Chapter Seventeen

"Prove to me that you never meant to leave me," she says to me, and my heart shatters in my chest at the pain in her words.

I know I should say something. That I should try and explain the terrible things that I was asked to do to make my father proud, but the words lodge in my throat.

And then I realize that she doesn't mean for me to explain anything to her. She doesn't expect me to speak at all.

My body is on hers before I even have time to realize that I'm going to kiss her. The broken boy who could barely keep his mind in order clamors for the succor of her body, the oblivion of her desire for me and I give in with abandon.

I distantly hear the clatter of plastic game pieces hitting the floor as I drag her against me, my lips and teeth marking her skin, her gasping breaths like music to my ears.

"I thought I would die when you left," I say to her, my voice hoarse as I fumble to remove her bra. She reaches back to help me and flings it across the room.

"I thought my world was going to unravel," I admit, sucking her nipple into my mouth. Her head falls back and I reach down to touch her, finding that she is soaking wet for me.

She arches and makes a soft little cry that tugs at something inside of me that still hurts, still hungers for safety and love. I wonder a little how I am able to feel anything so gentle anymore for a moment, before she reaches out and starts tugging at my boxer briefs.

"I wanted to kill Marco," I say harshly as I rise and allow her to help me remove my underwear.

My erection springs free, painful, and desperate for release. Her eyes are trained on it, but then she looks up at me hungrily and slithers back onto the bed in clear invitation.

I climb over her, intent on ravishing her, hurting her, making her cry out, but then I pause. She asked me to prove that I never meant to leave her. This is about so much more than sex.

This is about proving to her that she matters to me. I feel lost for a moment. I don't know how to love anyone. I can't love anyone. I only know how to hurt, how to take, how to scheme.

"What's wrong?" she asks, her chest rising and falling fast as she looks up at me.

"I'm trying to decide how to prove something to you that I barely understand myself," I say.

I lay down beside her, and draw her against my body, her back against me. My erection nestles between us, and she arches back against me eagerly. I resist the urge to do what I would have done in the past and plunge myself into her warmth immediately.

"You don't care that I said that I would leave you," I whisper to her. "You care about the fact that you have never had any control over anything going on." She whimpers, but she goes slack in my arms.

"Yet you like when I hurt you," I say to her. I deliver a stinging slap to her backside and she cries out both in surprise and pleasure.

"Tell me what you want," I say to her, trailing the pads of my fingers over her arm. "And how much to hurt you," I add.

"I decide everything?" she asks.

I nod, ignoring the desperation curling through me. I haven't fucked her in so many years it feels like torture to hold back now, but I stay the course.

"Fine," she agrees. She rises to her knees on the bed. "Sit up," she orders me.

I oblige her, and she looks at me for a long moment, her expression inscrutable. My erection is painful at this point, and my heart is racing in my chest.

I have no idea what she is going to do. I see the change in her expression a moment before she delivers a ringing slap to my face.

"That's for saying that you would leave me," she spits at me. She slaps my face again. "And that is for lying to me for years about everything." She's panting now, and my face burns, but I don't move.

She slaps me again, grunting when the impact hurts her hand. "And that is for all the years that you didn't know that you had a son." She is rubbing her injured hand distractedly, her chest rising and falling, and her eyes flashing with her pent-up fury and hurt.

She readjusts herself on her knees and then delivers one more sharp slap to my face. "And that is for the fact that I still love you, even after everything that you have done to me."

I touch my lip with my tongue, tasting blood from a split lip. I look at her, her lush, brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, her breasts heaving, her eyes snapping.

She has never looked more beautiful. Something dangerously like emotion blooms in my chest.

"Now," she says, her voice sounding surprisingly prim. "Now I want you to fuck me until I can't walk."

At her words, something unravels within me. A rough sound tears from my throat as I grab a hold of her shoulders and twist her back against my body.

I yank her hips against me and press the length of my erection between her legs, her buttocks cradled against me.

I plunge into her from behind, my hand pressed flat against her abdomen so she can't squirm away, can't adjust for me. I fill her, feeling her body stretch to accommodate me.

She shouts at the intrusion, her head tilting back against my shoulder. She tries to move around, but I reach up with my free hand and grip her throat, yanking her back against me.

I press into her to the root, and I feel her cry of pleasure and pain in the fingers around her throat. I start moving furiously, feeling her body open to me.

She's screaming with each thrust, and I feel the wetness of her spilling over onto my thighs.

"I never fucked anyone else," she pants out as I drive into her. "There's never been anyone but you, Elio. I've never loved anyone but you, damn you."

Her words cause a vicious twist of joy to sing in my veins. I increase the tempo of my thrusting motions, gripping her body with hands that are desperate.

She comes violently, screaming my name as she flies apart. I feel a rush of hot liquid flow over me and dribble down my legs as I drive into her one more time and give into my own release.

The pleasure is unimaginable. I feel like I'm both dying and coming to life at the same time.

The smell of her perfume and sex, and the feel of her supple body, so familiar yet completely unknown, invade my senses as I pour myself into her with painful intensity.

I feel like I can't breathe and I hear the hoarse sounds I am making as I come back down to earth again.

I let go of her throat and wrap my arm around her shoulders. I stroke my hand softly down the length of her body, wishing that I could give her what she truly wants. I wish I could say that I loved her. I wish I felt that way with every fiber of my being.

I feel enraged at my damaged psyche for a moment as I trace the familiar and glorious curves of her body with my hands.

"I never meant to leave you," I say to her. My voice is hoarse like I've been shouting for hours.

"I believe you," she says quietly, lying still in my arms.

I start to pull away from her, but she grabs my thigh to hold me in place. "No," she says, her tone firm. "This time, you don't just yank away from me and tell me to get in the shower."

I feel a moment of guilt at her words. It had never occurred to me that she might have enjoyed this kind of prolonged intimacy.

I always felt bad about hurting her, despite her obvious enjoyment of my rough treatment. I never allowed myself to linger like this when we were through. Some part of me had assumed that she felt dirty after we had sex the way that I sometimes did.

I had been wrong about so many things.

"You're going to have bruises," I say gently, kissing the back of her neck.

"Yes," she agrees, and there is something fierce and possessive in her tone. "Lots of them."

"Did you miss me?" I dare to ask her.

She sighs, pressing back against me. I feel my erection already coming back to life. "Every moment of every day," she admits, grinding her ass against me.

"We have lots of time to make up for, then," I say to her as I line my dick up with her opening and meet her thrusts with my own.

She nods, trying to increase the tempo of this second round of lovemaking, but I resist her insistence.

"For once, let's not be in such a rush," I say to her, stroking her with soft fingers.

She whimpers and tries to evade my hand, but I drop soft kisses all over her shoulders and reach down to massage her clit with the hand she shook off.

"Oh, God, Elio," she says on a moan, and the sound is like music to my ears. Even if I cannot tell her that I love her, I think I can learn to worship her body in ways that I was too impatient for as a young man.

We move together slowly, learning this new cadence for our intimacy. I slip from her wet pussy, evoking a sharp sound of protest from her.

"Patience," I whisper to her. "Do you trust me?" I ask.

She nods slowly, languorously.

I lift her legs slightly with my palms and press my cock—still wet from her cunt—against the tight little pucker between her ass cheeks. Her caramel eyes flash open, turning her head to meet mine.

I wait for a moment to see if she will tell me to stop, but she closes her eyes again and presses against my rock-hard dick in invitation.

I move slowly, gradually stretching her open, inch by inch, getting her used to the feel of me in this forbidden new spot.

I was never patient enough to get to enjoy this kind of intimacy with her when we were younger, and I realize now how foolish I was.

I've never felt so close to anyone as I do now exploring new territory for us both.

"Yes, Elio, fuck me there" she pants as I move slowly in and out of her. She reaches up a hand to play with herself, arching in pleasure.

I carefully drive myself into her fully. Feeling a pressure on my cock like nothing I've ever experienced.

"You"re my naughty girl, Kate," I growl as I increase the tempo. I dip my fingers into her wet pussy. She cries out and immediately comes apart, clenching around my fingers and my dick at the same time.

The sensation is so erotic that my release washes over me almost immediately, and I shake and tremble as it rolls through me and I explode into her ass.

I take a moment to stare down at her, admiring the sight of so much wanton abandon and sated pleasure, before I slowly withdraw from her tight little hole.

"Shower time, dirty girl," I say to her gently, tugging her to her feet.

She smirks and follows me into the bathroom holding my hand. I turn on the shower.

"You're a naughty boy," she quips playfully as she squeezes my hand. "And I love it."

I cradle her against me as the water heats up, then press her ahead of me into the warm water. We rinse off in companionable silence, the balance of power between us changed forever.

"I think I am supposed to leave now," I say regretfully as we step out of the shower.

She shakes her head. "Fuck them," she says dismissively. "I want you to meet Mateo in the morning. They claim that you won't play ball with them until you meet your son, so be it. I want you to meet him, but he's already in bed for the night."

My heart leaps in my chest at the promise that I will get to meet Mateo. What will I say to him? Does he even know that I exist?

I turn to Kate to ask her all the questions that I haven't allowed myself to consider yet, but she presses a finger to my lips.

"Not now," she says. "I'm tired."

I allow her to draw me over to the bed, and I climb in behind her. She snuggles back against me, and I wrap an arm around her.

We lay in the dark silently, and I hear her breathing even out as she falls asleep. Feeling her body against mine is utterly surreal. I ponder how things could have been so different between us if I had just thought of her as a real person who cared about me. For so many years I had been a selfish fool and I had paid a steep price.

My mind turns to the deal that the Baldinis will expect me to offer them in exchange for Kate and Mateo's freedom.

They will know that the tide has turned in their favor as soon as I meet my son. It's up to me to come up with a way to convince them to accept something other than the ridiculous deal that they have stated they want in return for my betrothed and my son.

In the past, I would have just gone home, gathered my men, and come back here to destroy everything that the Baldinis hold dear. I might not even have cared if something happened to the people whom I was trying to set free with my actions.

My reputation as a terrible, calculated, terrifying killer is based on my ability to wreak havoc and ask questions later.

I look down at Kate's sleeping form. Her face is soft and lush in sleep. She has always been too good for me and I realize now that I might have been pushing her away because of that fact.

I am not sure that anything I do now will keep her safe and I am even more afraid for Mateo, who is an innocent pawn caught in this mess.

They both deserve better, but I have to admit that I am not sure how to get them out of this situation without giving in to the demands that Luca and Enzo have laid before me.

I realize that I don't know how to solve problems without violence. Is there any way to make business deals without at least the threat of causing harm to the other parties involved if they don't comply with my demands?

I have never gotten involved with Enzo and Luca in the past, because I knew just how unlikely it would be that they would be willing to make concessions to me. It turns out that my instincts about them were right, but now I find myself in a position where I have to work with them even if I don't want to.

I sigh and scrub a hand over my face. I have asked myself again and again why I just let Kate go when she told me that her child was Marco's.

Why didn't I ask more questions? Why didn't I try and convince her to stay anyway? Marco was the kind of man who would have been reasonable about the situation. After all, he had let me pummel him multiple times already on Kate's behalf.

I suppose that the real difficulty is that no one ever taught me how to love anyone properly. Lord knows that my mother tried, but I was always with my father, learning to be tough, and dangerous, being shown how to be a soldier.

Gabriel spent a lot more time with my mother learning to be a husband and partner. I hated to admit how much the difference between us showed, especially now that we were adults.

If I could navigate a way out of this mess for Kate and Mateo, did I want a family? Was I the kind of man who could raise a child? Was I the kind of man who could offer a wife a happy and safe home?

I just wasn't sure, and the fact that I wasn't sure broke my heart.

I know I should lay awake scheming and coming up with a solution, but sleep tugs at me.

I allow myself to be dragged into oblivion, lulled by the scent of Kate's hair and the softness of her body pressed against mine.