He takes my hand. Firm. Warm. Callused in places that don’t match the life he presents to the outside world. I register it automatically. File it. Not because it matters now, but because I don’t know how to stop cataloging what might.
We leave the gallery. Past Isabelle’s portrait. Past the corridor that still holds the shape of what just happened. The house has already absorbed it. No raised voices. No running footsteps. Just silence reorganizing itself around a new reality.
Dante is gone.
I walk beside Alessandro without resisting the contact. That’s new. Not compliance. Not calculation. Choice.
The north wing is empty. Cleared without announcement. No guards visible, which means they’re exactly where they’re supposed to be. Out of sight. Within range.
Everything is controlled again.
Too late.
Inside his room, he releases my hand. The loss of contact registers. Not absence. Not discomfort. Just noted. One lamp turns on beside the bed, giving enough light to see. Not enough to soften anything.
He stands at the foot of the bed, waiting to see what I do next.
“I want you, Alessandro,” I say. “After tonight, I need you.”
I reach for the hem of my blouse and pull it over my head. Slow. Not deliberate for effect. Deliberate because I am aware of every movement I make now. Every choice.
The fabric falls to the floor. I don’t look away from him.
He starts undressing at the same time. No hesitation. No break in eye contact. Buttons undone with the same precision he uses everywhere else. Shirt off. Set aside without looking.
He’s exactly what he has always been. Lean. Controlled. Built for decisions, not comfort. There’s nothing ornamental about him. Not even the damage. The scar on his shoulder is still healing.
I step closer. Close enough to feel the heat off his skin. Close enough that distance stops being theoretical.
“I need you,” I repeat.
He sits on the mattress, legs spread, hands open. I could fall to my knees, tongue his inner thigh. I could climb him, bite his lip.
I take the second option, straddling him right there before gravity can shake me out of courage. My thighs clench around his, silk stockings against linen. I grip his jaw in my palm, thumb at the edge of his teeth, and he bares them. An animal, not a man. Not for this moment.
We kiss like we’re killing each other, hips rolling to bruise, his hands clawing up my back. He tears my bra; it’s simply in his way, and I’m glad to hear the hooks pop off my shoulders, the sharp, bright sound of it threading into my veins and turning to heat. He mouths at my collarbone, no finesse, only hunger. Bites down, just shy of real pain, then sucks until my skin blooms red.
I drag my nails down his chest, and he arches up to meet me, lips wet. My skirt’s already hiked over my hips, and he shoves my panties aside, fingers plunging without preamble. Two at once, so deep I gasp involuntarily and grab hard at his hair.
I have never wanted this much to be filled, to be stretched until I come apart. I swear, if I could unzip my pelvis and crawl out of the wet, wanting mess beneath, I would, just to see the hunger on his face when he’s inside me.
I grind down on his hand while I fumble his belt out of the buckle, unzip him, and scrape my knuckles along the length of him through his boxers. He’s hard. So hard, it’s almost comical, cartoonish, and this gives me a mean thrill. I don’t want to be dominated, not really. I want him ugly and desperate, too.
So I angle my hips, ride his fingers, and thumb him through the cotton until he groans into my mouth. He tears down my panties with the same indifference. We’re messy already. His lips have smeared my lipstick, his hands are wet, my thighs are painted with myself. I imagine how I must look: hair wild, shirtless, ruined. I hope it’s burned in his mind forever, that I’m all he’ll see when his hands are empty for the rest of his hollow days.
I drop off his lap and slide between his knees, cheek pressed to one pale thigh. I want to wound him with wanting, show him how savage I can be. I grind my teeth lightly up his shaft through the fabric, drawing it out until he’s hissing, knuckles bone-white against the bedsheets.
I yank his boxers down with my teeth, savor the electric startle in his voice—a harsh, low“fuck, Evie”—then take him in. He tastes like salt and hunger. I suck him hard, unashamedly, spit dripping down my chin, and watch his face the whole time. I want him to see the complicated crumple of me, the slack-jawed pleasure, the way I hollow my cheeks and let my mascara run.
He grabs the back of my head like he thinks he can force it, but I’m ahead of him every time. I draw it out, pinning his hips with my forearm, tongue rolling under his cock and letting him twitch at the edge, refusing to let the pleasure crest. I want him strung out, ruined, as senseless as I am. I alternate slow, lazy strokes with furious, merciless suction, watching him dissolve, watching control splinter off his face. I pretend to surrender, letting him guide my head, but just when he tries to thrust up, I clamp my teeth and look up at him, wide-eyed.
The sound he makes, hoarse and not quite human, thrills me. If he weren’t already on the brink, I’d keep him here for the rest of our days.
He’s close. I can feel it in the tremor of his thighs and the way he’s started breathing through his teeth, little ragged pants. I use my left hand to stroke him, my right bracing myself on his knee, keeping him from fucking my face outright.
The desperation is infectious, I feel my own pussy clench, my own breath grow short. I want to taste him, and yet I want him inside me even more. So I let go, wipe my mouth on the back of my hand, and crawl up his lap and ride his cock. Right then, with no warning, not even a flicker of self-consciousness as I impale myself on him.
The stretch splits me open, body and mind, and I hiss through my teeth, punching my hips down with a violence that leaves no room for doubt. It hurts, the ache of relentless want, but I’m greedy for more, greedy for the friction burn, greedy forthe way his arms clamp around my waist and grind me against his lap.
