"Right there?" I ask, a dark smirk pulling at my lips. I hit it again, harder this time.
She dissolves into a mess of desperate sounds, her nails leaving deep red scratches down the expanse of my back. The sharp-tongued, defiant woman who argued with me in the kitchen is completely gone, replaced by a creature of pure heat and submission, entirely responsive to my touch.
The friction is too much. The mental high of claiming her, combined with the physical perfection of her tight, wet body, is pushing me to the absolute edge.
"Look at me," I order, my voice a harsh, guttural rasp. My thrusts become harder, faster, the careful reverence giving way to a primal, driving need to finish the claim.
She locks her dark eyes with mine.
"You are Cassio Vellutini’s wife," I vow, each word punctuated by a deep, brutal thrust. "No one else looks at you. No one else touches you. If Dario Lombardi so much as breathes in your direction, I will cut his fucking head off."
"Cassio, please, I’m going to—"
"Come for me, Noemi. Now."
She shatters around me. Her internal muscles clamp down on my cock with a vice-like grip, milking me, pulling me over the edge with her. She screams my name, a beautiful, broken sound, as the climax rips through her untouched body.
Her release shatters my final thread of control. I groan, driving my hips forward one last time, burying myself as deep as physically possible, and I let go.
The orgasm hits me like a freight train, violent and completely consuming. I empty myself inside her, a hot, pulsing flood that cements the biological reality of my claim.
My lungs are burning, my heart threatening to beat its way out of my ribcage. I collapse against her, burying my face in the crook of her neck, my heavy chest is heaving against her soft breasts.
For a long time, the only sound in the room is our ragged, synchronized breathing.
She doesn't push me away. Her hands, small and delicate, tentatively stroke the damp hair at the nape of my neck.
I roll to the side, pulling her flush against my side, tucking her head under my chin. I look down at my hand. There is a faint smear of her blood on my knuckles from when I touched her.
I stare at it, a terrifying certainty settling over my soul like iron.
Orlando sent her here as a pawn. He sent her to be a casualty of our war. He thought I would break her and toss her aside.
He was wrong.
I pull Noemi tighter against my chest, wrapping my arm securely around her waist. She is no longer just collateral damage. She is my possession. She is my wife.
And heaven help the poor, stupid bastard who ever tries to steal her from me.
10
Noemi
My body feels like it has been dismantled and carelessly put back together.
Before I even open my eyes, the physical reality of what happened last night crashes into me. There is a deep, heavy ache between my thighs, a sharp tenderness that flares with the slightest movement. My muscles are incredibly sore, my skin is hyper-sensitive where his calloused hands gripped me, bruised me, claimed me. And beneath it all, seeping into my very pores, is the scent of him. Bergamot, expensive whiskey, and the musky scent of sex.
I inhale a shaky breath, keeping my eyes squeezed shut, praying to a God I haven't spoken to in years that this is just a vivid,twisted nightmare. I pray that when I open my eyes, I will be in the sterile, freezing guest room of the east wing, a pristine, untouched spinster who successfully managed to keep her monster of a husband at bay.
But the heavy, solid warmth radiating against my back destroys that illusion completely.
I am in the east wing. In my bed, yes, but he is there.
I open my eyes. The storm that raged outside the floor-to-ceiling windows all night has finally broken. Pale, harsh morning sunlight floods the massive bedroom, illuminating the wreckage we made of it. My ripped, faded sweatpants are tossed over a leather chair. His ruined dress shirt is crumpled on the floor.
I shift slightly, wincing as the soreness in my core flares up, and turn my head over my shoulder.
My breath catches in my throat.