Page 65
Jordyn’s still wrapped around me, warm and trembling, her chest pressed to mine.
Our foreheads rest together; breaths tangled in the space between us.
I lower her gently onto the bed. Neither of us speaks.
There’s nothing to say, not yet. The silence isn’t empty, though.
It’s full. Full of what we just gave each other. What she gave me.
I cup her face and tilt her mouth to mine, kissing her slowly and deeply.
No rush. No hunger now. Just feeling. Her lips move with mine like we’ve done this a hundred times.
Like this is where we were always meant to end up.
Her fingers stay threaded in my hair. I feel the tension in her starting to ease, her body softening against mine.
When I finally pull back, I press one last kiss to her jaw, then her temple. I whisper her name like a secret, a vow. And then, gently, I shift.
“I’m gonna pull out, okay?”
She nods, a sleepy sound in her throat, and I ease out of her carefully, already missing the feel of her wrapped around me. I reach down and slide the condom off, wrapping it in tissue before tossing it in the bin beside the bed.
And that’s when I see it.
Blood.
Faint smudges on my skin, staining the inside of her thighs, the sheets beneath her. And it hits me like a fucking sledgehammer.
I stare for a second too long, my hand braced on the bed, my chest tightening. Not out of regret, not even close, but because of what it means.
Her first time. And she gave it to me.
I look back up at her. She’s lying there with flushed cheeks and mussed hair, eyes barely open, lips swollen from my kiss. She looks wrecked. Beautiful. Safe. And mine.
She trusted me with this. With herself.
“Bambina…” My voice catches a little. I reach for her again, brushing her hair back, kissing her forehead. “Stay right here. I’ll be right back.”
I grab a clean cloth from the bathroom, wet it with warm water, and return to her as quickly as I can. She’s lying where I left her, one arm tucked beneath her head, the other resting over her stomach. Her eyes follow me now, soft, a little dazed, but alert. Watching.
“What are you doing?” she asks quietly as I kneel beside the bed.
I don’t answer right away. I just move gently, pressing the cloth between her legs to clean the blood. That’s when she sees it.
Her body tenses, the flush in her cheeks turning sharper, not from arousal this time.
“Oh my God.” Her voice cracks. She tries to sit up, but I place a hand on her hip to stop her. “I, shit, I got blood on your sheets, on you. Ares, I’m so?—”
“Hey.” I cut her off, voice low but firm. I set the cloth down and lift her chin, so she’ll look at me. Her eyes are glassy, embarrassed, overwhelmed.
“Don’t do that. Don’t apologise.”
Her brows pinch. “But your bed?—”
I shake my head. “I don’t give a fuck about the bed or sheets, Jordyn.”
I lean in, pressing my forehead to hers. My hand is still cradling her jaw, steadying her.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” I murmur. “Bambina, I’ve bled on worse. Trust me. This? This I’d mark a thousand times over if it meant I got to have you again.”
She draws in a slow breath and blinks fast, and I can feel her trying not to cry. I kiss her, soft and slow, until the tension melts out of her body again. Until her hand curls around my wrist and she nods, just once.
“Okay,” she whispers.
I pull back slightly, a small smile tugging at my mouth.
“Maybe I’ll frame it. Hang it on the wall so everyone knows who you belong to.”
That gets the tiniest laugh out of her, barely more than a breath, but it’s real. Soft and sweet and mine.
And fuck, I’d bleed for that sound.
I brush a thumb across her cheek and murmur, quieter now, “This bed? It’s not mine anymore.” I tilt my forehead to hers. “It’s yours. It’s ours.”
She lets out a breath, half laugh, half sigh, and tilts her head just enough to look up at me through her lashes.
“So, what you're saying is... I’ve officially claimed the most comfortable mattress in Sicily?”
My mouth twitches. “Really? That’s what you got from all that?”
She grins, lazy and proud. “Hey, I’m just making sure there are perks to giving you my virginity.”
I shake my head, biting back a smirk as I press a kiss to her lips. “Perks, huh?” I mutter, crawling over her. Jordyn smiles up at me, biting her lip. “You’ve got no idea what you’ve signed up for, mio cara.”
Her voice is soft, teasing as she circles her arms around my neck and draws me down for a kiss. “No? Why don’t you show me…”
And just like that, she owns me again.
An hour later, her body is draped across mine, all soft limbs and slow breath, her chin resting right over my heart like she’s trying to memorize the rhythm of it.
One of my hands is behind my head, the other tangled in her hair, brushing through the strands lazily. I don’t even realise I’m doing it until she shifts, a small sound leaving her lips, something content, like a purr.
It does something to me.
She does something to me.
We’ve already gone again, slow this time, deeper. Like she wasn’t just letting me have her body, but something more dangerous. Something I don’t know how to carry.
She’s quiet now, her fingers drawing shapes on my chest. Soft little patterns. I don't know what they mean, but I hope she never stops.
I’m not used to this. The stillness. The quiet after.
And for the first time in a long fucking time… I don’t hate it.
“Can I ask you something?” she murmurs, her voice barely above a whisper.
I hum, not opening my eyes. My hand keeps moving through her hair, slower now.
“What were you like as a kid?”
That stills me. Not completely, but enough for her to notice. She stops tracing for a beat, then starts again like she’s trying not to scare me off.
I could lie. I could shrug it off with some sarcastic bullshit. I’ve done it a hundred times before.
But not with her. Since the beginning, I have always been honest with her, and I’m not about to change that now.
“Angry,” I say finally, keeping my voice low. “I think that’s all I was.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t press. Just keeps moving her fingers over my skin like her touch could smooth out everything that ever went wrong inside me.
“Did you have friends?”
A laugh escapes me, dry and quiet. “Not the kind you keep past curfew.”
She huffs against my chest. It’s soft. A smile. But I hear the ache in it.
“What about toys? Books?”
I pause.
“I had a knife.” That makes her still. I feel it in the way her fingers freeze, the way her breath skips. “My father gave it to me when I was six,” I go on, eyes still closed. “Said I needed to learn how to make something bleed before I learned how to spell.”
Silence.
But she doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t tense. Just lets out this slow, shaky breath that sounds a lot like heartbreak. “Ares…”
My eyes open, and I look down at her, this girl who sees too much, asks too much, feels too much, and I know I should’ve kept it to myself. But I don’t regret it.
“I didn’t have a normal childhood,” I say, brushing my thumb over her cheek. “I was rarely allowed to play football with my friends, or video games or do any of the things normal kids would do.”
She lifts her head, her chin pressing into my chest, and her eyes meet mine, glassier now, a little wet. “Why?” she questions, and I stare at her for a moment.
“Because I wasn’t raised to be a son,” I admit, trying my best to keep the bitterness from my tone, but it still bleeds through. “I was raised to be a weapon. Bred to be the beast that protects the Russo throne.”
Jordyn sighs, but she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t flinch.
So I go on, my voice low and even.
“My father didn’t see a son, he saw a tool. Something to mould. Control. Turn loose when he needed blood spilled but didn’t want it on his own hands.”
I let out a breath. It feels like glass in my lungs.
“Football didn’t matter. School didn’t matter. He only cared about one thing, making me sharp enough to cut for him. I was bred for blood and violence.”
Jordyn’s hand comes up, gentle, resting over my heart. Her thumb strokes once, slowly.
“That’s the reason behind the hostility between you,” she whispers. “Why you’re so cold and distant, even with Enzo?”
I nod slowly, every muscle in my body bunching.
Her lips press to the centre of my chest, right over my heart, and something in me twists. Not in pain. Not even in guilt. Just…an ache . Deep and quiet and unfamiliar.
She rests her head there again, cheek against my skin, fingers still moving gently over me. Drawing shapes, each one drawing me out. “Did Enzo know?” she asks after a beat, voice soft, hesitant. Like she’s afraid to push too hard.
I nod, keeping my eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Yeah. He knew.” There’s a pause. I feel her breath stall like she’s bracing herself.
“He didn’t stop it?”
That one lands harder than I expect.
I swallow. “No. Because standing up to my father would’ve meant going against him, and that kind of defiance wasn’t something any of us got away with. In our world, you don’t say no. You bleed.”
My hand keeps threading through her hair, slower now, almost absent.
Like I’m using her touch to keep me tethered to the present.
“Unlike me, Enzo was raised to be the golden child. The one who was supposed to charm, to shine. My father needed him to be spotless. Untouched. And while he was taught to smile and negotiate, I was trained to slaughter and exist in the shadows.”
I exhale sharply when Jordyn’s fingers brush along my beard. “That’s not fair,” she says quietly. “To either of you.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “No. It’s not. But it’s the truth. It’s my truth.”
Jordyn’s hand slides up my chest, pressing over my sternum, like she’s trying to take some of the weight off.
She lifts her head again, her eyes locked on mine, searching, seeing everything. She lifts her head again, her eyes locked on mine, searching, seeing everything.
Table of Contents
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- Page 65 (Reading here)
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