His gaze carves through me – shattered, burning, too much to hold all at once. Regret simmers behind his eyes, coiled in shame. I can see each breath he takes is a punishment. ‘I failed you,’ he sighs. ‘What Charlie did...that’s on me. I’ll carry it to my grave.’
I shake my head slowly. ‘I killed his grandson. Not you.’
‘If –’ he begins, but I silence him with a finger across his lips, and a kiss to his neck. ‘I should have stopped him,’ he groans.
Sal’s fists curl as they glide across my skin. ‘It shouldn’t have been that easy to take you from me.’ He swallows hard, his jaw clenched. ‘I won’t let that happen again. Even if it kills me.’
His body wraps protectively around me, his arms across my ribs like a makeshift shield. His heartbeat is wild beneath his shirt. He’s shaking, not from the cold, but from everything he can’t say. I look up, my eyes fixated on the curve of his jaw, and I can see the furrow between his brows. Beneath this mud, we can be anybody, but in the crook of our joined hands, there’s something breathtakingly human – a pulse, a promise. A fragile thread spun from fear and devotion. Something that tastes like love but burns far too hot to name. I can still hear Charlie’s men – boots sloshing through puddles as they circle back, curses slicing through the silence like knives. We lie still, breath syncing, breathing each other in like lifelines.
‘Sal?’ My whisper barely stirs the air, but his fingers tighten, answering without words.
‘Sal?’ I nudge.
‘Yes,’ he breathes.
‘Why don’t you want me?’ I watch him, inches away, and his jaw slackens. His hand is still in mine, but it’s loose now. ‘Oh God, Stella,’ he looks gutted.
The mud isn’t just on his skin – it’s in his soul. It clings to him. His body is a taut wire, every muscle coiled, trembling – not with rage, but with something far worse. I watch him, for a breathless second, and I wonder if I’ve made a mistake, if my question just unlocked a door that should have rusted shut. Because what is rising in his eyes isn’t relief, it’s recognition and ruin.
‘You want to be fucked, Stella? Is that what you want?’ he growls. Does he want me afraid? His words a twisted promise strung with teeth. If fear is what he’s after, he can guess again. I’ve danced with worse nightmares, and they begged for mercy.
‘Well, little bat?’ his smile, now threatening more than it charms. If terror is his aim, he should have brought something sharper than his words. Fear doesn’t flutter in my chest. Not when he looks at me like that. If he wants me trembling, he’ll have to earn it. I don’t break that easily.
I reach between his legs, unbuttoning his trousers, and slide my hand inside. I revel in how my hand stroking the tip of his cock curls his top lip. It’s the kind of look that shouldn’t thrill me. But it does. Because, behind that feral curl lies everything I crave: rage, devotion, and a hunger that doesn’t know when to quit. His head rolls back.
‘Don’t Stella,’ he warns, tightly.
There you are.Not the man you want the world to think you are. Not the charming, composed man with the easy smile. TherealSal. I’ve only ever caught glimpses of him – flashes behind the rage, buried in bruised silences. A man chained to ghosts no one else sees, twisted in his own storm. His mouth, dangerously quiet now curves into something feral, and for once I can see he’s not really fighting it. It’s spilling out of him in slow, exquisite agony. And I? I should be afraid. But I’m not. Because this version of him – the broken, brutal, boundless Sal – is mine. And some monsters, once unmasked are far too beautiful to be buried again. I’ve chased shadows of him since we met – a caged Sal bound to his own torment. His stare is a blade pressed to my throat, not to hurt me, no, but to remind me who he is when he stops pretending to be good. And I know if we’re going to claw our way out of this mess alive, the real Sal is the one that needs to come out to play. Just fire in his blood, and my name on his tongue.
I massage harder.
He surges to his feet, eyes wild. There’s no warning. No words. His hand closes around my wrist. Firm. Bruised with desperation. ‘Come on,’ he growls. I stumble after him through the thorns, down the slope towards the stream. When we reach the bank, we stop. Just for a breath. He turns to me, and I see it – everything he’s tried to hold back. The rage. The grief. The ache that’s been screaming beneath his skin.
‘Get on your knees, Stella.’ This isn’t the man I met. He’s colder now, but hotter in the way that burns from the inside. He’s stopped looking over his shoulder. Stopped hesitating. The water is cold, sharp and merciless, and I didn’t see it coming. One second, Sal’s eyes blaze like wildfire, fierce and alive. The next second, as I kneel on the ground, breath caught mid-gasp, his hand is in my hair. A fistful of control.
Then-plunge.
The stream devours my face. My scream shatters into bubbles, ripping through the water as I thrash, lungs clawing for air, nails clawing at the bank.
Let me go. No!
He yanks me up, and I collapse, dripping and breathless, blinking through the rage.
‘You want the real me, Stella? Well, hold on,’ again he plunges my head underwater. My lungs sting, but this time, I don’t resist. He pulls me up for the second time. ‘I warned you,’ he says, low and wrecked against my ear. ‘You free me...there’s no putting me back.’
And I smile. ‘Good!’ I breathe. ‘I wasn’t looking for a gentleman. I need a storm.’
His hands tremble as they grip my jaw, and when his mouth meets mine – it’s not a kiss – it’s a reckoning. There’s no point of him trying to be gentle. This version of Sal doesn’t ask nicely. He claims. He demands.
‘Say it!’ he rasps. ‘Say you want this.’
I do.
I cup his face. ‘I want this. I want you. All of you.’
He breaks against me. Not gently. Not quietly. His fingers knot in my hair again. And this time, there’s even less hesitation. He shoves my head underwater again. The water gushes against my face, my breath vanishes. Again, I don’t fight. He’s not drowning me. He’s purging me. His hand wraps around my throat holding me under water, and I feel the cold breeze against my backside as he lifts my skirt. His hot breath fanning my butt cheeks as he plants soft kisses against my skin. He pulls me from the water and I gasp.
‘Take a deep breath,’ he coos, before plunging me down again. My fingers clutch tightly to the jagged rocks, my fingernails split and caked in mud, the stream dragging at my arms like it wants to claim me. Cold water surges past, a thousand icy hands trying to pull my entirety under, but I hold on – barely. He thrusts against me, his cock pushing hard and fast between my legs and my mouth agapes. Water rushes in, filling the hollow space, baptizing me in ruin.
