I establish a grueling, heavy rhythm. Each thrust is a physical declaration. I slide my hands up to cup her breasts, rolling her stiff nipples between my thumbs. She arches into my touch, her legs tightening around my waist, her heels digging into my lower back to anchor me even deeper.
The physical mechanics of it are overwhelming. Each time I drive in, the sound of my body slamming into hers ricochets off the marble tile—wet, percussive, absolutely obscene—the sound of a man who has stopped pretending he has any restraint left. I drive my cock into her with the intent to bruise, to leave the internal ghost of my girth stretched against her walls long after I've withdrawn. The heat radiating between us is a furnace. I watch her face, watching the pleasure take hold of her features. Her head falls back, her mouth open, short, panting breaths escaping her.
I shift my grip, moving one hand down between our bodies. I find her swollen clit and press my thumb against it with firm, rhythmic pressure, working it in tight circles as I continue to drive into her.
Sienna shatters instantly.
She screams my name, a full, unrestricted sound, as her orgasm rips through her. Her internal walls clamp down on my cock with crushing force, milking every drop of control out of my system. The violent contraction of her muscles is the trigger.
"Mine," I roar, the word tearing from my throat as I drive into her one final, brutal time. Hot, thick pulses of my seed flood herpussy—a devastating, blinding release that empties twenty years of tension from my bones in a single, catastrophic moment.
I collapse forward, resting my full weight against her, burying my face in the soft crook of her neck. I am breathing like a man who just ran ten miles. She holds me, her arms wrapped tight around my shoulders, her hands tangled in my silver hair. She is stroking my head, a gentle, soothing motion that brings a bizarre, stinging pressure to the back of my eyes.
We stay like that for a long time. The bathroom is thick with the scent of sex and sweat, layered over the cold marble and the faint ghost of her shea and lavender cream.
When my legs are steady enough to hold my weight, I pull back. I carefully withdraw from her—a slow, wet separation that makes her exhale a soft, involuntary sound. I immediately pull her flush against my chest, keeping one hand pressed to the small of her back. I reach for a clean towel from the rack, wet it under the warm water, and gently clean her thighs, wiping away the slick mix of my seed and her wetness. I am meticulous. I am worshipful.
I dry her, then lift her off the vanity. She wraps her arms around my neck, resting her head on my chest as I carry her out of the bathroom and back into the dark bedroom.
I lay her down in the center of the massive bed, pulling the black duvet over her bare body. I strip off the rest of my clothes, dropping my shirt and trousers to the floor, and slide into the bed beside her.
She immediately curls into my side, resting her hand flat against my chest, right over the heavy, rhythmic thud of my heart. Iwrap my arm around her waist, pulling her flush against my side, anchoring her to me.
I stare up at the dark ceiling.
I sent my brothers to burn a building down for her tonight. I showed her the lengths of my obsession, and she accepted it because I directed the violence at her pain. I earned her trust back with blood and fire—and it cost me two good men.
But as I feel her breathing even out against my ribs, a cold, sobering reality settles over me.
She thinks she knows the worst of me now. She thinks the violence of the mafia is my greatest sin. She doesn't know the truth. She doesn't know that my vengeance against the Bellantis isn't a righteous crusade. It is a poison. And twenty years ago, that poison made me do something unforgivable.
I used my own flesh and blood. I sold my sister to a butcher to secure a tactical alliance. I destroyed Lucia's life for this war, the very same war I am now fighting to protect Sienna from.
If I want Sienna to truly be mine—if I want this connection to survive the firestorm that is coming to Chicago—I cannot let her build her love on a half-truth. I have to give her the weapon that could destroy me. I have to tell her what I did to Lucia.
I press a kiss to the top of Sienna's copper hair, closing my eyes. Tomorrow, I will confess my greatest shame. And I will pray to a God I haven't spoken to in twenty years that she doesn't run.
9
Sienna
The room is quiet,the pre-dawn stillness broken only by the distant hum of the city beyond the reinforced glass. I am pinned beneath the heavy, suffocating warmth of the duvet, but the real weight holding me down is the man beside me.
Dominic's arm is locked across my waist, a heavy band of muscle and heat that anchors me to the mattress. His face is buried in the curve of my neck, his breath an even, hot rush against my collarbone. He is asleep, but his grip is absolute. Even in unconsciousness, his body hums with a possessive, territorial frequency. I trace the line of his jaw, feeling the rough scrape of his silver-flecked stubble beneath my fingertips. I follow the thick tendons of his neck down to the brutal span of his shoulders, cataloging the fading bruises and the faint, pale lines of old scars.
Only days ago, I was a florist drowning in rent notices, surrounded by the quiet, predictable life I had built out of soil and stems. Now, I am lying in a fortified Gold Coast compound, the claimed captive of a man who sent his brothers to burn a cityblock to ash because someone dared to touch what belonged to him. What belonged to my grandmother.
He shifts his weight on the mattress, resting his back against the tufted leather headboard. I turn in his arms, my chest sliding against the hard slabs of his pectorals as I face him. I reach up, my fingers trembling as I trace the sharp, lethal line of his jaw, moving down his neck and over the massive span of his shoulders.
“You're awake,” he murmurs. His voice is a low, gravelly rasp that vibrates through my spine.
“So are you.”
He doesn't open his eyes immediately. He simply drags his face down toward me, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against my lips. The scrape of his teeth is a deliberate reminder of his claim. He exhales, a heavy, deeply tired sound that seems to originate from the marrow of his bones. When he finally opens his eyes, the dark, fathomless brown is stripped of the lethal calculation that usually masks his face. In the dim, pre-dawn light filtering through the blackout curtains, he just looks weary. He looks entirely laid bare.
He wraps both arms around me, locking his hands at the small of my back, pulling me deeper into the shelter of his body. I rest my chin on his sternum, feeling the steady, powerful thud of his heart.
“I have spent twenty years controlling every variable in my existence,” he says, staring up at the shadowed ceiling. The silence in the room stretches taut, bracing for whatever he is preparing to dismantle. “Every shipment. Every ledger. Everybullet. I calculated every Bellanti move before they even realized they were making it.”
