The house is quiet when I return.
Not peaceful. Not warm. Just… empty.
The kind of quiet that seeps into your bones. That clings to the walls like blood under your fingernails. I close the front door and lock it—not because I expect trouble, but because that’s what I do. I secure things. I deal with threats. I keep what’s mine safe.
Even if I have to be a monster to do it.
I stripped off my bloodied jacket hours ago. Washed my hands at the last safehouse before getting back in the car. Scrubbed until my skin burned. But I can still feel it—the weight of it. The rage. The guilt.
The silence.
Because no matter how many times I tell myself I did the right thing—no matter how many bodies I bury for her—it never feels clean.
I climb the stairs, ignoring the whisper of memories in every shadow.
I didn’t mean to fall in love with her.
I meant to claim her. Protect her. Use the marriage to solidify a truce, and keep her far from the blood that built my empire.
But the moment I saw her walk barefoot through the garden with moonlight in her eyes, I knew—
I wouldn’t survive this woman.
When I get to the bedroom, I stop dead in the doorway.
She’s sprawled sideways across the bed, curled in on herself, one leg bent, her nightgown hiked halfway up her thigh. The firelight catches the pale silk of her skin and the soft curve of her waist, and for a second, I can’t breathe.
She looks fragile, and breakable.
And I am anything but gentle.
I should leave her alone. Sleep on the couch. Pretend I’m still the man who knows how to wait. How to protect her without tasting her again. But I can’t—not after tonight. Not after wrapping my hands around the throat of the man who gave her away like a lamb to slaughter.
Her uncle begged. I didn’t listen.
Because the second he said her name—said it like it was just another move on the board—I saw red.
And now?
Now I need her like penance.
I step inside and sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips under my weight, and she stirs.
Her lashes flutter, and she blinks up at me, sleep-hazed and soft. “Luca?”
“Go back to sleep.”
She shifts onto her back, the neckline of her nightgown slipping off one shoulder. Her skin glows in the firelight, and I hate myself for the way my cock stirs at the sight.
“Is something wrong?” she asks, voice laced with sleep and worry.
Everything’s wrong.
And she doesn’t know the half of it.
“No.”
I lie. Because if I tell her the truth, she’ll look at me like I’m a monster in the dark.
Maybe I am.
She reaches for me, her hand ghosting over my thigh. I catch her wrist—not rough, but firm—and press it back to the bed.
“Don’t,” I rasp.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t take you gently tonight.”
Her breath hitches.
She stares up at me, eyes wide, pupils dilating.
“Then don’t,” she whispers.
Two words.
That’s all it takes.
I snap.
I’m on her in an instant, my mouth crushing hers, my body pressing her down into the mattress. She gasps into the kiss but doesn’t resist. Her arms wrap around my neck, her fingers tangling in my hair as she arches against me like she’s been starving too.
I kiss her like she’s air and I’m suffocating.
She tastes like heat and honey and something I can’t name.
My hands drag down her body, gripping her thighs and yanking them apart. I grind against her, letting her feel the length of me, thick and hard through my slacks.
“You don’t know what I’ve done for you,” I growl against her throat. “What I’ve ruined. What I’ve become.”
“I don’t care.”
“You fucking should.”
She lifts her hips, rubbing against me like she’s trying to drive me mad. It’s working.
“I just want you.”
Her voice is breathless, unsteady, but sure.
And I’m gone.
I tear the nightgown straight down the center, exposing her completely. Her breath catches, but her eyes stay locked on mine.
“God, look at you,” I rasp. “Soft. Bare. Fucking mine.”
I lower my mouth to her chest, sucking her nipple between my lips, biting just hard enough to make her gasp. She moans and grabs at my shoulders, nails dragging down my back like she wants to mark me too.
I kiss lower, down her stomach, to her hips. Then farther.
When I reach her center, I don’t tease.
I spread her open with my hands and bury my face between her thighs.
She cries out, head falling back, hips bucking up into my mouth.
“You taste like a fucking dream,” I groan. “Sweet and wet and made for me.”
I eat her like it’s my only job—tongue deep, rough, relentless. Her thighs shake. Her fists clench the sheets. And when she shatters around my mouth, she screams my name like it’s the only word she remembers.
But I’m not done.
I never am.
I crawl back up, kissing her neck, her collarbone, the soft skin beneath her ear.
I unbuckle my belt and shove my slacks down, my cock springing free—hard, heavy, aching for her.
When I line up at her entrance, I pause.
“You want me to stop?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“No,” she whispers, wrecked. “Please. I need you.”
I push inside her with one deep, devastating stroke.
She gasps, her eyes rolling back, her body arching off the bed.
“Fuck,” I grit. “You feel like heaven. Like home. Like everything I never deserved.”
I thrust again. And again.
Slow at first. Deep. Purposeful.
Each movement driving us both higher.
I grip her hips, hold her steady, fuck her like I’m trying to rewrite every bad thing I’ve ever done.
“Say it,” I pant. “Tell me who you belong to.”
“You,” she moans.
“Louder.”
“Only you, Luca.”
I growl, thrusting harder. “That’s fucking right. No one else gets you. No one else hears those sounds. No one else sees you like this.”
My hand slides to her throat—not to choke, just to feel the flutter of her pulse as I bury myself inside her again and again.
“You’re mine,” I snarl. “Every inch. Every breath. Every fucking heartbeat.”
She moans, her voice ragged, her body tightening around me like she’s about to fall apart.
“Come for me,” I command. “Let me feel it. Let go for me, baby.”
She obeys.
Her orgasm hits her like a wave—loud, messy, unrestrained.
I follow a heartbeat later, spilling inside her with a hoarse cry, grinding into her so deep I swear I feel her soul shudder against mine.
We collapse together in a tangle of limbs and heat and sweat.
Breathless. Shaking.
Ruined.
She runs her fingers through my hair, soft and slow. I press my forehead to her chest and breathe her in like she’s the only clean thing left in my world.
I want to tell her everything.
About the blood on my hands. The way her uncle begged. The sound his bones made when they snapped.
But I don’t.
Because if I tell her now—she won’t look at me the same way in the morning.
And I’m not ready to lose her.
