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We break apart, both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. His amber eyes have darkened to molten gold, his pulse racing beneath my fingers on his neck.

“We shouldn’t,” he murmurs, though his body contradicts his words as he presses closer. “Your stitches—”

“I’m not made of glass,” I whisper against his mouth. “And I need to feel alive right now. Need to feel you.”

His control—the iron discipline that makes him so lethal—visibly fractures. With careful movements, he shifts to straddle me without putting pressure on my wounded side.

“If I hurt you, tell me to stop,” he growls, his accent thickening with desire.

I pull him down for another kiss, my answer clear. His hands slide beneath my oversized t-shirt, calloused fingers skimming the sensitive skin of my ribs, careful to avoid my bandages. Every touch feels electric, amplified by our shared brush with death.

When his thumb grazes the underside of my breast, I arch into him, gasping at the dual sensation of pleasure and a twinge from my wound. He pulls back immediately, concern replacing desire.

“You’re hurt,” he states, the war between want and worry clear on his face.

“I’m alive,” I counter, guiding his hand back to my breast. “And I want to feel that way. Please, Stefano.”

Something resolves in his expression—a decision made. With deliberate slowness, he lowers his mouth to my neck, trailing kisses that make me shiver. His palm covers my breast, thumb circling the peak until it hardens beneath his touch.

“Like this?” he murmurs against my collarbone. “Gentle enough?”

In answer, I guide his hand lower, past the waistband of my borrowed sweatpants. He groans against my skin when he finds me already wet for him, his fingers circling with maddening precision.

“Always so ready for me,” he whispers, voice rough with restraint. “So perfect.”

I clutch his shoulders as he slides one finger inside me, then another, his thumb working magic against my clit. The pleasure builds fast and fierce, my body desperate for release after days of pain and fear.

“That’s it,” he encourages, watching my face as he curls his fingers to hit the spot that makes me see stars. “Let go for me,principessa.”

The orgasm crashes through me with surprising intensity, my body clenching around his fingers as waves of pleasure momentarily obliterate everything else. I cry out his name—his real name—as aftershocks ripple through me.

When I float back to awareness, he’s watching me with a mixture of awe and fierce possession that steals my breath all over again.

“We still need to figure out a plan,” I remind him, though my limbs feel heavy with satisfaction.

His smile turns predatory. “We will. After I’ve had my fill of you.”

Before I can respond, his mouth is on me again, and thought becomes secondary to sensation. Tomorrow will bring whatever it brings—a confrontation twenty years in the making, a choice between family legacy and future freedom.

But tonight belongs to us—to healing, to pleasure, to the fierce, consuming connection between a ghost who found his way back to life and a princess who finally broke free of her tower.

And if I die tomorrow, at least I’ll die having known what it means to be truly alive.

24

Alessio

I feel her warmth against me as we crouch in the darkness, waiting. Isadora’s breath comes in soft, controlled measures against my neck, her body pressed close in the confined space of the hunting lodge’s service corridor. Even with death potentially minutes away, the heat of her ignites something primal in me. I breathe in her scent—jasmine and gunpowder, a combination that shouldn’t be as intoxicating as it is.

“They’re all here,” Vittorio’s voice crackles through my earpiece. “De Angelis arrived five minutes ago. Ricci and hiscapostook the east entrance. Luca’s positioned himself at the head table with Giancarlo in a wheelchair beside him.”

My father. Still alive, though weakened from the bullet wounds. The monster I’ve hunted for twenty years, sitting like a wounded king while his treacherous son plays the dutiful heir.

“Guards?” I ask, my voice barely audible.

“Sixteen visible. Probably more we can’t see. The usual suspects.” Vittorio pauses. “It’s not too late to walk away, Stefano.”

Isadora’s hand finds mine in the darkness, her fingers intertwining with mine. A silent declaration that we’re past the point of walking away.