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Luca kissed his way down my jaw and neck. “Baby,” he whispered between kisses. “You make me lose my mind. I will do anything to protect you. To keep you safe. To make you mine.”
His fingers plunged deeper inside me, in and out, until I was screaming his name. My body trembled, my orgasm working its way through my body. Parts of me ached so much I couldn’t tell where the pain started and stopped. But as I chased my high, I’d never felt more alive. I no longer cared about the bruises and the scars those marks would leave behind.
“I’m yours,” I moaned.
A ghost of a smile stretched across his beautiful lips. “Damn right, you’re mine.”
I came on his fingers so damn hard my legs shook for a solid minute after I found my release.
“Take me to bed.”
“To sleep,” he countered. “You heard what your grandfather said about your ribs. I won’t risk hurting you.”
“Between my orgasm and the pain meds, I’ll be sleeping like a newborn by the time my head hits the pillow.”
Luca grabbed a towel from the rack and helped me out of the tub, cradling me against his chest. He kissed the top of my head, and his arms wrapped so tightly around me it was as if he were afraid to let me go.
92
LUCA
Alex sleptfor days in a row, only waking up for short periods to eat and use the bathroom. She was like a zombie moving through the motions.
For three nights straight, Alex woke up screaming from night terrors. I tried everything to console her, but nothing worked. No matter how hard I tried, she wasn’t herself. The kidnapping, torture, and almost sale on the island had undone all of our hard work.
“Marcello,” Alex screamed, her eyes closed. “Marcello, don’t go.”
She often called out for my brother in the middle of the night. It crushed my heart and killed my soul, but I knew she needed him. I lifted my cell phone from the bedside table and texted Marcello. It was three o’clock in the morning. Like me, he was a light sleeper and never slept more than a few hours a night.
A minute later, he creaked open my bedroom door, standing in the doorway shirtless and wearing his usual Tom Ford boxers. “Is Alex okay?”
I knew my brother loved Alex. He would have done anything to protect her, even when the job sometimes required him to protect her from herself.
“No.” I set the phone on the table and flipped onto my back, leaning against a stack of pillows. “She needs you.”
It killed me to say that, but it was true.
Marcello looked at me apprehensively as if he thought I was joking with him. He climbed into the bed and lifted her in his arms, resting her head on his chest. He stroked his fingers through her curls, a loving, soothing gesture that was so foreign to me. I did not know how to console someone who was hurting because I’d never learned how to help myself. My father had taught me to hold in pain, to embrace it for my deviant purposes.
Carl Wellington was right about me. I loved her more than anything, but Marcello was the one she needed. They just clicked, like two puzzle pieces fitting into place.
“No,” she screamed, swatting her hand at his chest.
Marcello hooked his arm around her and glanced at me. “Are you taking notes? Because this is what you’ll need to do the next time. I won’t be here every night.”
I snickered at his comment. “Excuse me for not having the feminine touch like you.”
“Fuck you,” he snapped. “I’m not your little bitch.”
“You’re whatever I tell you to be, Marcello.”
“I can go.” He glanced down at Alex and sighed. “I don’t need to do you any more favors.”
“You’re here for her, not me.”
He didn’t bother to correct me because it was true. Marcello would walk through fire to protect his Queen.
“You won, Luca. Stop acting like a jealous prick.”