“Do you feel anything?” he asked, and I took a deep breath.
“I feel… hot,” I whispered, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“That’s just your body, Dolcezza. You were drugged, but don’t worry, it’ll go away. Just take deep breaths and keep remembering who you belong to.”
“To you?”
He didn’t answer, just held me tighter.
Everything felt half-stitched to reality, like seams between time and thought had been loosened by warm wine and whispered ghosts. My skin felt too tight and too warm now. And that ache… god… it wasn’t going away. It pulsed unbearably.
I knew something was wrong. But nothing had ever felt more right.
I shouldn’t want him. Not like this at least. Not when my head was spinning and my heart was water. But if he was using me… then I wanted to use him too. Wasn’t that fair?
Besides, weren’t we husband and wife… in sheets, if nowhere else?
I pressed my face against his chest, into the thick folds of his blazer, inhaling his scent like oxygen, smoke, and firewood. A trace of danger here and there. And something that made me want to cry.
My fingers moved of their own accord, slipping beneath the lapel, trembling as they found the buttons of his shirt. I barely managed to undo one when his hand snapped around my wrist.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t look at him, yet the ache intensified, cruel in its waking. My thighs clenched instinctively, and I twisted my wrist in his grasp.
“Using… you,” I breathed.
There was a beat of silence before he chuckled.
It was a sound I hadn’t expected. Not amused or cruel, it was something else entirely. And laced with disbelief.
My lashes fluttered as I looked up. He was staring down at me. Jaw tense, mouth parted slightly, and his eyes as darkly stained obsidian. He didn’t speak at first, just stared as if he was trying to solve me, or maybe trying to understand how a thing so small could unravel a man so thoroughly.
He slowly let go of my wrist, and his fingers slid away deliberately. I half-expected him to shove me off, but he leaned back, resting his head against the seat like a king bored at his own court.
“You want to use me? Then use me.” I blinked at him through the haze. “Turn me into your little sin, Dolcezza.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Need and Greed
There is a weight to want, and it’s not a light or soft or fluttery kind. It drags you down by the bones, like grief wearing a dress stitched from heat and hunger.
And right now, it’s sitting in my lap. Or maybe I’m the one in its lap. What a cursed cradle to be held in.
His breathing was too calm for a man of such danger. That stillness that screamed trained control as if he’d been swallowing storms his whole life and still grinned like he’d never tasted thunder.
My hands, these traitorous and trembling hands, moved again. And somehow I was touching places that I had no right to.
I didn’t want to feel safe.
I wanted to feel real.
I wanted to ruin something, even if it was me.
Even if it was him.
So I leaned in.
