Page 180 of The Ache That Stayed

She took me deeper again, hollowing her cheeks, one hand sliding to my balls, cupping, tugging gently while I completely lost whatever control I had left. The base of my spine tightened hard enough to hurt, and I couldn’t hold on any longer.

I still remember the first time she got on her knees for me, and I was too fucked up from a bullet wound to do anything except survive it.

Now?

Now I finally got to feel all of it.

“Volpi,” I grunted. “I’m about to…”

My words died in my throat as I squeezed her breast while emptying my balls down her throat. She swallowed most of it, but some still slipped down her chin and fuck—I almost lost my mind all over again. I gathered it with my finger and pushed it back into her mouth. She licked it clean without looking away. That nearly killed me. I kissed her hard enough to steal the breath from both of us, and somehow my body was already aching for more.

Marcello’s rhythm faltered behind her, one hand sliding lower between her thighs to her clit as he murmured against her ear too low for me to hear.

Then—

“Come for me.”

Roxanne cried out hard enough to echo through the room, her entire body locking between us as pleasure ripped through her.

She went limp after, thighs shaking, breath gone completely uneven while Marcello held her through it from behind. She collapsed boneless against my chest first, breathing hard, while Marcello gathered her against him from behind. For a few seconds, none of us moved.

I brushed damp hair away from her face before looking down at her lazily.

“Such a good girl,” I whispered against her hair. “Taking both of us so fucking well.”

A slight tremor shook through her body.

“I hope you have energy for another round.”

Roxanne laughed weakly against my chest.

“You’re insatiable.”

My mouth brushed her lips.

“Only for you.”

“Always,” Marcello added.

And just like that, we shifted again—bodies tangling, hands reaching, the lines between his and mine disappearing wherever she touched us.

The monster in me used to think love meant taking until nothing was left. Roxanne taught me that the greatest gift you can give a man who has spent his whole life surviving… is to love him enough that he no longer feels the need to escape himself.

I thought pain was the only thing I deserved. Then she came into my life and, somehow, became both my chaos and my sanity.

I stopped running from the man I used to be. Maybe that was heaven. Because after a lifetime of looking over my shoulder, I finally understood what home felt like.

And God help me, it had always been her.

The violence never left me completely. Neither did the parts of me that once went looking for pain just to feel something. But somewhere along the way, survival stopped feeling like punishment and started feeling like staying alive for them.

And maybe that was the real danger of loving Roxanne. You didn’t come away unchanged. You stopped fighting it. Stopped mistaking freedom for loneliness. And once she made a place for you in her life—

You never wanted anything else.

EPILOGUE 2

Roxanne