Page 83

“It’s four hundred years old and full of advice on how to maintain power through fear and manipulation.” He flips a page with one finger. “So yes. It’s very good.”

I snort. “Of course it is.”

The conversation shifts after that. I ask about his insomnia. How long it’s been part of his life.

“Since Paolo was born.” His voice doesn’t change, but something in his posture shifts. The arm around my waist gets tighter. “His mom suffered from postpartum depression, so I was often the one who fed him at night.” He pauses. “It never really went away.”

Oh God, that’s horrible. Poor… wait, I’m not even sure I know her name. But now I’m wondering even more why Domenico killed her. I should ask him, and maybe one day I will. If I’m ever not scared of what the answer might be.

After a while, the conversation lulls. The city stretches below us, dark and quiet, and the cold is starting to seep through the blanket despite the heater. I shift, as if I’m about to slide off his lap and head back to bed.

His hand catches my wrist. “Stay.”

Just that. One word, rough and quiet, and the look in his eyes is the same one I saw when I slapped him across the face. Not anger. Something deeper, rawer, that I still don’t have a name for.

“I want you here,” he adds.

The warmth behind my ribs blooms into something hotter. Bolder. I hold his gaze for one beat, two, and then I’m moving. Turning in his lap until I’m straddling him, my knees on either side of his thighs, the blanket falling away from my shoulders. His hands find my hips automatically, steadying me, and I don’t give him time to process what’s happening.

I kiss him.

My mouth finds his, and for a second, he goes completely still. Then his hands tighten on my hips, and he kisses me back with a hunger that makes my stomach drop. His scruff is rough against my skin, his mouth warm from the whiskey, and I taste cigar smoke and something darker underneath.

My fingers find the buttons of his shirt—the one he’s wearing, not the one I stole—and I work them open one by one, pushing the fabric aside to expose his chest. The tattoos. The coarse, dark hair. The ridges of muscle that flex under my palms when I slide my hands across his skin.

I kiss his jaw. His throat. The hollow at the base of his neck where his pulse jumps against my lips. Down to his chest, tracing the patterns of ink with my mouth, feeling the way his breathing changes—deeper, rougher, the controlled rhythm fracturing beneath my touch.

His hands are on my hips, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough to leave marks, and the sound he makes when my teeth graze his nipple is… hot.

Something fierce curls in my stomach. This is mine. The loss of control, the broken breathing, the way his chest rises and falls under my mouth—all of it belongs to me.

And I want more.

I slide off his lap and kneel between his legs on the cold stone of the balcony. His eyes track the movement, dark and hungry, and I don’t break eye contact as my fingers find his belt. The leather slides through the buckle with a soft click, and then I’m working the button of his pants, dragging the zipper down with a sound that seems too loud in the quiet night.

Domenico helps. He lifts his hips, pushing the pants down his thighs along with his boxer briefs, and kicks off his shoes so I can pull everything free. His cock springs hard against his stomach, thick and flushed dark in the heater light.

The sight of it—of him—completely exposed while I’m still mostly covered, sends a sharp thrill through me.

I run my hands up his thighs first. The muscle is hard under my palms, warm despite the cold air, and I can feel the fine tremor that runs through him when my fingers brush the inside of his leg.

Domenico watches me. His eyes are dark, fixed on my face with an intensity that should make me nervous. It doesn’t. It makes me feel… desired. I lean forward and press my mouth to his stomach.

The skin is hot, taut over muscle, and I trace the ridges with my lips, following the trail of dark hair that narrows as it disappears beneath where my hands are resting on his hips. His abs tighten under my mouth, and the sound he makes—low, rough, almost a growl—sends a pulse of heat between my legs.

Since this isn’t about me, I ignore it for now.

I’ve wondered about this since I undressed him. Since my hand wrapped around his cock and I watched his control fracture for the first time. What it would be like to put my mouth on him.

To taste him. To learn the parts of Domenico DeLuca that he keeps locked down tighter than anything else. And now, I’m going to satiate that curiosity.

I kiss the head of his cock.

The contact is brief—just my lips pressed against the smooth, flushed skin—but the effect is immediate. Domenico’s entire body goes rigid. His hand shoots out and grips the arm of the chair hard enough that the wood creaks, and the noise that tears from his throat is like nothing I’ve heard from him before.

Raw. Unfiltered. The sound of a man whose control just took a direct hit.

“Mmm, fuck. Kira.”