Page 30 of Devil’s Gambit

BELLA

The quilt beneath us is soft as sin, worn smooth by decades of use. I can feel every thread against my bare skin, each subtle variation in texture magnified by anticipation. Through the open windows, the air carries the earthy smell of hay and distant rain.

Dante’s still hands frame my face, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones with a gentleness at odds with what's building between us.

The crickets outside create a symphony, mixing with our breathing—his steady and controlled, mine catching with each small touch.

I'm hyperaware of everything: the way my dress clings where I'm already damp with want, the slight roughness of his palms against my skin, the heat radiating from his body inches from mine.

"You know what I realized?" I whisper against his mouth, fingers working the buttons of his shirt with hands that tremble slightly. "We've never played games. Never pretended to be anything other than what we are."

"And what are we?" His voice has gone ragged, hands sliding into my hair, fingernails scraping lightly against my scalp and sending shivers down my spine.

"Complicated." I push his shirt off his shoulders, revealing the scars I've memorized but never tire of seeing. Each one tells a story of survival, of a life that led him to this moment, to me. "Dangerous. Probably doomed."

"How romantic."

"I'm not feeling particularly romantic. I'm feeling... prosecutorial."

He pulls back, eyebrow raised. "Prosecutorial?"

"Mm." I push him against the headboard, straddling his lap. The position makes my dress ride up, letting the rough denim of his jeans rub against my inner thighs. "I think you need to be tried for your crimes, Mr. Caruso."

"My crimes?" His hands find my waist, but I catch his wrists. His pulse races under my fingers.

"Multiple counts of theft." I pin his hands above his head, though we both know he could break free easily.

The fact that he doesn't, that he lets me have this illusion of control, sends heat pooling low in my belly.

"You stole me from my husband. Stole my sanity.

Stole any chance I had at a normal life. "

"Guilty." His eyes have gone dark, watching me with an intensity that makes me squirm. "What else?"

"Corruption of innocence." I lean down, lips barely brushing his ear, feeling him shudder when my breath ghosts across his skin. "You've turned me into something I don't recognize. Someone who plans murder over dinner. Someone who gets wet thinking about violence."

"Objection." His voice is strained, hips shifting beneath me. "You were never innocent."

"Overruled." I nip at his earlobe, tasting the salt of his skin. "The prosecution has evidence. Two weeks ago, I couldn't hold a gun. Now I dream about pulling triggers."

"What's my sentence, counselor?"

I look around the room, searching for restraints. The nightstand drawer is empty except for dust. But hanging on a hook by the door—old rope, probably used for the horses.

"Perfect," I murmur, climbing off him to retrieve it.

"Farm rope?" He laughs, watching me test its strength. "We're really embracing the rustic experience?"

"Unless you're scared." The rope is rough in my hands, but more appropriate than silk scarves. More real. "Big bad mob boss afraid of a little barn rope?"

"Never." But his breathing has changed, chest rising and falling faster as I return to the bed.

I loop the rope around one wrist, then the other, securing them to the iron headboard.

The rope looks almost violent against his skin—coarse and functional where silk would be elegant.

But there's an honesty about it. We're not playing at being refined.

We're two people in a farmhouse, making do with what we have.

"Tight enough?" I test the bonds, and he flexes against them, muscles bunching.

"Perfect."

I sit back to admire my work. He looks magnificent like this—all that controlled power temporarily leashed by a rope that we both know he could break if he wanted.

The lamplight plays across his chest, highlighting every ridge and valley of muscle, every scar that marks him as a survivor.

But he doesn't want to escape. He's choosing this. Choosing to let me have control.

"Now then." I trail my fingers down his chest, feeling the way his abdomen contracts under my touch. "How should I punish you for your crimes?"

"I thought you were still deliberating."

"I've reached a verdict." I lean down, lips almost touching his, close enough to share breath. "Guilty on all counts."

"Then punish me." The words come out rough and desperate. "Show me what I deserve."

I'm about to kiss him when suddenly the world spins. One moment I'm on top, and the next I'm on my back, wrists caught in his hands. The rope that was binding him hangs loose from the headboard—he'd slipped free while distracting me with his words.

"Here's the thing about prosecution," he says, using the same rope to bind my wrists. "Sometimes the defendant has evidence of their own."

"That's not how trials work?—"

"My trial, my rules." He secures my hands above my head, the rope rough against my skin, just shy of painful. "And I think the prosecution has been withholding evidence."

"What evidence?"

"The fact that you wanted this. Wanted me. From the very beginning." His hands slide down my arms, raising goosebumps in their wake. "Even when you were terrified. Even when you thought I was a monster."

"You are a monster."

"Your monster." He reaches for something else—a dark piece of fabric, maybe an old bandana from the dresser. "And now I'm going to show you exactly what that means."

The blindfold slides over my eyes, and the world disappears. Just sensation now. The weight of him above me, the mattress dipping under our combined weight. The sound of his ragged breathing. The whisper of fabric as he moves.

"Dante—"

"Shh." His lips brush my throat, and I gasp at the unexpected contact. "No more words. Just feel."

Without sight, everything intensifies tenfold.

The scrape of his stubble against my collarbone sends sparks through my entire body.

The heat of his mouth as he traces patterns down my throat makes me arch off the bed.

His hands work at my dress with maddening slowness, each button taking a small eternity, delivering cool air to newly exposed skin and making me shiver.

"You're shaking," he murmurs against my shoulder, tongue tracing its hollow.

"I'm not scared."

"I know." His teeth graze where neck meets shoulder, not quite painful but enough to make me pull against the ropes. "You're anticipating."

Every kiss is a brand against my skin. Every touch, electricity. He maps my body with his mouth—the dip of my throat where my pulse hammers, the valley between my breasts where he lingers until I'm gasping, the sensitive skin of my inner wrists where they're bound above.

Without sight, I'm hyperaware of how exposed I am, how his eyes must be traveling over me. Part of me wants to hide, but the ropes keep me spread out like an offering. The vulnerability of it—being seen so completely while blind myself—makes heat flush across my entire body.

"Beautiful," he whispers, and I feel the word against my ribs. "Every inch of you."

Time becomes elastic, stretching and contracting with each sensation.

His hands are everywhere and nowhere, never quite where I need them.

He traces the curve of my hip, the inside of my knee, the arch of my foot—places I never knew were sensitive until his touch makes them electric.

Every time I get close to the edge, he pulls back, leaving me gasping and desperate and cursing his name.

I'm drowning in sensation—the rough rope around my wrists, the soft quilt beneath me, the trails of fire his mouth leaves across my skin.

My other senses compensate for the lack of sight: I hear every catch in his breathing, smell the mingled scent of our arousal, taste the salt when I lick my lips.

"Please," I finally break, the word torn from my throat.

"Please what?"

"Please, I need?—"

"Tell me what you need."

"You. All of you. Now."

The blindfold suddenly disappears, and I blink in the low lamplight.

The first thing I make out is his face, and the raw hunger there makes me clench with want.

His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide with desire, a flush across his cheekbones.

His chest heaves with each breath, and I can see the effort it's taking him to maintain control.

My gaze travels down his body—he shed his clothes while I was blindfolded, and the sight of him makes my mouth go dry. Every muscle is defined in the golden light, tense with restraint. He's beautiful in his danger, magnificent in his barely harnessed need.

"Look at you," he says, voice rough as gravel, and I realize he's studying me with the same intensity. "Two weeks ago, you were ready to gut me if I came too close."

"I remember."

"Now you're letting me see you like this. Vulnerable. Trusting. Tied up with rope in my grandfather's bed." His hand cups my face with unexpected tenderness. "Do you understand what that means to me?"

"Show me."

When he finally gives what I've been begging for, it's with a possessiveness that should frighten me but doesn't. He moves me how he wants, positions me like I'm his to arrange, and I let him. More than let him—I revel in it. In being wanted this much. In being claimed so thoroughly.

The rope around my wrists pulls with each movement, the slight burn grounding me in the moment. Every sensation is amplified—the slide of skin against skin, slick with sweat; the way he grips my hips hard enough to bruise; the sounds of pleasure echoing through the old farmhouse.

He watches my face as he takes me apart, and I watch his—the way his jaw clenches, the way his eyes never leave mine even as they go unfocused with lust. We're both completely exposed, completely vulnerable, and somehow that makes it even more intense.