The villa is too quiet.
It’s the kind of quiet that feels staged. Like someone scrubbed the world clean and hit pause to stop anyone from seeing what’s really there. Every corner is picture-perfect—gold light flowing through arched windows, white petals scattered across the terrace like confetti from a ghost wedding. Even the water in the distance seems hushed, the waves softer somehow. Polite.
But I don’t feel polite. I feel like I’m unraveling, and that at any moment the thread I am hanging on by is going to snap.
It’s been three days since my wedding.
Three days since he touched me—tasted me—claimed me.
Three days since I stopped pretending I didn’t want him to do it again.
I should be ashamed of that. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just too spun out to know what’s shame and what’s survival anymore.
The silk slip I wear clings to my skin like liquid. It’s pale rose, almost see-through in the fading light, the hem brushing just under my ass, exposing me with every step I take. I told myself I put it on for comfort. But comfort doesn’t usually come with lace trim or matching panties I never used to own.
The garden terrace is still warm from the boiling hot day. The stone beneath my bare feet feels sun-kissed and smooth.
I walk further away, closer to the danger I crave more than I should.
I trail my fingertips along the balustrade, passing rose bushes in bloom, their petals bruised from the heat. The air is heavy with the scent of jasmine and citrus. Cicadas hum in the olive trees. The whole scene could be something from a dream—too perfect, too beautiful.
Too still.
I feel it. That subtle shift in the air. That electric tension that zaps up my spine like someone just breathed my name without saying it out loud.
I don’t have to turn around. I already know. He’s behind me.
Luca.
I feel his presence like gravity. Like heat. Like the inevitable pull of something I’ve been pretending I could resist.
“You’re barefoot again,” he says softly.
His voice is like smoke. Smooth. Dangerous. Seductive.
“I didn’t hear you come out,” I say, not turning around.
“I didn’t announce myself.”
I swallow hard. My skin prickles beneath the silk. The air between us thickens, heady and heavy. It is not the humidity, it’s him.
“You didn’t come to breakfast,” he adds, stepping closer. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”
“I needed some air.”
“You could’ve asked me to walk with you.”
I finally turn, and instantly regret it.
He’s dressed in black again. No tie. Shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing forearms that look carved from stone. His hair is mussed like he’s been dragging his hands through it. And his eyes—those cold, calculating green eyes—are locked on me like I’m his next confession or his next sin.
“I didn’t think you were the type for strolls in the garden,” I murmur.
“I’m not,” he says, his mouth tilting in the barest hint of a smile. “But for you—”
He steps closer. Close enough that I feel the heat of his body. Close enough that my breath catches and my nipples pebble beneath the thin silk of my slip.
“I can’t breathe when you look at me like that,” I whisper.
“Then stop looking like a fucking fantasy and I won’t.”
He reaches out slowly, brushing his fingers along my arm. A featherlight touch that sets fire to my skin. He trails upward, over my shoulder, then runs his thumb over my bottom lip.
“You always smell like flowers,” he murmurs. “Do you do that on purpose?”
“No.”
“You should,” he says. “Because it drives me out of my mind.”
His hand slides down again—over my hip, along the curve of my thigh. He stops just beneath the hem of my slip. My breath hitches, but I don’t pull away.
“Why haven’t you touched me since our wedding night? Don’t you want me?” I ask, my voice quieter than I mean for it to be.
His jaw tightens. “Because I told myself I would let you come to me. That I’d be the patient man who waits.”
“And now?”
His eyes darken. “Now I’m not sure I can wait another fucking second.”
He pins me to the stone wall with his body, not roughly—but completely. One hand braces beside my head, the other cups my jaw, tilting my face toward his. His lips are so close I can feel the heat of them brush my own.
“I’ve been good,” he whispers. “I haven’t touched you I wasn’t going to unless you begged. Haven’t kissed you and wouldn’t unless you opened for me. I haven’t taken what I want.”
His voice drops lower.
“You think I want to beg? You think I want to wonder why my husband doesn’t want me?”
His hand slides higher beneath the slip. His fingers find the damp heat between my thighs, and I gasp.
“You came out here like this,” he growls, “wearing this—barefoot and needy—on purpose, hoping I’d find you.”
“Yes,” I breathe.
That single word shatters whatever self-control he had left. His mouth crashes down on mine.
It’s not gentle. It’s fire and force and hunger.
I open for him, kissing him back with everything I’ve been bottling up for days. My hands tangle in his shirt, fingers clawing at the fabric, pulling him closer.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, pinning me to the wall. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively. He grinds against me, hard and thick through his pants, and I moan into his mouth.
“You want me to stop?” he asks, voice rough, raw, torn.
“No,” I gasp. “Don’t stop.”
He lowers me just enough to rip the slip over my head and toss it to the stone bench behind us. My panties are gone a second later—torn away with a sharp tug that makes my skin shiver.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He drops to his knees in front of me and drags his tongue over my pussy like he’s starving for it. I cry out, my hips jerking against his mouth, my hands fisting in his hair.
He moans low against me, the sound vibrating straight through my core.
“You taste like heaven,” he mutters. “Sweet. Soaked. Mine.”
He laps at me with slow, devastating licks—one hand spreading me wider, the other gripping my thigh. He doesn’t let up until I’m shaking, legs trembling, back arching against the wall as I come on his face.
He still doesn’t stop.
He devours. He worships.
When I come again, it’s with a helpless cry, my fingers digging into his shoulders, my whole body unraveling for him.
He stands slowly, his lips wet with my arousal, his eyes blazing with possession.
“Look at you,” he rasps. “Shaking. Wrecked. So fucking beautiful like this.”
He kisses me again, slower now, but no less desperate. And when he lifts me again and carries me to the bench, I don’t ask questions. I just let him lay me back, spread me open, and slide his cock inside me with a low groan that sounds like relief. It hurts less this time, but it still stretches me so wide I feel I’m being torn in two.
“Luca…” I whisper, gripping his arms.
He cups my jaw, kissing me hard. “You’re mine now. You understand me?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
He thrusts deeper. “Again.”
“I’m yours, Luca.”
He fucks me like he’s reclaiming something he lost—deep, slow strokes that drive me wild, fingers gripping my hips like they were made for his hands. I never quite imagined what ex would be like, I was raised to be afraid of it, I never expected to enjoy the ‘chore’ my mother had resented so much.
I come again before he does, clenching so tight around his cock I can feel it throb.
And when he finally lets go, groaning my name as he spills inside me, I don’t feel shame.
I feel power. I feel wanted. I feel whole.
And maybe that should scare me. Because somewhere in all that heat and hunger, I realize the truth.
I don’t want to escape him. I want to be his. I like being his wife, his toy, his possession.
