She gasps, "Alessio—" but I mute it with another kiss, this one slower, as if I could convince her with patience instead of violence. My hands roam—her waist, the impossible curve of her ass, the trembling in her thighs as she settles over me—so light, so weightless, I want to anchor her with teeth and claw.
But she’s still fighting, even as she arches toward me. Always a fight. I slip my hands beneath her sweater and over her hips; her skin is fever-warm, softer than the silk pillows at mymother’s house. She makes a noise—half outrage, half hunger—and rakes her nails down my neck.
I grip her wrists and pin them behind her back with one hand, freeing the other to pull her sweater up, exposing the edge of dark lace. She glares at me, cheeks flushed, ready to spit a thousand insults until I drop my head and take her breast in my mouth, bra and all. The noise she makes is something she’ll never give anyone else, least of all the pathetic fuck from the cafe.
I bite, just enough to mark. "You can run, but you can't hide," I whisper against her hardened nipple, the lace already damp beneath my tongue. "From me, never."
"I don't want—" She snarls, but the words fall apart as I suck harder, then switch to the other breast. I feel her pulse pounding against my lips, feel her hips rocking over me. The car is rolling uptown, and if the driver is aware of what’s happening in the rear, he’s too smart to let on.
Lucia's hands twist behind her back, desperate to break my grip, but I hold steady, kissing her harder, slower, until her resistance dissolves into whimpers that only I can hear.
We stop at a light, red spilling across her face, and I see the moment she gives up the fight. Her head tips back, veins straining blue beneath her lace-pale neck, and for three perfect seconds, I taste nothing but surrender. She shudders against me, breath catching and breaking, and I hold her through it, anchoring her to my lap while the city slides past in hissing streaks of rain.
We don’t speak until the car stops again. Her hair is a mess, mascara in a half-moon under her left eye. I want to fix it for her, but I know better, so I open the door and wait for her to decide: follow, or bolt.
She follows. Like I knew she would.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALESSIO
There’s something about the moment after you’ve made a decision that terrifies lesser men: the silence before consequences, as though the city itself is holding its breath to witness what you’ll become next. I savor it the way I savor blood pooling in my mouth after a hard right hook—intimate, metallic, final. I was made for aftermath. For whatever comes after.
Lucy—my Lucia—walks a step ahead of me through the high-gloss lobby of my building, unsure if she’s being escorted or paroled, her back straight and ankles tight together like a schoolgirl trying not to trip on her first day in new shoes. The doorman, Todd, tips his hat, and his eyes flick to mine: all clear. The elevator opens before I can even press the button.
Inside the air grows dense, thick with her perfume—a high, bright, floral thing layered over the primal sweetness of her skin. I stand close enough that she could smell the gun oil on my jacket if she knew what to look for. She doesn’t. Not yet.
“Top floor,” I say. The numbers tick upward in silence. I’m aware of every millimeter she shifts beside me, every nervous swallow and flick of her thumbnail against her index finger. She’s braver than most, wearing her discomfort like a badge. I want to touch her, but I don’t. Not yet.
When the doors slide open, she steps out and turns toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse. Hudson Yards burns in blue and gold below us, the city waiting to be devoured. I set my hand on the small of her back—her skin is hot, nearly fevered—and steer her inside. The place is all hard lines: black marble, dark wood, sharp white corners. I own five properties in Manhattan, but this is the only place I ever let myself sleep. No family photos. No weaknesses on display except the liquor.
“It looks different this time of night,” she whispers, and looks towards the last signs of the setting sun.
“Drink?” I ask.
She forces a sound like laughter, but it's brittle as thin ice. "God, yes. Pour me something strong."
I pour us both glasses of pinot noir from the decanter on the bar, careful to use the crystal I had imported from Murano. She stands at the window with her back to me, both hands gripping the stem of her glass so hard I worry she’ll snap it. The skyline makes her look even smaller, as if the city’s been inverted: she’s the star and the world bends to frame her.
I hand her the wine. She drains half of it in a single, shaking pull.
“Are you nervous?” I ask.
She turns her head, her familiar scent—vanilla and something darker—filling the space between us as her hair brushes one side of her face. "I want to know more about the dangerous man I read about," she says, her eyes lingering on the spot where we'd made love against the window last time. "That's why I came back."
I laugh—low, honest, remembering how she'd trembled beneath my hands just days ago. "You're still trying to decide if it's true?"
She meets my eyes, her pupils expanding like ink in water. "No." The word falls from her lips in that hushed tone I'vecarried with me through sleepless nights since she disappeared. "I came back because I needed to remember what it felt like before I found out who you really are. I need to remember what it felt like when you broke me apart... and put me back together."
Heat pools low in my stomach. I set my glass down, the crystal making a soft clink against marble, and cross the floor to her. My shoes pressed into the plush carpet where I'd laid her down after taking her against the glass. The city sprawls beneath us, the same lights that had painted her naked skin now a blurred spill of gold. I want to see them reflected in her pupils as she comes apart for me again.
She doesn’t flinch when I reach her. She waits.
I stand behind her and wrap my right arm around her waist, my forearm pressing against her ribcage, both of us watching our reflections in the glass.
“I’ll never lie to you, Lucia,” I say, voice close to her ear. “I am what they say I am.”
I feel her ribcage rising quickly, a shudder that might be fear or might be desire. I nuzzle the base of her throat, my lips resting against porcelain skin.