His gaze never leaves my body as he undoes the last button.
The shirt hangs open now, lightning and shadow painting my exposed skin in stark relief. I'm trembling so hard my teeth almost chatter. The rain starts—fat warm drops that quickly soak the white cotton until it's transparent, clinging to my body. His eyes go dark as he watches the fabric mold to my breasts, my nipples hard and visible through the wet material.
"Look at you," he murmurs, his fingers ghosting along the open edge of the shirt without quite touching skin. "Not performing, not pretending, just purely, genuinely terrified and turned on. Do you have any idea what that does to me? How many women have faked innocence in my bed, and here you are, the real thing, shaking like a leaf in my shirt?"
Thunder crashes again, and the rain burns my lips as I gasp for air, tasting metal and ozone.
Instead of tearing the shirt off like I expect, Alessandro pulls it closed to cover me. The gesture is so unexpected, so different from what I anticipated, that I can only stare at him in shock.
"You're different," he says roughly, his hands gentle as they adjust the shirt's lapels, though I can feel them trembling with restraint. "The others—they knew the game. Knew what they were trading, what I was buying. But you…"
The rain soaks his chest, outlining muscles in glistening glory, but he doesn't notice. His focus is entirely on me, on keeping his shirt closed around my body despite the obvious tent in his pants.
"I should be taking you right here," he continues, voice strained. "Bent over this ledge, teaching you exactly what happens to girls who steal from me. That's what the old me would do. What I want to do."
"Then why—"
"Because you're not like them!" The words explode from him. "You're not performing. This isn't some calculated virgin act to drive up your price. You're genuine… actually innocent. And once I destroy that, once I corrupt you completely, I can never get it back."
The admission seems to cost him something. He steps back, giving me space I don't want, and I can see him rebuilding his control brick by brick.
"I want to corrupt you," he says quietly, rain streaming down his face. "Want to teach that beautiful body every sinful thing it's capable of. Want to watch you fall apart on my fingers, my tongue, my cock." Each word makes heat pulse between my thighs despite myself. "But not like this. Not when you're terrified and half-naked on a rooftop."
He makes a choice right then, visible in the set of his shoulders. His hands stay gentle as he holds the shirt closed, ashe guides me toward the door. "We're going inside before you catch pneumonia."
"Why do you care?" The question slips out before I can stop it.
He pauses at the door, looking back at me with an expression I can't read. "Because you're mine to protect, even from myself. And because when I do finally have you—and I will have you, Frances—I want you to want it. I want you begging for it with that sweet mouth, not trembling in the rain like a sacrificial virgin." His voice drops to a growl. "Though the image of you as my personal sacrifice does have its appeal."
The promise in his voice makes me shiver for entirely different reasons. He notices, of course. Alessandro notices everything about my body's responses.
His hand settles on my lower back as he leads me inside, the heat of his palm burning through the wet shirt. Each step down the stairs feels like descending back into captivity, but something has shifted between us. Some invisible line has been crossed.
"Next time you want to look at stars, stellina," he says as we reach our bedroom door, "ask me to join you."
"You care about astronomy?" I can't hide my surprise.
"I care about learning what makes my wife sneak out of bed at 2 AM." His thumb strokes along my spine, sending unwanted shivers through me. "I care about understanding what puts that light in your eyes. Even if it means standing in the rain hearing about Perseus and Andromeda."
I can't help myself, I have to ask. "Stellina?"
"Little star," he says without looking at me, that warm hand still resting on my lower back, swaying with every step I take.
My chest squeezes. "Would you really watch them with me?"
"I'll do more than watch." He opens the bedroom door, guiding me inside with that ever-present hand on my back. "I'llbuy you a telescope. Hell, I'll buy you an entire observatory if it means you'll stop stealing my shirts and running to rooftops without me."
"I don't want—"
"I know what you want." He turns me to face him, fingers gentle as they frame my face, though I feel the barely leashed violence in his touch. "You want your freedom. Want to be yourself, not this performance. Want to save those you care about and disappear into those stars you love so much."
My blood chills at his words. Does he know? My knees feel weak, and only his hands on my face keep me upright.
"But here's the thing, stellina." His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, catching a raindrop or maybe a tear. "You're starting to want something else too. I can feel it in the way your body responds to mine. See it in the way you lean into my touch even when your mind screams to run."
He's right. The most dangerous part of this isn't that he wants to possess me. Part of me wants to let him. Wants to know what it would feel like to stop fighting, to surrender to this dark hunger building between us.
"Get some sleep," he says, stepping back. "You like tired."
