“Don’t.”
“Did you just?—”
“I said don’t.”
But the word is in the room with us. It doesn’t have to be said. Both of us know what it is. He’s standing two feet from me. Too close. Not close enough.
I move first. My hands grab his face and yank him down. My mouth crashes into his. For three fucking days, nothing’s felt like mine until this.
He stiffens for half a second, then snaps. The kiss turns vicious. His fingers dig hard into my hips, and I grip him back just as mean.
“What happens,” I gasp against his lips, “to that person. The one who?—”
“Shut up.”
He doesn’t unbutton my cardigan. He rips it open, buttons scattering. The shirt underneath gets the same treatment. His jacket hits the floor, followed by the heavy clatter of his gun. I don’t care. My hands are already tearing at his belt.
“Anyone who touches her dies,” he growls, mouth latched onto my throat, sucking hard enough to mark. “Anyone who even looks at her wrong. Anyone who breathes on her without my fucking permission?—”
“And her?” I bite out. “What happens to her?”
He pulls back just enough for me to see it—the wrecked, feral dark in his eyes.
“She stays.” His voice is rough gravel. “Locked with me. Forever. Whether she wants it or not.”
We stagger backward. My back slams into the cabinet, rattling bottles. One crashes to the floor, glass and liquor exploding across the wood. Neither of us flinches.
He shoves the torn shirt off my shoulders, lifts me like I weigh nothing, and drops me onto the cabinet’s edge. More bottles fall, spilling expensive alcohol down my thigh in cold, sticky rivulets. His hands shove my legs apart.
I feel the word he doesn’t say in every brutal touch.
Mine.
26
RAFFAELE
She’s wrecked.
Hair in her face, whiskey dripping down her shoulder and the slick inside of her thigh, glass crunching under my shoes. Her cardigan’s on the rug, shirt shoved down her arms, legs locked tight around my hips. She’s gripping my cock like she’ll leave bruises on both of us, and my brain has one word in it:more.
I go harder.
The cabinet slams against the wall with every thrust. Two more bottles crash down. One rolls across the rug. I don’t look. Her heels dig into my back, dragging me deeper, and she’s not holding back her voice anymore—raw, broken moans spill out with every stroke.
“Raffaele—”
“I know.”
“I can’t—fuck—I’m gonna?—”
“Then do.”
She shatters. I keep pounding through it, dragging every last pulse out of her until she’s shaking and boneless.
Then she says it.
“I love you.”
