I know how unbelievable it sounds. If someone had told me something like that happened, I wouldn’t have believed them either. It’s completely insane, but it’s what happened.
“No, I... I snuck out of the house. Julia helped me.”
“Right. Are you blaming Julia now? It’s all her game, right? Or your father’s? And you didn’t know anything about it and thought you were having the best time of your life?”
“No! Julia has nothing to do with this! She didn’t know either. She never would’ve done anything to hurt me! Please! You have to believe me.” My eyes plead with his, but I don’t think anything can penetrate the dark shadows in them. “My father doesn’t know.”
“A coincidence? You’re telling me that this is all a coincidence? Your friend just wanted to party at that club and brought you along. We hooked up. You got pregnant, so you ran away from home and came to me?”
I nod. “I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth. I thought that if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. You’d get mad and—”
“You’re right about that. Iammad.”
“Please don’t kill me. At least until the baby is born.” A tear slides down my cheek. “Our baby is innocent in all this. It’s all my fault. Please!”
His gaze is trained on mine as he wipes the tear off my cheek. “You know what’s the worst thing in the world right now? I want to believe you. I want to believe you so bad it hurts, and I want to kiss you and make sure you’re really mine.”
Some of the coldness seeps out of his eyes. There’s a war raging in them.
“Then kiss me,” I whisper. “Because what I just told you is the truth. No more secrets. I’m Marcello Valentino’s daughter, and I hate him as much as he hates me. All I wanted was a brief moment of happiness. I just wanted to have fun like a normal person, and somehow I ended up on your path. I only found out who you were after I saw your photo on my father’s table and he mentioned your last name. If my father knew I was pregnant, he’d kill me. I didn’t have a choice but to come to you and hope... Hope that my baby would be safe and sound.”
He grips my chin, his fingers digging into my skin as his gaze never leaves mine. Then his mouth is on mine, hard and demanding, as he catches my wrists and pins me against the wall. His teeth graze my lip, and I groan.
“You can still use your safe word,” he whispers into my ear.
But I don’t want to stop because heat is spreading through my body like wildfire, and I just want more of him. His mouth moves against mine again, and then he picks me up and throws me facedown on the bed.
I let out a gasp as he grips the waistband of my pants and underwear and just yanks them down my legs, leaving me completely exposed to him. The sound of the belt being pulled out of the loops should scare me, but I only feel the tingling between my legs.
The first sharp smack of the belt against my ass makes me jump, but the sting feels almost liberating. More hard blows fall all over my bottom and thighs, and I groan and moan as warmth spreads all over me. My pussy is already dripping wet, and I can barely think.
The belt clatters as Luca tosses it across the room. The bed shifts as he climbs onto it. I feel his erection pressing against my sore bottom. His hand winds in my hair and tugs back. I gasp as his lips brush my ear.
“You know what makes me happy?” he whispers. “Now I can finally come inside you properly. You’re mine. You’re fucking mine. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.” My core already throbs for him.
He pulls my hips up and shoves my legs apart, and then he slams himself so deep inside me that I cry out. He doesn’t give me any time to adjust. He just pumps into me.
“Say it,” he commands as he grips my hips. “Say that you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I whisper.
“Louder.”
“I’m yours!” My breath comes out in little gasps as he pounds into me, and there’s so much pleasure coursing through my body that it feels like I’m on a completely different plane of existence.
Luca will forgive me, or at least I hope he will. If he didn’t give a damn about me, he wouldn’t be holding onto me right now. I’d be dead already.
My release hits me with so much force that it knocks my breath out of me. Tiny pinpricks of pleasure race through my body as Luca grunts. He collapses on top of me and envelops me like a warm blanket.
We just stay like that for a bit, just trying to catch our breaths. Then Luca rolls off me, and I shift on my side so I can look at him.
“I hate that I love you,” he says softly, brushing a strand of my hair out of my face.
The darkness still dances in his eyes, but there’s some warmth and light in there now too.
“I’m sorry about how things went. I really wish I wasn’t a Valentino, but we can’t choose our parents,” I say.