I stood still while her lips moved up to my jaw, softly kissing and nipping at my skin. As her lithe body skimmed mine and her breasts grazed my chest.
With a man who is every bit the beast she said I was back in Rome.
“Luc...” Her fingers slid into my hair, and her hips pressed against mine.
I closed my eyes, fighting the conflicting feelings warring inside me—between arousal and nausea, pleasure and pain, love and hate. Between the man she thought I was and the monster I was destined to be.
“Vita mia,” she whispered, kissing my cheek, moving closer to my mouth with every graze of her tempting lips. “Ho voglia di te.”
I wasn’t sure if it was her use of Italian or the words she’d spoken—My life... I want you—but for whatever reason, before she could kiss my lips, I grasped her at the wrists and jerked her hands from my body, holding them between us.
She stared up at me in the dark with wide eyes. Wide and just the slightest bit frightened eyes, as if she wasn’t sure who I was anymore or what I would do next. And in the silence, all that self-loathing I’d been fighting came rushing back. Along with whispered words in my ear, growing louder with every second. The same words my father had whispered after I’d been unchained in that ritual room.
“You’ve spent your whole life thinking you’re better than me. Than the other men in this House. But you’re not. You just proved it by fucking that kitten in front of your new wife. By breaking a sacred vow not even a day after you made it. By enjoying every single second of what those kittens did to you.
“You’re weak. You’re a disappointment. You’re nothing, and now everyone knows it.
“Hear me closely, son. I’m done with your shit. You’ll fall in fucking line, or I will destroy you and all that you hold dear, including that pretty wife of yours. And before you go cursing me for being a monster, you’d better face one cold hard reality: You’re every bit the monster I am. I created you. Salvatici blood runs hot through your veins, just as it does mine. And no matter how hard you fight it, you will never be free of it. You are never going to escape your destiny.”
“Luc,” Natalie whispered, staring up at me. “None of what happened was your fault. I want you. I love you. Let me show you how much.”
“You want me?”
She nodded. “Desperately.”
Something inside me snapped. No one should want me. No sane woman could want me after what I’d done. Especially someone who was supposed to love me.
All I saw was red. Red and a blinding rage fueled by whispers and lies and ugly truths that pushed me forward.
I tossed her onto the bed face-first. She hit the mattress on her hands and knees with a gasp, tried to push up, but I didn’t let her. I shoved her flat, and holding her still with one hand, I glanced around, looking for anything I could use to restrain her.
I spotted the robe Marco had left at the foot of my bed days ago but which I’d ignored.
Releasing her long enough to yank the tie free of the robe, I grabbed it and came back. She was already on her hands and knees, but I shoved her flat again, then reached for her arms and yanked them toward the headboard.
“Luc, what are you doing? Wait. Why are you...? Hold on a second and just talk to m—”
“You said you wanted me.” I looped the end of the sash around the metal headboard and pulled tight. “This is me.”
“I... I do want you, but you don’t have to tie me up. I want to touch you. I want to make love with yo—”
“I told you on our first night together that I don’t make love.” I scooted behind her and yanked the leggings straight down her body. “You seem to have forgotten that.” I dropped her leggings on the floor and palmed her ass on both sides. “It’s time I reminded you just what I’m good for. What did you call me in Rome?”
“Luc—”
“Say it.” I nudged her knees apart and slapped my hand against her right cheek, the sound echoing through the room as she jumped. “I want to hear you say the word.”
I slipped my hand between her legs to find her already wet and swollen, a response that lit me up and fueled that rage inside me even higher. “Say the word, Natalie, or I’ll spank this ass until it’s nice and red.”
“Oh God.” She dropped her head into the pillow and rocked back against my hand, never once making any move to try to get away, another reaction that made me even hotter. “Y-you... I called you a... a beast.”
“That’s right.” I leaned over her back, slipped my hand into her shirt, and palmed her breast. “I am a beast.” I slid my fingers through her wetness, teasing her clit. “I’ve always been a beast.”
“Yes.” She rocked back into my hand. “Yes, I like that.”
“You want more?”
She nodded and gripped the sash tied around her wrists. “More. Please. I want you.”
She didn’t want me. Not like this. She couldn’t.
I twisted her nipple and pressed two fingers deep into her slick channel, wanting to prove that to her, wanting to punish her for getting close to me, wanting to pleasure her intensely until she came all around my fingers.
The emotions swirling inside me made no sense. Caused my head to pound. Were making me so fucking hot and crazy and mad at the same time.
“I’ve always been a beast,” I growled, pumping into her while teasing her clit with my thumb, driven by some primal urge I didn’t understand. One pushing me to punish and claim her all at the same time. “You just made the mistake of thinking you could tame me. But we both know the truth now. I’m brutal and I’m savage, just as I told you I would be. And you were dumb enough not to listen.”
I thrust harder, rubbing that spot so far inside, her whole body shook. And I both loved and hated that she was so responsive to my touch, that she didn’t try to push me away, that she was willing to let me do whatever deranged thing I wanted to do to her.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” I pinched her nipple while I thrust again and again. “A hard, fast fuck. That’s why you won’t leave me alone. So take it. Take all of it. We both know that’s all I’m good for.”
“No.” She gasped. Arched her back. Tightened around me. “That’s... that’s not all. I... I want you. Not... sex.”
“Bullshit. You want to come. Say it.”
“Oh...” She pressed her forehead against the mattress. Couldn’t keep from pressing back against my hand. “Luc...”
I knew the signs. I knew she was right on the edge. And somewhere deep in my soul I despised her for that. For wanting me—this—when we both knew she shouldn’t. When I couldn’t even stand the sight of myself in the mirror.
“Say it,” I hissed again. “Beg the beast to let you come.”
“Luc—”
“Say it,” I snapped.
“Oh God.” She braced her weight on her elbows and rocked back into me in time with my thrusts. “Please... Please make me come. Please...”
I pummeled that spot again and again, rubbing it hard with both fingers. And when her climax hit, I didn’t just hear her release in her cries of ecstasy, I felt it in the way her channel spasmed around my fingers and her pussy gushed with fluid.