Page 109 of Broken Mafia Bride

I pull away, hugging my arms around myself. “There are too many complications, Raffaele. Can’t you see! We spell disaster.”

His hands tighten on my hip. “The fuck do you mean by that?” he grits out. “Stop believing the bullshit our fathers planted in our heads.”

“This isn’t about them,” I insist. “What has our union brought except blood and suffering and pain?”

His eyes flash, dark and intense. Before I realize what’s happening, he grips me by my jaw, keeping my face in place so our gazes are fixed.

“I want you to listen to me, Giulia?—”

“No, there’s no way?—”

“Listen to me, Giulia.” His fingers tighten on my jaw. “Nothing is getting in our way again. I won’t let it. The blood, the pain, the tears, I’ve been a part of it. I’ve been here, I’ve experienced it all right along with you.”

“Then how can you still think we are a good idea?” I ask him. “After everything?”

“Those years I went without you were the worst, darkest years of my life,” he tells me. “I don’t know what those years were like for you, but there’s one thing I’m sure of.”

“What?” I ask him curiously.

“No matter what we go through, I want to go through it with you. There’s no one else I’d rather be in this mess with. No one else, Giulia.” He enunciates the words slowly. “We’re going to find Noemi, and I’m going to marry you and be the best husband to you and the best father to her.”

Panic grips me by my chest. I want to be with Raffaele. I want that dream life we talked about before the world imploded around us. But it feels like the more we reach for it, the more fleeting it becomes. A million land mines separate us from that dream life, and I don’t know if it’s logical to even risk it.

After all this time, my father is finally in support of me being with Raffaele, and I’m the one stalling. The fucking irony of that.

Before I can work myself up into further panic, Raff’s mouth closes around mine. My thoughts go skittering away at the first contact. I open my mouth for him, and he delves right in.

I moan as his tongue moves against mine, slowly, leisurely, exploring the taste of my mouth, driving me wild. I arch into him, the silky material of my nightdress sliding over my beaded nipples, causing electricity to shoot down my spine.

How is it that I need this man so fast again?

“I need you,” I moan.

And the leash on his control snaps. He lifts me by my hip and drops me down on the floor, and then he grabs the front of my nightdress and yanks it. There’s an audible rip, and then Raffaele’s mouth is closing around one hard nipple.

I arch into him, undoing the buttons on his shirt with clumsy fingers, gasping, and shaking with need. He breaks away for a moment to aid me in pushing his shirt off his shoulders, and then our hands scramble for the belt buckle he didn’t quite pull down before and push it down with his briefs until his cock, already hard again, springs free.

I wrap my fingers around the base of him, feeling the weight of his erection.

Raffaele makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Encouraged, I tighten my fingers around him, squeezing and pumping lightly.

“God, baby,” he growls. “You’re going to drive me insane.”

“It’s only fair,” I respond. “Since I’ve been insane about you from day one.”

He bends his head and takes my mouth again, and I raise my hips, positioning him at my entrance. Our eyes meet, and I see the need burning inside me reflected in his eyes. Without another word, he begins to push into me.

This time it’s a slow, breathless joining, and when he’s finally seated deep inside, we both let out a breath. His fingers carve against mine above my head. He pulls his hip backward, then surges back into me.

“Raffaele!” I cry, teeth clamping down on his muscular shoulder to contain the fire roaring inside me.

“I’m going to marry you, Giulia,” he says, and I know the words aren’t a promise; we are way past promises. His words are a declaration. I shiver, curving my hips up to meet his next thrust, again and again and again, until we are moving together.

The kitchen tiles are colder against my back, now that I’m completely naked, but Raffaele’s body is a furnace over me. The difference between the two is a tantalizing mix, combined with the forbidden lure of being taken where anyone can just walk in and see us.

“You’re mine,” he declares. “You’ve been mine from the start, and nothing—nothing in this fucking world—will keep us apart again. I’m going to fix everything for us. Every fucking thing.”

“Oh, Raff,” I groan against his shoulder, my body bouncing with the force of his thrusts.