Page 40 of Brutal Union
The car ride from the compound feels like an eternity compressed into minutes. Valentina sits beside me in the backseat, close enough that her perfume mingles with the leather and gun oil that clings to my suit. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her skin. Three weeks and three days I’ve waited for this moment, and now that it’s here, the victory tastes like ash.
Tommy pulls into my private garage, and I dismiss him with a look. The elevator requires my keycard, trapping us in the small space as it rises. Valentina stands beside me, her dress still carrying traces of the morning's chaos: dust from her father's estate, a small tear at the hem from our escape. Not blood, she'd cleaned herself after helping Ana, but the evidence of the day's violence clings to her anyway.
"Forty floors," she murmurs, watching the numbers climb. "Appropriate. Feels like ascending to judgment."
"Or descending to hell." My voice comes out rougher than intended.
She turns to look at me, and there's something in her expression I can't read. Not quite resignation, not quite anticipation. Something more complex that makes my chest tight.
The elevator reaches our floor, doors opening to reveal the penthouse bathed in late morning light. She steps out first, heels clicking on marble deliberately. I follow, watching the way her hips move beneath the simple clothes she threw on this morningfor the rescue, the way her hand drifts to the pocket where she keeps her mother's rosary.
"I should change," she says, not looking back. "This shirt, these pants… they've been through too much today."
"Leave it." The words escape before I can stop them. "I want you exactly as you are."
She stops in the middle of the living room, shoulders tensing. When she turns, her chin lifts in that defiant way that's haunted my dreams. "Covered in the dust of my father's destruction? That's what does it for you?"
"No." I cross to her, unable to maintain distance any longer. "What does it for me is you. The woman who saved Ana and her baby. Who destroyed her father's empire with truth. Who chose to come home to me."
"I came home for Alice." But her voice wavers, betraying the lie.
"Did you?" I stop just out of reach, close enough to see her pulse jumping at her throat. "Or did you come home because your body already knows where it belongs?"
She backs up until she hits the window, forty floors of Chicago spread beneath us. The morning light turns her skin golden, highlights the rise and fall of her chest as her breathing quickens.
"I owe you a debt," she says, but her hands are already reaching for me. "That's all this is."
Her fingers find my jacket, pulling me closer until our bodies align. The contact shoots straight to my cock, three weeks of wanting more crystallizing into pure need. We've done things, God, the memory of her coming on my tongue still haunts me, but never everything. Never what we both crave. But something's wrong. This isn't how I imagined it. Not her surrendering out of obligation, not a transaction to clear a debt.
"Valentina…" I start, but she silences me with her mouth.
The kiss explodes through me like wildfire. Her lips are soft but demanding, her tongue sliding against mine with a hunger that matches my own. She tastes like orange juice and coffee, like victory and defeat mixed together. Her hands tangle in my hair, pulling hard enough to sting, and the pain only makes me harder.
I press her against the glass, my hands finding her waist, feeling the heat of her through the thin fabric. She moans into my mouth, the sound shooting straight to my cock. Three weeks of sleeping beside her, breathing her scent, that one night of tasting her, and now she's finally in my arms, kissing me like she'll die if she stops.
But it's not enough. Not like this.
I pull back, breathing hard. "Stop."
Her eyes fly open, pupils blown wide with desire. "What?"
"Not like this." The words physically hurt to say. "Not because you owe me. Not as payment for saving Alice."
She stares at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. Marco Rosetti, turning down what he's wanted for weeks. But I want her to want this. Want her to choose me, not the debt.
"Are you serious?" Her voice rises, color flooding her cheeks. "Three weeks of torture, of making me sleep beside you, of these games, and now you don't want me?"
"I want you more than I want to breathe." My hands grip her waist tighter. "But not as a transaction. When I fuck you, principessa, it'll be because you're begging for it. Because you need my cock more than your next heartbeat. Not because you think you owe me."
"You arrogant bastard." She shoves at my chest, but I don't move. "You think I don't want this? After what we did that first week?"
"That was different. That was me proving a point."
"Fuck you." The words are venomous. "You steal me from my wedding, force me to marry you at gunpoint, make me come on your tongue until I screamed, and now you develop a conscience?"
She's right. The hypocrisy burns, but I can't shake the feeling that taking her now would break something between us that's just starting to grow.
"When you come to my bed for more than my mouth," I say, stepping back, giving her space, "it'll be because you choose to. Not because…"
