I cross my arms, nails biting into my skin just to keep myself steady. “You think this erases everything my father did?”
“No,” he says without hesitation. “But it means you’re no longer his to use.”
The words slice through me, too sharp to ignore. My throat tightens because I can’t deny it—he saved me. He married me to shield me, and that truth settles in my chest like a stone I can’t cough up. I don’t want to cry. I won’t. I’ve been caged, silenced, threatened. I won’t break now because of Enzo Marchetti.
But God, I’m so damn tired. Tired of holding every jagged piece of myself together. Tired of pretending I don’t feel this fire every time he looks at me. Pretending I don’t want to cross the space between us, crawl into his lap, and let him burn the past off my skin with nothing but his hands.
I perch on the arm of the chair, close enough to test him, far enough to pretend it’s casual. His gaze tracks me, patient, steady, infuriating.
“I don’t trust you,” I say.
“I don’t blame you.”
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
My tongue darts across my lips before I can stop it. His eyes catch the movement, dark and sharp, and the weight of his gaze pins me where I sit. My chest tightens, my pulse tripping over itself, and suddenly the space between us feels too charged, too dangerous to ignore. I hate the way the question claws up my throat, but it’s already burning on my tongue before I can smother it.
“Are you going to kiss me?” The words come out quieter than I mean them to, thinly veiled with defiance but tangled with something far more reckless.
He leans forward just enough that I feel the pull of him, his voice rough when it comes. “No. I’ll starve you of it until you’re desperate. Until you beg for my mouth. Until you crawl to meand prove you understand—there’s no one else you’ll ever belong to.”
That maddening confidence. That quiet patience. It unravels me in ways his aggression never could.
He settles deeper into the couch, arms stretched wide along the back, the picture of control. “When you’re ready,” he says, voice even, certain. “When you want it, I’m right here.”
The words land hard. My pulse hammers against my ribs, a traitor to the fury I keep trying to stoke. I want to throw something at his head, scream until my throat gives out, remind him and myself that I didn’t ask for this. That he forced my hand. That he is the reason my world is shattered beyond repair.
But another part of me—the part I hate—doesn’t want to fight. It wants to move closer. To kneel between his knees, curl into the strength of him, let him hold the pieces I’ve been carrying alone. That thought burns worse than any anger.
The silence stretches, thick and heavy, binding us tighter than the marriage license on the kitchen island. Outside, Chicago glitters and hums, but here it’s only him. The weight of his stare. The impossible choice pressed against my ribs.
I pace the edge of the room, the cold marble beneath my feet useless against the heat simmering in my skin. My mind betrays me with memory—his mouth on mine in Detroit, then again in his kitchen. Both kisses were different, yet the same. Hungry, reverent, consuming. Like he was trying to carve the shape of me into himself so he’d never forget. I told myself that the first night was nothing but sex, a moment of escape I could fold away and bury.
But the past weeks have destroyed that lie. It wasn’t just sex. It never was.
I almost gave in the second he touched me again—the night he denied me, the night he held the line I couldn’t. And when I was trapped under my father’s thumb, it wasn’t anyone else I thought of. It was him. It’s his body that’s haunted me for two years, the one I’ve recreated in my imagination every time I’ve touched myself just to remember what it felt like to be wanted like that.
I spin toward him, fire in my veins. “You think you can just sit there and wait me out?”
He shrugs, lips curving. “I said I wouldn’t make the first move. I meant it.”
I cross the room, his gaze trailing down the length of me—legs, hips, lace—and then back to my eyes.
“So that’s it?” My voice sharpens. “You just wait, smug and silent, until I’m desperate enough to crawl into your lap again?”
His stare doesn’t waver. “No waiting, Angel. Just time. And we have plenty of it now.”
My pulse spikes, anger tangling with want until I can’t separate one from the other. I want to slap him. I want to fuck him. Iwant to burn out this rage in the only way he’s ever let me—by giving in.
So I do the only thing that makes sense in the chaos of this moment. I walk straight to him, planting myself between his knees. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t lift a finger. Just waits—dark eyes fixed on me.
“You’re an arrogant asshole,” I whisper.
“Absolutely.”
I lower myself into his lap, the shift in the air sharp as my bare skin brushes the open edge of his shirt. His muscles tense beneath me, but his hands stay at his sides.
