The silence that follows is absolute.
I understand now. The arranged marriage was monstrous, but it was strategic—a cold, calculated gambit with an exit built in.The real sin, the one that has eaten Dominic alive for a year, is simpler and more devastating: he couldn't love a four-year-old girl in tiny shoes because loving her meant admitting he wasn't God.
I sit up. The cool air of the room hits my bare breasts, but the chill doesn't register. I look at the span of his back as he shifts to sit on the edge of the mattress, his broad, scarred shoulders curved forward, his head dropped, his hands gripping his thick, silver-streaked hair. The tension radiating off his massive frame is suffocating. He is waiting for me to run. He is waiting for the condemnation he has been carrying to finally be spoken aloud by the woman he has become entirely obsessed with.
I slide across the mattress. I don't hesitate. I don't retreat.
I press my chest flush against his spine. I wrap my arms around his thick waist, resting my cheek between his shoulder blades. I feel the violent flinch that ripples through his body at my touch. He freezes, entirely paralyzed by the fact that I haven't backed away.
"Sienna," he warns, a rough, gravelly sound of disbelief.
"You were twenty-five," I say softly, my voice steady in the quiet room. "You were twenty-five, you were grieving, and you were trying to keep nine boys from being slaughtered by a syndicate that had already murdered your parents."
"It doesn't excuse it," he growls, his hands dropping to cover mine where they are locked over his stomach. He doesn't pry them away; he grips them like a lifeline.
"No," I agree, tightening my hold on him. "It doesn't excuse it. The plan—the trap—maybe that was strategy. But Tyra wasn'tstrategy. You couldn't hold a little girl who needed her uncle because your pride wouldn't let you."
He shudders, a massive, structural failure of a man who has never been allowed to collapse.
"That doesn't make it right," I whisper, pressing my mouth to the hot, scarred skin of his shoulder. "But it makes you human. And the fact that it's eating you alive a year later tells me you know exactly what you lost."
The sound that tears out of Dominic's throat is something between a sob and a roar. It is the sound of a twenty-year dam breaking, a violent shattering of the armor he has worn since the day he buried his parents. He twists, moving so fast I barely have time to register the shift in gravity before I am slammed backward onto the mattress.
Dominic is over me, his massive frame caging me in. His face is flushed, his eyes wild and entirely consumed by a feral, desperate worship. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to. He crashes his mouth down onto mine, and the kiss is a brutal, frantic collision of teeth and tongue.
There is no careful pacing, no gentle seduction. He kisses me like he is starving, like my breath is the only oxygen left in a burning room. I open for him instantly, tangling my fingers in his thick hair, pulling him closer, deeper. He groans, the sound vibrating into my mouth, a heavy, carnal noise that sets fire to the blood in my veins.
He strips away the remaining distance, his large hands gripping my thighs and spreading them wide. The cool air hits the slick heat between my legs, but it is immediately replaced by the scorching warmth of his mouth.
Dominic drops his head between my thighs, his broad shoulders settling between my knees.
"Dominic—" I gasp, my back arching off the mattress as his mouth claims me.
"Mine," he growls against my wet flesh. "You are entirely mine."
His tongue is a heavy, relentless muscle, dragging a broad, wet stripe right over my clit. I cry out, my hands flying out to grip the heavy silk sheets, twisting the fabric into knots. He doesn't tease; he demands. He draws my swollen clit into his mouth, applying a firm, agonizingly perfect suction that sends a violent shockwave of pleasure straight up my spine.
The urgent suction of his mouth is the only sound in the room. The sharp, musky scent of my arousal fills the air between us, and I hear him breathe it in, hear the low, savage sound in his throat that says he would do this for hours if I let him.
"Please," I sob, my hips bucking upward, chasing the brutal friction of his mouth.
He holds my hips down with his large, scarred hands, his thumbs pressing deeply into the hollows of my hip bones, bruising me, marking me. He drives two thick fingers deep inside my pussy, stretching me open while his tongue continues to lash relentlessly at my clit. He curls his fingers inward, hitting the sensitive front walls of my pussy with a rhythmic, punishing force.
I am unraveling. The combination of his deep, stretching fingers and the ruthless suction of his mouth is completely destroying my mind. He is consuming me, treating my pleasure like a sacrament he has to perform to cleanse his own soul.
"Dominic, please, I need—I need you—" I beg, my voice a fractured, pathetic whine.
He pulls his fingers out with a wet slide, lifting his head. His mouth is slick with my arousal, his eyes completely black with lust and an obsessive need. He crawls up my body, the heavy, thick length of his erection dragging hot and rigid over my stomach. He positions himself between my thighs, settling his massive weight over me.
He grips my jaw, forcing my eyes to meet his.
"Look at me," he commands, his voice a guttural, ragged rasp.
I look at him. I see the mafia Don, the patriarch, the monster, and the man. I see all of him, and I want all of him.
"You are my absolute," he vows, his thumb swiping across my bottom lip. "I will burn this city to the ground to keep you. I will slaughter anyone who looks at you. You are my anchor, Sienna. You are my life."
He thrusts forward, burying the thick, blunt head of his cock into my slick, aching pussy. I gasp at the intrusion, the stretch of him so incredibly full, so impossibly thick. He doesn't stop. He drives his hips forward in one long, continuous motion, sinking into my body until our hips collide with a heavy, wet slap.
