Page 101 of The Kingpin’s Bride

“I love you.”

Matteo’s mouth curved, dark and almost smiling. “Say it dirtier. I’ve earned the filth.”

I dragged my nails down his chest. “I want your cock.”

“Fuck,” he breathed. “That’s my girl.”

He kissed me like he’d been starving for permission and just gotten it. His hand fisted in the back of my shirt. The other locked around the cane so hard the gold skull bit his palm. I pressed closer anyway, hip to hip, and felt him, thick and already leaking through his pants.

“Careful,” I whispered against his mouth.

“Don’t.” The word scraped. “Don’t treat me like I’ll break. I can still put you where I want you.”

“Then do it.”

He turned us using the cane the way he used a gun: no wasted motion. My back hit the vanity. He hooked the skull on the sink, both hands free, and lifted me onto the marble like I weighed nothing.

The mirror caught all of it. Me in his shirt. His ring flashing. His ink. The faint pink line on my cheek. The bare place on my throat where a collar used to sit. The hard line of him straining at his zipper.

“Look at us, baby,” he said, voice gone dark. “Don’t you dare look away.”

He shoved the shirt up, mouthed my throat, and sucked a mark on me. His hand shoved my underwear aside and dragged two fingers through me. I was already soaked. He cursed into my skin and pushed those fingers in, curling until my thighs jumped.

His eyes were on the glass, watching his knuckles disappear. “Pregnant. Dripping.”

He pulled his fingers out, shiny, and painted my bottom lip. “Lick.”

I did. He watched me do it in the mirror. His hips jerked. His mouth brushed my ear. He lined up. The head of him kissed my entrance. He didn’t slam home. He made me watch every inch in the glass: the stretch, the way my mouth fell open, the way his jaw locked.

He rolled his hips. Shallow. Mean. The sink bit the backs of my thighs. Every thrust dragged. Every retreat made me clench like I was trying to keep him. One hand braced on the mirror beside my head. The other found my clit and rubbed tight, filthy circles in time with his hips.

“Good girl. I can tell that pussy missed me,” he smirked. “Fuck.”

He drove in harder. The marble was cold. He was not. His thumb pressed my clit and didn’t let up.

“Come on my cock,” he said against my temple. “Now. I want to feel it. I want you shaking on this counter with my name in your mouth and my ring on your hand while you watch yourself drip down my balls.”

I pulsed around him in helpless little pulls, eyes locked on the mirror, watching my own face go slack while he kept rubbing, kept fucking me through it, kept whispering that’s my girl, that’s my girl, take it.

He followed with a groan he buried in my hair, hips stuttering, spilling hot and deep, so much I felt it fill me.

Epilogue

Matteo

Two years later

Morena sat in the corner of the big sofa with our sons asleep against her. Zeno was fourteen months old, solid and warm, a head of dark hair that refused to stay neat and the same serious eyes I saw in the mirror every morning.

One small fist was curled tight in the front of her blouse.

Pietro was tucked under her other arm, lighter through the shoulders, mouth open, one sock half off. He had his mother’s mouth. Even asleep he looked like he was about to argue. Every few breaths one of them made a soft, content sound.

Camilla was stretched out on the other end of the sofa, almost six now, legs crossed at the ankles. A sketchbook was open across her knees instead of a coloring page. Her tongue poked out at the corner of her mouth the way it always did when she was working. The drawing was not a child’s scribble anymore. Five figures stood under a very large sun, the lines clean enough that you could tell who was who without being told. She had gotten the cane right. She had gotten Morena’s mouth right. She had even gotten the way Pietro always leaned toward whoever was holding Zeno, like he refused to be the second anything.

My chair sat empty across from them. The black-and-gold cane leaned against the armrest, the crowned skull catching the low light. The brace was long gone. The limp remained.

The penthouse felt different than it had two years ago. Safer. Fuller.