Page 112 of Brutal Heir

The raging fire burns, hotter than it ever has before because there’s so much more at stake now. “Come for me, Rory,” he growls. “Prove to me how much you love me.”

There’s something in the ache in his voice that splits me wide open. With one deep, spine-tingling thrust, I plummet over the edge. Pleasure consumes me, a sweet frenzy of fear, pain and fiery desire. “Oh, Alessandro,” I moan as the ecstasy rolls through me in crashing waves.

His cock jerks inside me, spilling warmth down my legs, his ragged breaths catching in his throat.

After we’ve both shattered around each other, it’s not rage that lingers. It’s something quiet. Steady. Unyielding.

He collapses on top of me, chest heaving, face buried at the crook of my neck. Neither of us speaks for a long time. We just are. Breathing. Reeling. Holding on.

Finally, his voice breaks the silence, rough and quiet against my skin. “I don’t know how to trust you again.”

“I know,” I whisper. “But I’ll earn it. One day at a time. However long it takes.”

He spins me around so our burning gazes clash once more. Then he brushes a thumb over my jaw. “You’d better. Because if you betray me again, I won’t survive it.”

Neither will I.

Though we’re both bruised, breathless and broken in more ways than I can count, somehow, we’re still in this.

Together.

CHAPTER 43

BRIGID O’SHEA

Alessandro

Suffocating dread claws its way up my throat, wrenching me from a fitful sleep. My chest is tight, lungs dragging in sharp gulps of air. Sweat slicks my skin as I blink into the dim room… and see her. Rory. Curled against me like she belongs there. But the knot in my chest doesn't ease because everything between us has changed.

Dio, for a second I hoped it was all a bad dream.

But it’s real, too real.

She lied to me about everything.

A part of me understands why. She’d been in an impossible position, but I’m still furious at her betrayal. Worse, I’m fucking hurt.

Raking my hands over my face, I draw in a steadying breath to slow my racing pulse. She’s safe. She’s still here with me. Perspiration coats my forehead, dampening my hair and sticking to my skin as I glance at the clock on the nightstand. Just pastfour in the morning. I squeeze my eyes closed and an onslaught of images assaults my senses, a carousel of lies.

The day Rory strolled into my apartment, all sizzling attitude.

The time she came after me at Serena’s engagement party.

The first time I brought her to the Velvet Vault and let her see the real me.

Each meaningful encounter, every word from her lips had been a lie. Hell, I dove headfirst into the dark world of the Geminis, the one I’d vowed to avoid for the rest of my life for her. That anger bubbles up again, threatening to choke out the love filling my chest. Now who’s the liar? Not even a thousand sins could drown out what I feel for her. She’s the lie I can’t live without. The sin I’d commit again and again just to taste onemore night in her arms.

If I wasn’t so certain I couldn’t live without her, I would have walked out of here last night and never returned.

Let her have the penthouse, my money, my car, all of it.

Because none of it matters without her.

She is the one thing I can never walk away from, the fiery female who has branded herself into my soul. I finally allow my gaze to drift to the perfect form curled into my side. To that pert little nose and the thirteen freckles that cover it, to the soft skin of her cheeks and those pouty lips I could spend a lifetime kissing.

A rueful chuckle nearly spills out beneath the predawn light of my bedroom. I would never leave her. In the past month and a half, Rory Delaney, or I suppose, Brigid O’Shea, has become my world. I swirl her real name around in my mouth, and somehow, it doesn’t quite fit as well as the one she chose for herself.

O’Shea…