Page 53 of Vows Made in Silence
Luca follows with a groan, his breath scalding against the back of my neck as he drives into me one final time, release wracking his frame like a silent storm. For a moment, we stay tangled together, heartbeats echoing through our chests like gunfire in the dark. I feel him tremble—this man who never bends—and I close my eyes, letting the burn of him inside me drown out everything else.
I feel the shift in him before he pulls away, before the warmth of his body vanishes. I slide to the floor, knees folding beneath me, body still humming from the high of us. I wrap my arms around my legs, watching him. Waiting.
The silence stretches between us but the ache between my legs and the bruises on my hips tell me it was real.
He turns, and for a heartbeat—just one—I see it. That raw, familiar fire. Obsession. Need. The echo of the boy who once promised me forever.
But it flickers out just as fast, buried beneath the don’s mask. He’s in need of control.
“We need to talk.” he says, voice stripped of everything that just passed between us.
I sit shaking, the scent of him still heavy in the air. My heart beats against the cage of my ribs, aching for a normal family life.
All I can think of is that he knows.
16
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Blood Secrets
She stands on shaking legs, and I don’t give her the chance to fall. My hand wraps around her waist, steadying her, guiding her out of the room like she’s something fragile and precious—because to me, she is.
In the bathroom, I turn on the water, let it run hot. Steam rises around us as I peel the rest of the night from her skin. The dirt. The blood. The fear.
She doesn’t say a word when I pull her into the shower, and I don’t ask for one. We stand beneath the water, chest to chest, heart to heart, and I swear I feel her soul press against mine.
My arms close around her, hard. She fits against me like she always has—like she never left. Like she never had to.
Her skin is soft beneath my hands, slick and warm, and I trace every inch of her with reverence and rage. Rage at what we lost. At what they tried to take.
“I thought I lost you,” I murmur into her hair.
She leans into me, her back arching like her body already remembers mine. “You found me,” she whispers.”
My fingers move down her spine, slow and sure, until she’s trembling all over again. Not from fear this time—but from need. From heat. My palms mold to her curves, my grip bruising, claiming, desperate to mark her with something that can’t be erased.
She turns to face me, water dripping down her cheeks like tears, and I can’t stop myself. I kiss her. Hard. Deep.
This isn’t just need. It’s obsession. It’s ten years of silence and agony pouring into her mouth, demanding she taste what I’ve carried all this time.
She moans into me, and I lose control.
I lift her, press her back against the cool tile, and let my forehead fall to hers. My chest heaves with all the things I can’t say. Not yet.
So, I speak in the only way I know how—with my hands, my mouth, my body. Every inch of her I touch reminds me she’s real.
I want to say I love her. I want to tell her I never stopped. But I can’t. Not here. Not now.
Because I’m too busy worshipping her with everything I have left.
And in this moment—beneath the water, wrapped in steam and heat and us—there’s no war. No vendetta. No bloodlines.
Just her.
Just me.
And a second chance.
