Page 6 of The Assassin’s Captive (The Roma Syndicate #5)

SERENA

T he kiss deepens, and I don't pull away. I don't second-guess it either. Everything about tonight—the wine, the conversation, the dim glow of his apartment—pushes me toward yes. The rational part of my brain, the part that analyzes evidence and weighs consequences, has gone quiet.

Lorenzo's hands frame my face, thumbs brushing along my cheekbones. I taste the wine on his lips, feel the heat radiating from his body as he pulls me closer. The couch beneath us creaks as he shifts, his mouth moving against mine with a hunger that makes my pulse quicken.

"Bedroom," he murmurs against my lips, and I nod before I can think better of it.

He stands first, extending his hand. I take it, letting him pull me to my feet. The apartment feels smaller now, the space between the living room and his bedroom charged with anticipation. He leads me down the hallway, his fingers intertwined with mine.

The bedroom is sparse—a king-sized bed with dark sheets, a dresser, heavy curtains drawn against the Roman night. A single lamp casts warm light across the room, creating shadows that dance on the walls. He turns to face me, his hazel eyes searching mine.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his voice husky with arousal. I appreciate his careful attention to consent, but I wouldn't have come to his bedroom if I wasn’t sure.

I answer by reaching for the buttons of his shirt.

His breath catches as my fingers work down the line of fabric, revealing the broad expanse of his chest. Scars crosshatch his skin—old wounds that tell stories I don't want to think about tonight.

I run my palms over the hard planes of muscle and skin inked with dark art, feeling his heart hammering beneath my touch.

He lets me explore for a moment before his hands find the zipper at the back of my dress. The sound fills the room as he draws it down slowly, the cool air hitting my skin as the fabric pools at my feet. I step out of it, standing before him in only my underwear.

His gaze travels over me, reverent and possessive. "Beautiful," he breathes, and the word sends heat coursing through my veins.

He reaches for me again, his hands spanning my waist as he draws me against him. The contact of skin on skin makes me gasp. He's warm and solid, all controlled power and barely restrained desire. When he kisses me again, it's hungrier, more demanding, and I meet him with equal fervor.

We move toward the bed, a tangle of limbs and searching hands. He guides me down onto the mattress, following me, his weight settling over me. The sheets are soft against my back, but all I can focus on is him—the way he looks at me, the way his hands map every curve of my body.

There's nothing careful about this. Nothing sweet or tentative. When his mouth finds the sensitive spot at the base of my throat, I arch beneath him, my fingers digging into his shoulders. He works his way down my body, each kiss, each touch building the fire burning inside me.

I let myself get lost in the sensation, in the way he makes me feel—desired, wanted, alive in a way I haven't felt in years. The heat between us is consuming, dangerous, but I don't want safe tonight. I want this—him, the way he touches me, the way he makes me forget everything beyond this room.

Lorenzo's hand slides beneath me, palm spanning my lower back as he shifts his weight to the side. The movement presses my hip against the mattress and lets him look down at me without hovering, his body half-curved around mine. His knuckles trail the line of my ribcage, slow, unhurried, like he’s drawing a map no one else is allowed to read.

“I’ve thought about this all evening,” Lorenzo says with rough restraint. “More than I should have.”

His fingers dip below the waistband of my panties, not to tug them off, just to rest there, possessive. My breath hitches, but I hold his gaze.

“Then stop thinking,” I say.

His mouth curves, but there’s no humor in it. He slides his hand lower, over the curve of my hip, across my thigh. “You like control?” he asks.

“Not tonight.”

He shifts again, sliding his leg between mine, the coarse fabric of his pants dragging against the inside of my thigh. I hook one arm around his neck, pulling him closer, and his breath catches against my skin.

“You’re going to ruin me,” he mutters.

“Not if you ruin me first.”

That earns a sound from deep in his chest—half growl, half laugh—and then his hand fists in my hair as he captures my mouth again, angling my head back so I have no choice but to let my jaw fall open.

His other hand grips my thigh, pulling it over his hip so the whole length of him presses flush to me.

“Keep your hands where they are,” he says against my mouth.

I do. He doesn’t move fast. He rocks against me once, slow and heavy, a threat disguised as friction. Then again, harder.

“I’m not going to be gentle,” he warns.

“I didn’t ask you to be.”

Lorenzo pushes up just enough to slide his hand between us. He palms my breast through the lace, thumb circling until my back arches off the bed.

“This on or off?” he asks.

“Off,” I breathe.

He sits up on his knees and reaches behind me, one practiced flick undoing the clasp. I shrug the straps off, let the bra fall to the floor without looking. His eyes darken as he takes me in fully.

“Christ,” he mutters. “I'm so fucked.” He shakes his head and this time, I chuckle.

Lorenzo rises onto his knees and pulls me with him, one arm braced around my back as he drags my hips into his lap.

The pressure of his cock against my underwear makes it impossible to think.

His mouth finds the side of my neck as he slides his hand between us, curling his fingers under the edge of the fabric.

He doesn’t tear them off. He peels the lace down with a kind of reverence that doesn’t match the tension thrumming beneath his skin. When the last scrap of fabric slides past my knees, he tosses it to the floor and grips my hips again, holding me steady.

I reach between us and unfasten his belt. The metal buckle clinks and his body goes still. I drag the zipper down, my knuckles grazing the line of his stomach. His breath hitches as I reach inside and wrap my fingers around him.

“Lie back,” he says, voice tight. I hesitate, just long enough to see the control snap in his eyes. “Now.”

I lower myself to the bed, letting my legs fall open as he stands and kicks off his pants.

The sight of him—naked, hard, eyes fixed on mine—sends heat spiraling low in my stomach.

He kneels again and drags me to the edge of the mattress, one hand locking around my ankle as he lifts my leg over his shoulder.

“I want to hear you,” he says. “Every sound. Every breath.”

Then he lowers his mouth to me. My hips jerk at the first touch of his tongue, the hot slide of it turning my nerves electric. He doesn’t rush—he devours me like it’s the only thing he came here to do, tongue moving in steady, maddening strokes while his fingers grip my thighs to keep me still.

I try to stay quiet but I fail miserably.

He's good at this—so fucking good I'm already finding it hard to breathe, seeing stars behind my eyes at the strain to hold back.

But the room fills with broken sounds, muttered whimpers, gasps for breath.

My hands fist the sheets, my spine lifting from the mattress as pressure builds fast and deep in my core.

He groans into me when I moan his name, and the vibration sends me over the edge.

He doesn’t stop until I’m shaking, writhing on the bed, convulsing around his digits. "Shit… Oh Christ," I mumble over and over while his tongue delves into my depths and draws fountains of moisture from somewhere inside me. I'm trembling, pulsing around him, as he growls into my sensitive skin.

Then he rises, dragging his mouth up my body until he’s hovering above me again, lips wet, eyes dark.

“I’m not done,” he says.

“Good,” I whisper. “Don’t stop." I’m panting, chest heaving for breath as I reach for him.

Lorenzo catches my wrist before I can touch him and pins it to the mattress above my head, his fingers curling around the delicate bones of my wrist like he’s testing how easily he could break me.

His eyes stay locked on mine, no trace of gentleness in the tension carved into his jaw or the way his cock presses hard against my inner thigh, slick from how thoroughly he’s wrecked me already.

“You don’t move,” he says, his voice low and taut. “You don’t speak unless I tell you to. And if I see your hands anywhere but where I put them, I’ll tie them to the fucking headboard.”

I nod once, breath caught somewhere in my throat, but it’s not enough for him. He tightens his grip until I gasp.

“Say it.”

“I won’t move.”

“And if I tell you to beg?”

“I will.”

His mouth curls, half-satisfied, half-dangerous, and then he lets go and shifts his weight lower, dragging the backs of his fingers down the length of my torso in one slow, possessive stroke that makes my body strain toward him even when I try to stay still.

He doesn’t warn me when he enters me—just grips my hips and drives in to the hilt with one brutal thrust that knocks the breath from my lungs and locks my spine into a bow away from the mattress.

The stretch is punishing, my pussy still swollen and oversensitive from his mouth, and I feel every inch of him as he holds himself deep and still inside me.

“You feel that?” he growls, bending over me until his mouth brushes my ear and his weight presses me deeper into the mattress. “How deep I am inside you?" I nod at him and he says, "Now I own you, Serena. I own this pretty cunt of yours. It's mine."

He starts to move—not gently, not teasing, but in a steady, merciless rhythm, dominating me, claiming me. He fucks me like he’s trying to imprint the shape of his cock into my body, like he wants me to feel him long after he’s pulled out and left me empty and ruined.