge. It’s desperate. She fucks herself on me like she’s punishing me, like she’s trying to make me feel the ache she’s carried all dinner.
And I let her.
She rides me, thighs spread wide, hands tangled in my hair now, pulling, anchoring herself. Her dress is bunched at her waist, panties pulled tight against the curve of her ass, forgotten. Her tits bounce with every thrust, nipples hard under the lace of her bra.
My hands go everywhere—her hips, her ass, her throat, her mouth. I don’t guide. I take.
Her walls pulse around me, slick and fluttering, each movement making a mess of my lap. I feel her clenching harder, trembling, the high-pitched keens in her throat turning frantic.
“Fuck,” she gasps. “I’m…don’t stop—”
“Not a chance,” I snarl. “You’re not coming until you say it.”
She shakes her head, wild. “Say what?”
“You know.”
She does. She just doesn’t want to give it to me. Not after tonight. Not after what I said. Not after I told her the truth about us—what I really need her for.
But her body’s betraying her again. Grinding harder. Gasping louder. Every roll of her hips is an admission she can’t put into words.
I slam up into her—once, brutal, forcing her cry to echo in the car. The windows fog. Her fingers dig into my shoulders.
“Say it,” I command, voice a razor across her skin. “Say who owns this pussy.”
“You…fuck…you—”
“Louder.”
Her climax hits mid-word. A ragged scream: my name, broken, choked out between sobs and clenched teeth. Her cunt pulses around me, wet and wild, milking me as I thrust through her orgasm.
I follow with a groan, buried deep. I don’t pull out. I stay locked inside her, holding her there—panting, shaking, owned.
My hands fist in her hair. My mouth presses to her neck, damp with sweat and sex. I don’t apologize. She wouldn’t want me to.
Outside, the courtyard is still. Somewhere in the Castello, a light flicks on.
Let them see. Let them hear what it means for me to lose control, to take what isn’t mine.
We’re beyond fucked.
We don’t make it to the bed. We barely make it through the door before I’ve got her against the wall.
I don’t wait. I don’t ask. I just grab her and push her back, hard enough that the frame rattles. She makes a noise—half-gasp, half-moan—and claws at my jacket like she wants to tear it off me.
I beat her to it.
My hand rips into the front of her dress, and the fabric gives with a loud tear. Her tits spill out, nipples hard and flushed. I grab her tits with both hands and squeeze. Rough. No warning.
She gasps again, louder. Her hands slam against my chest, then twist in my shirt as I roll her nipples between my fingers. She moans. Not soft. Not pretty. It’s messy and hot, and it makes my cock throb.
I lean down and suck one into my mouth. She makes this fucking sound—her head thrown back, body arching, thighs already rubbing together. I bite her nipple just to hear it again. Then I bend, grab under her thighs, and lift her off the floor.
She wraps around me fast, tight legs around my waist, panties already wet against my pants. I press her harder into the wall and shove her dress up over her hips. She’s panting now, pulling at my hair while I bite down on her neck.
“Keep moaning like that and I’ll fuck you right here,” I growl.
She digs her nails into my shoulders. “Do it.”
I pull her panties aside. She’s soaked—dripping down her thighs, heat pouring off her. I don’t tease. I push in fast. Deep. Her cunt’s tight and slick, clenching around me like it missed this. Like she did.
“Fuck,” I groan, burying myself all the way.
She moans loud and grabs the back of my neck, holding on as I start thrusting into her hard. Fast. Her body jerks against the wall with every slam of my hips. Her tits bounce in my face, and I grab them again, pinching one nipple and sucking the other into my mouth.
She’s loud. Moaning nonstop now. Every time I thrust, she makes another desperate sound and her pussy gets tighter.
“You were this wet the whole damn dinner?” I grunt, fucking her faster. “Sitting across from me, pretending you weren’t thinking about this?”
“Shut up,” she pants, rocking against me. “Just…fuck me…”
I do. I fuck her rough, one hand on her ass, the other squeezing her tits, sucking her nipples until her body starts to shake.
She comes fast. Her legs tighten. She cries out, nails raking down my back. I don’t stop. I fuck her through it, pounding into her while she’s still coming.
Then I carry her to the bed. We crash down. She climbs on top and rides me without waiting. Her tits bounce. Her hair’s wild. Her cunt’s still soaked and tight, clenching around me with every grind of her hips.
“Don’t stop,” she pants. “I’m not done.”
“Good,” I growl, gripping her waist. “Because I’m not either.”
I thrust up into her hard enough to make her scream. I grab her ass with both hands and fuck into her like she’s mine. Her moans get higher. She’s close again; I can feel it.
I sit up, wrap my arm around her back, and grab her throat.
“Come for me again,” I whisper, fucking her faster.
She does. Loud. Shaking. Her pussy spasms around me, and that’s it. I groan deep in my chest and spill inside her, holding her there while I pump every last drop into her.
We’re soaked. Fucked-out. My cum leaks from her as she collapses on top of me. I don’t say anything. I just hold her. She’s still trembling. Then I pick her up and carry her to her room bridal-style with one hand, her heels in the other.
She doesn’t fight it, just lets me set her down. I make the mistake of brushing the hairs out of her face. Her hand grips my wrist just as I turn to leave her room.
“Are you going to leave?” she asks, voice emotionless.
I look at her. “Yeah.”
She looks away. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t ask why. But I feel it. Like maybe I gave her hope when I shouldn’t have.
And maybe she’ll keep wishing for something I can’t give her. Whether I want her or not.