Page 23 of Tortured Hearts (Marchesi Empire #2)

“Say ‘red’ if it’s too much, or if you change your mind.”

The haze thickens as the word repeats over and over in my head.

Red. Red. Red.

“Becca?”

I blink him back in focus. “No,” I say roughly. “Not that word.”

He nods. “Then you choose.”

There’s only one that makes sense. A word that’s both meaningful and ours. “Fire.”

His pupils blow, the demons in them licking their lips as he slides his hand down my stomach. As he dips it under my dress, I sink my teeth into my bottom lip and brace for the misplaced feeling of violation that never comes. All I feel is safety, desire, and the slick drag of his finger.

I let out a stuttered breath. “Oh, God…”

“Wet already, Doc?” Gianni clicks his tongue. “Bad girl.”

I tip my head back as much as his restrictive hold will allow. “It’s your fault. I have no control when you look at me like that.”

Please take the hint. Play along.

He stares at me for a moment, his expression blank as a canvas.

Then, his lip curls up, his hesitation turning cold.

“Then allow me to fix that for you.” By the time the hand on my throat slides around to the back of my neck, the room is already spinning and my cheek slams against the wall. “Better?”

I smile against the concrete. This isn’t disrespect. It’s intimacy. He’s doing exactly what I asked. He’s taking a brutal assault and making it ours. He’s replacing violence with dominance.

“Hands up,” he demands. When I hesitate, I feel his breath against my ear. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Weeks of submitting to this man have me lifting my arms above my head.

There’s no “good girl” or any other words of praise.

Gianni simply pins my wrists to the wall with one hand as I hear the other drop to his zipper.

I close my eyes as he yanks my panties down my legs, letting the feel of him replace a vulgar memory.

He barely gives me time to step out of them before his arm is around my waist, and he’s lifting me off the ground and impaling me onto his hard cock.

With my wrists above my head and my feet off the floor, I’m completely at his mercy—a helpless doll he holds with an iron grip while pounding into me from behind.

To anyone else, it would seem vicious, but to me, it’s cathartic.

Gianni is possessive, forceful, dominant, and dirty, but he’s all those things because I allow it.

And that’s the glaring difference between him and men like Henry Saddler.

The harder he fucks me, the stronger I feel. But there’s still something missing.

“Hurt me.”

He stills. “Becca…”

“Mark me, Gianni,” I beg. “Take it away, and make it yours.”

There’s a silent pause, then he drives into me with the force of a man possessed, his teeth sinking into the soft skin of my shoulder. I scream, and my body erupts.

“Fuck!” He buries his face into my neck, and comes, his low grunt hot against my skin.

We stay like that for a few breathless moments, until Gianni slowly lowers me to the floor, my dress fluttering down around me. I don’t turn around right away. I brace my palm against the wall, listening to him getting dressed as I wait for my heart rate to settle.

When the room fills with silence, I turn around, one problem solved, another one brewing. “So, what happens now?”

He gives me a flat stare. “Now you have to trust me.”

“That’s a big ask.”

“I won’t let you down again, Doc,” he promises. “But I need to know you’re fighting with me and not against me.”

Say no.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” I repeat, ignoring every instinct telling me not to. “You and me against the world.”

His lips twist into a half-smile. “Yeah. You and me against the world.”

The moment stretches into two … then three. His thumb brushes my cheek as we stand there in silence. Then, he presses a light kiss on my forehead and starts toward the door. I stand in a daze, confused and exhausted, my emotions strained from one end to the other.

I glance down at my wrist, at the harsh, jagged black lines staining my skin, and a hazy conversation takes a familiar shape.

“This Irishman… He’s the one who killed Mom? What’s his name?”

“Dagger.”

“Dagger, what?”

“Just Dagger. That’s all he ever went by. After Carol died, I swore I’d do whatever it took to keep both him and Marchesi away from you. Even if it meant shielding you from yourself.”

“You made me believe I didn’t hear those words or see that tattoo to protect me.”

“It killed me to accept blood money from the man who destroyed our family, but I’d already lost your mother. I knew if Marchesi found out you could ID anything that linked to him, he’d return and follow through on his threat...”

“Is Dagger here, too?”

Gianni looks over his shoulder, his eyebrows clenched tightly together. “Who?”

“The man who killed my mother. My father said he was the link between your father and Providence.” I hold up my wrist. “This is the same tattoo I saw on him, so I figured maybe he might be the one who gave it to me.”

“No,” he says, the word as sharp as the needle that branded me. “He’s not here.”

I should be relieved. Instead, that confusing thirst for blood only heightens. “Oh.”

His lips tighten as he turns and opens the door.

“Gianni?”

He glances over his shoulder again, his expression already a hardened mask.

“Don’t…” I crush my wrist against my chest, the words I should say drowning in a lifetime of red. “Don’t show mercy.”

The look he gives me is so detached I wonder if he even heard me. Then a slow smile spreads across his face, brutality coating every inch. “I never do.”