Chapter 26

Isabella

I can't run away with Vance. It would be suicide, for one or both of us. He doesn't understand. He's not from this world I live in. It's like a gang. You don't leave once you're inside, and being born into it is the most inside you can be.

But his breath washes over mine, grazing my chin as I turn away so I can think of something else besides the warmth of his body against me. Even with my husband's blood still staining his knuckles, I've never wanted anything more than to give in to him right now.

I roll my eyes up to his, finally meeting them. "Vance."

He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing so hard I think he might choke on it if I tell him no. "Don't say no to me, little girl." His fingers wrap around my chin and draw me to his mouth.

But he doesn't get it.

"I don't know what to do, Vance," I whisper, which isn't entirely true.

I know what I want to do. I want to run away with him and find true happiness far from the underside of my father's thumb. But what I want isn't enough in this case. We'd need a fucking army for it to be enough. The Vendetti family would catch and kill both of us. My father would let me live, but he'd force me to watch him kill Vance before dragging me home and locking me away for the rest of my life.

"Let me help you make up your mind." He lifts me into his arms and carries me to the bed. I don't fight him. As he lays me down, his hand searches beneath my dress and lands between my legs. He frowns. "You're soaked. Did he do this to you?"

I shake my head. Double fuck no. "Absolutely not."

He brings his fingers to his lips and licks them. "Something turned you on."

Yes, something did, but it wasn't the man I married.

"You. I was thinking about you when he tried to..." I point to my very dead husband, unable to formulate the rest of the sentence.

Vance's lips draw into the most sensual smirk, and I forget all the reasons we can't run away together. I can only think of this moment, right now, and the need rising inside me.

Then the tips of his front teeth bite into his lower lip, and that's all she wrote for me.

"Yes," I whisper.

I lean into him and capture his lips, and his tongue finds mine with a hunger that warms the wetness between my legs. It's as if this stupid fucking marriage never pulled us apart. We've picked up right where we left off, and we're racing toward what we've both denied ourselves for far too long.

His hand laces through my hair and pulls me into him. His heartbeat pounds against my chest, matching the rapid rhythm coursing through me. I inhale each of his exhales until I feel dizzy, every breath he takes becoming my own.

Vance's hand moves to my thigh, and he squeezes. Everything about his touch feels familiar. Like home.

"Did you think about what it would feel like to fuck me?" he growls against my lips. "When he touched you, did you think about my hands instead?"

A breath of panic leaves my lips at the thought of what almost happened before Vance saved me, but he comforts me with his mouth and I relax. I'm safe now. As long as his arms are around me, I fear nothing.

He rises to his feet in front of me. His belt buckle jingles as he works it open, and then his zipper follows. His hands drift up my thighs, raising my skirt higher, and he spreads my legs with a strong, painful grip on both legs. I'm so open for him, so vulnerable, and that sends a rope of panic around my throat. I can't breathe.

He senses this and lightens his touch, trailing his fingers over the goosebumps that have risen on my thighs. "You're right to be scared. My cock won't feel good at first. But when you relax and stretch around me, you'll be in heaven. I'll make sure of that."

The panic loosens its hold around my neck, and I draw a breath. He'll make me feel good, and I don't want my first time to be with anyone else. I want this—I want him—right now.

I nod.

He leans over me, and the heat of his dick presses against me. I nearly panic again, but I keep my composure. I'm better than this. I've been chasing this moment for years, and now it's right in front of me. The man I was meant to share this moment with is right in front of me. I have the opportunity to give my virginity to someone I actually like, and I can't ruin this.

Silky skin brushes my clit before he's at my entrance. His tip rests against me, not even inside me, and I gasp. Embarrassing.

"Ready to be mine, little girl?" he asks.

I wish he wouldn't. Wondering what I need to be so ready for is stressing me out worse than if he just pushed inside me. But I only nod as he pulls me into him.

When he eases into me, I'm as tight to his body as possible. A sharp pain rockets through my pelvis and groin, and it feels as if he's tearing me in half. I can't help but scream out, but I don't tell him to stop. I just whimper through the pain he warned me about. Even through this burning ache, I focus on the thump of his heart against my temple, and it warms that feeling away.

Thump. Thump.

It's the sound and the feel of the immense pleasure I'm giving him—the background vocals to his feral, hungry groans. He sounds like a starved man who's been seated before a banquet. With each taste of the feast I offer him, he vocalizes his pleasure.

My sounds join his, my whimpers becoming moans as he thrusts. His strokes lengthen and deepen. He's reading me from the inside, increasing his tempo and depth as my body allows.

"God, you feel even better than I imagined." He releases me and draws back his hips. Looking down, his eyebrows pull together. "I made you bleed." His eyes drift up to mine. "Bound by blood, Isabella. You're mine."

His cock has ripped through me and made me bleed. He's forged a bond in blood that only rivals the genetic bond I share with my father. A moan strangles from my throat.

His hand reaches between us and rubs my sensitive clit. His expert touch tightens my abdomen as he draws pleasure from deep within me with every push and pull of his hips.

"Daddy," I cry out.

"Good girl. Come for me," he whispers before leaning down and kissing me. He swallows every moan he wrenches out of me.

His soft and gravelly words send me careering off my cliff, and I come for the first time with a cock stretching me and stuffing me until I feel more full than I ever thought possible.

"I want to fill you," he says.

I know it's supposed to be a question, and my answer should be no, but I want him to fill me too.

His hand grazes my belly. "Would your father still kill me if I were the father of your child? If this belly was swollen with our baby?"

I sit up on my elbows and stare at him because what the fuck is this baby talk and why do I like it? No, I don't want to get pregnant. Yet. But fuck if I don't love the idea of him filling and impregnating me. Would my father let us back in if he knew I was carrying a child? Somehow, I still don't know if he would.

"Vance," I say, my voice stern. Now isn't the time for this.

His hand moves toward my mouth, and he places the red tinged fingers between my parted lips before putting them in his own. "I won't do it tonight if that's not what you want, but I will fill your sweet little cunt the next time I fuck you."

He grips the base of his dick and pulls out of me. Warm, slick skin brushes my clit as he strokes himself and comes on my pussy. The heat of his pleasure drips toward my entrance, and I moan. I almost tell him to put his cock back inside me so that warmth can fill what now feels so empty.

Vance tucks himself away and zips up his slacks. He looks around, smiles, and grabs the handkerchief from Antonio's pocket. After shaking it open, he cleans me off, sending a different kind of shiver through my body.

Then he asks the question I still don't have an answer to.

"So will you be coming with me, little girl?"