“Have you gone bare since then?” he asked, teeth clenched at the suggestion.
“No.”
His lips pulled back in a predator’s grin before he dropped his hips and impaled me against the wall. I gasped deeply, my head pushing back against the tile to help ease the pressure from his intrusion. Luca leaned in to nip and suckat my neck, easing out of me before pressing back inside in a slow but steady rhythm.
“I’m the only one who gets to mark you,” he ground out as his thrusts picked up speed. “Anyone else fucking touches you, and I will bury them.”
His words stoked the fire building inside me, and I clung to his shoulders to keep from incinerating. His scalding touch, the heat pulsing in my core—it was too much. I could feel the flames licking, burning my insides. I was going to ignite, and I wasn’t sure I would survive the inferno. Not as the girl I’d been. The blaze between us was life-altering, but there was no way to back out now.
Luca pounded inside me, stoking the flames, and I could feel parts of me going molten and fusing to Luca, welding us together. I panted and clawed, overcome with the magnitude of sensation as the fire engulfed me, and I exploded into flame. My muscles seized, twitching and contracting as fiery pleasure coursed through my veins.
I only vaguely noticed when Luca grunted his release. Pulling me tightly against him, he trembled as his cock pulsed inside me, and my flames slowly burned themselves out. There was no fuel left for the fire, only rubble.
I lay against him, smoldering in the ashes of the girl I’d been only moments before.
Never in a million years would I have thought sex could be transformative, but that was before Luca. I knew deep in my bones, as I clung to his shoulders, water dripping from our quivering bodies, that my life would never be the same.
CHAPTER 13
ALESSIA
“How didyou find me under the bridge?” I asked as we recovered in my bed some minutes later. Luca lay on his back with me draped over him, my head on his shoulder as I listened to his thudding heartbeat.
“One of the security guards told me you had left the building.”
“You asked a security guard about me?”
“No, he called me to tell me you’d left.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because I paid him to.”
“What? Why?” I lifted onto my elbow and stared down at Luca, hisface impassive.
“Does it matter?” he asked somberly.
“Yes, I want to know what’s going on here.” I searched his face, trying to figure out what to make of his admission.
“I told you I’m not like most men. When I see something I want, I go after it, whether that means an unexpected elevator mishap or coincidental meetings on the street. I’m that way in all aspects of my life. If there is a business venture I want to take part in, I ensure it happens. I will never sit by and simply hope good fortune falls into my lap.”
Was he telling me he’d set up the elevator malfunction just to talk with me? And he’d … what … paid the security guards to keep an eye on me? Holy shit. Was I horrified or flattered? My gaze dropped from his face down to where his hand rested against his chest, his knuckles raw and bloody. Luca had kept tabs on me, and that had saved me. My stomach clenched viciously to think of what would have happened had he not come after me.
Getting up from the bed, I retrieved a first aid kit in the bathroom and sat cross-legged on the bed next to him. “Let me clean up your hands,” I said softly as I twisted the cap off a tube of ointment and took his hand in mine.
I glanced up, and our eyes met. His obsidian gaze flashed with lust so tangible, it stirred goosebumps across my skin. I offered a shy smile, and he smirked back.
“I take it that means I’m forgiven?”
“How about you tell me where you learned to fight like that.” I still wasn’t sure what to think of Luca, but condemning him for his actions was difficult when they had saved me from what could have been a horrible nightmare.
“Growing up, I was in my fair share of fights.” His eyes turned up to the ceiling as he spoke about his past. “As I got older, hitting the heavy bag became a great stress reliever. Iworked with a trainer for a few years, did some sparring, but never any actual matches. Now, I mostly hit the bag on my own. I like to stay fit—you never know when you’ll need to defend yourself.”
His eyes dropped back to me, but I avoided his gaze, repacking the items into the kit. I’d done a great job pushing thoughts of my attack to the back of my mind, but his reminder brought them back in frightening clarity. I could taste the fear I’d felt when I was backed against that cement column. I never wanted to experience that terror again.
“I think it’s my turn to ask a question,” Luca said, drawing my eyes back to his and my thoughts to the present. “Why were you out wandering the city in the middle of the day?”
I took a deep breath and dropped my eyes down to where my hands were folded in my lap. “My boss said something that upset me, and I’ve been under so much stress, I just needed to take a breather. I was so lost in my head, I didn’t notice how far I’d wandered.”
