“And what are we?” she asks, mouth a fraction open.
“Working hard,” I say, and then I put my mouth on hers, her hand on my rigid cock, and stop pretending I have a temper left to save. “Very hard indeed.”
It starts hungry, goes dangerous, then finds the softness I reserve for her and no one else: my hand cupping her jaw, mythumb drawing circles that quiet storms, my body not slamming hers because I’ve learned that restraint is the dirtiest thing I own.
The bottom of the slip whispers up as her thighs part, but the top rips clean in two beneath my greedy fingers. The velvet chair takes her weight as I anchor her, taste her, let anger scorch down into heat and then into something that sounds like vow when I breathe it against her tongue.
“Say you’re mine,” I mutter, just to hear it.
“I’m yours,” she whispers, because in this room and this hour it’s the only true thing that fits in our mouths.
When I finally let her breathe fully, she pants and blinks. Then she crooks her finger.
I let her unbuckle my belt and worship my cock with her mouth and tongue and teeth. And when I hiss and taste heaven and come hard, we both laugh after, wrecked and inadequate.
Then we pull ourselves back into something that can face pins and cameras without confessing.
“Five minutes,” I call toward the door, not taking my eyes off her. “Then we want the wedding dress.”
A chorus ofsi, signorescatters down the corridor.
I straighten her, remove the torn silk, toss it away and cover her with a dressing gown, pressing my mouth to her temple.
“We’ll win this,” I tell her quietly. “I didn’t come this far to lose to a man who can’t keep his own name clean.”
“Neither did I,” she says, and the steel in it sets my bones.
The designers return; the ritual resumes.
Naomi steps into something moon-pale and fitted like intention. They pin, they murmur, they defer to my nod and her no. When the final chalk marks are made and the last pleat agrees to obey, I thank them, sign what needs signing, and we leave the salon into a smaller, quieter fitting room with a sofa and a low table and a bottle already sweating in a bucket.
Which is when I do the thing I promised myself I would do clean, not couched inside a fight. I take the box from my jacket—sleek, new, matte black—and set it on the table.
“Before dinner,” I say. “A gift.”
Her gaze flicks to mine, then to the box, then back, cautious as a deer that learned what salt licks can hide.
“Open it.”
She does. The phone inside looks like any other until you know what it is—secure number, secure messaging, geo-scrubbed, white-listed to bounce venom. Sleek as a knife but kinder than it looks.
Her face shifts. Beautiful. Then shuttered. Then wounded. “You bought me a new phone? You don’t trust me.”
###
I shouldn’t be surprised, but the sting is still sharp.
The phone sits in its little coffin like a verdict; my heart gives a very stupid little lurch I pretend is annoyance.
“I trust that you said it won’t happen again,” he says, steady, not defensive. “But I also know that trust comes with work. This is to simplify yours.”
“Way to couch it in supportive language,” I say, because sarcasm is easier than oaths, and I watch his mouth tighten at the edges.
He doesn’t look away. “It took me a while to realize it, maybe a little too long to accept it.” He breathes out. “But you have a soft and giving heart. Even for monsters.”
“Harrison is not—” I stop, because defending a hurricane is a waste of sandbags. “He’s my father.”
“And he knows exactly how to be that,” Vasso says, gentler than the words deserve. “He will keep reaching for your soft places until you armor them or I take his hands. You can have your old phone back if you wish and I’ll stand next to you while you fight him.” His eyes hold mine without flinching. “Oryou can accept this and remove the heartache of loving a father who?—”
