Chapter Twenty-Five — Vinny
She spent the rest of the day quiet, her head bent low over the ledgers and spiral notebooks spread across the kitchen table.
Her brows pinched tightly together, her plush lips pursed in deep concentration.
I didn’t ask a single question. She’d already told me she would lay out the map once she figured out our path, and I trusted her to do exactly that.
But just sitting there in the room with her, sharing a silence that felt completely comfortable, made my heart feel funny—in a way I hadn’t experienced in years.
I was no longer used to this domesticity.
For four years, my life had been measured strictly in muzzle flashes, cold concrete, and the suffocating weight of a debt that never got any lighter.
Peace was something I thought I'd permanently buried in a New York cemetery.
It was a luxury trapped with the parents I could no longer speak to.
But looking at Jamie now, the protective hardness in my chest felt brittle.
She was a storm, and somehow, sitting right in the eye of it with her felt like the safest place I’d ever been. I watched her all day. And the longer I let my eyes trace her, the more the truth settled into my bones.
I needed her.
Not just in the primal way I wanted her body, but because she was the only thing that made the old me and the new me feel like one cohesive man. She had seen me bleeding and broken—actually, metaphorically, and mentally—and instead of walking away, she had chosen to drag me back into the light.
Night fell slow, the air outside heavy with the scent of a rain storm that hadn’t broken yet.
Jamie finally stood from the table, stretching her arms above her head and rolling her neck to ease the stiffness.
She had changed out of the restrictive bodysuit into a pair of loose shorts and a thin white t-shirt.
The fabric barely contained the weight of her breasts, her thick nipples pressing hard against the cotton.
Looking at her was driving me entirely out of my mind.
I stood up too, my breathing heavy, my dick already matching the fast, violent thumping of my heart.
She caught the movement and looked up. "You good?"
I nodded, but I didn't stay put. I stepped directly into her space, close enough for her to feel the ragged shift in my chest. I could feel her own pulse racing a mile a minute under her skin.
"Jamie," I said, my voice thick. "I need to talk to you."
She narrowed her pretty eyes, studying my face, but gave me a single nod.
"I don’t want to keep holding what I’m feeling in. I need you to know something, and I want to be entirely clear about it."
Her arms folded over her chest, a defensive instinct, like she was bracing for a blow.
"I don’t see Sophia when I look at you."
Her brow lifted slightly. "Okay."
"I need you to understand that."
Jamie swallowed hard, her throat working, but she stayed quiet. I took another step forward, erasing the remaining distance until the heat of her body bled into mine.
"Because for a long time, I blamed myself. I thought maybe I was just trying to relive her through you. But every single day we spend trapped in this space together just proves how wrong I was."
Her mouth parted slightly, then closed, completely stripped of her usual sharp retorts.
"I spent years thinking I’d never feel a damn thing again," I continued, the words tearing out of my chest. "Not the kind of feeling that makes you want to stay in a room just because someone else is breathing in it." I swallowed the lump in my throat. "You didn’t ask for any of this, and God knows I didn’t either, but I’m fucking glad this is where we landed. "
I reached up, brushing the rough pad of my thumb along her jawline, my voice dropping into a low, gravelly register.
“You’re fucking beautiful, Jamie. Not just your face, or that body that’s been torturing me since the day I locked you in here.
It’s the way you move like the world better watch its fucking step.
The way your mind cuts through the bullshit.
The fire in you. You make me feel alive again. Like a man, Jamie. Not a living ghost.”
I held her gaze, refusing to let her look away.
“And right now… I need to touch you. With every single light in this cabin turned on. I need you to know that I see you. Not a replacement. Not a memory. You. And I want to make love to you.”
She looked away for a fraction of a second, her chest heaving. When her doe eyes snapped back to mine, the vulnerability was gone, replaced by pure, blinding fire.
“Turn the lights on,” she said.
I walked through the cabin, hitting every switch until the space was flooded with bright, unyielding light. She followed me into the bedroom, stopping to stand in the doorway with her arms loose at her sides, watching me like I was the most dangerous thing she'd ever faced.
“Come here,” I murmured.
She walked straight to me.
I reached out, my fingers wrapping around the nape of her neck, sliding down to her collarbone.
I leaned down and kissed her—slow, deep, completely consuming her taste.
Her lips were so plush I couldn't help but nip her bottom one, my hands traveling down to map her wide hips, digging my fingers into all that soft, warm flesh.
A broken moan caught in her throat, vibrating against my mouth as her fingers fisted into my shirt.
I slid my palms beneath the hem of her top and lifted it over her head. She raised her arms willingly, letting the fabric hit the floor.
I stepped back a foot, letting my eyes completely devour her. Heavy breasts, wide hips, thick thighs, and that pretty brown pussy already glistening for me in the bright light. She didn’t flinch under my gaze. She stood proud and let me look at every inch of her.
“Fuck, Jamie,” I breathed, my voice rough with genuine awe. “Look at you… You’re so goddamn perfect.”
I dropped to my knees right there, kissing my way down the center of her body.
Her neck, her breasts, the soft curve of her belly.
I reached for the waistband of her shorts, pulling them down slowly, trailing my mouth over every hidden patch of skin I uncovered.
She stepped out of them, leaving her completely bare before me.
I spread her thick thighs apart and buried my face between them.
She was soaked. Hot. Sweeter than anything I'd ever known. I licked a long, agonizingly slow stripe up her center, then took her swollen clit into my mouth, sucking hard. She gasped loudly, her fingers violently fisting into my hair to keep her balance.
“Vinny—shit—” her voice broke on a ragged moan. “Right there… don’t you dare stop.”
I slid two fingers deep inside her, curling them upward while I worshipped her with my tongue.
Her thighs shook violently against my head, but I didn’t give her a break.
I devoured her until her knees buckled and she came hard, flooding my mouth with her sweetness, crying out my name like the pleasure actively hurt.
I stood up, kissing my way back up her trembling body, and laid her down in the center of the mattress. I stripped out of my clothes in a matter of seconds and crawled over her, settling myself directly between her open thighs.
I aligned the head of my dick with her opening and pushed in slow, inch by agonizing inch, keeping my eyes locked onto her face the entire time. She was so wet, yet so incredibly tight around me, that I had to grit my teeth to keep from losing it.
“Eyes on me,” I growled when her eyelids started to flutter shut.
She obeyed instantly. Those dark, fiery eyes locked into mine as I started to move—deep, heavy, steady strokes that made her gasp and arch her spine off the sheets.
“You feel that?” I rasped, rolling my hips hard against her. “That’s me inside you. No ghosts. Just us.”
Jamie moaned, her nails digging deep into the meat of my back, her thick legs wrapping tightly around my waist to pull me deeper. “Then fuck me like you mean it,” she breathed, her voice completely husky. “Stop holding back, Vinny.”
A guttural groan tore out of my chest, and I gave her exactly what she asked for—harder, devastating thrusts that made the wooden bed frame creak against the wall. “You feel so fucking good… so tight. So wet for me. This pussy was made for me, Jamie.”
She rolled her hips up to meet every strike, actively challenging me. “Then take it. All of it. Stop treating me like I’ll break.”
I gripped her jaw firmly, anchoring her so she had no choice but to look at me as I pounded into her, searching for her deepest depths. “You’re everything, Jamie. The way you take me… the way you look at me… I could stay buried inside you for the rest of my life.”
Her breath hitched, her inner muscles contracting around me as her thighs began to tremble again. “Then don’t stop. I want all of you. Right now.”
I dropped my mouth to her breast, drawing her thick nipple into my mouth and sucking hard while I fucked her deeper. She cried out, her back arching completely off the bed.
“You’re shaking,” I growled against her wet skin. “You feel that? You’re squeezing my dick so fucking tight. Come for me, baby. Let me feel you fall apart.”
“Vinny—”
Her voice cracked completely. Her pussy clenched around my shaft like a vice as she shattered, a violent, pulsing orgasm taking her body as her nails raked down my back.
The sight of her—head thrown back into the pillows, plush lips parted, her entire body seizing with unadulterated pleasure under the bright lights—broke whatever restraint I had left.
I buried myself to the absolute root and followed her straight over the edge, groaning her name like a prayer into the crook of her neck as I filled her, my hips jerking with every heavy pulse.
We stayed locked together long after the storm passed, breathing hard, our skin sweat-slick and trembling against the sheets. I leaned down, kissing her slow, soft, and deep, still buried inside her warmth.
“You’re mine now, Jamie,” I whispered against her lips, my voice entirely hoarse. “And I’m yours. Completely.”