The Marriage Debt (De Vos Mafia #2)(69)

Suddenly, he pulls away and leaves me bereft with inescapable emotions swirling through my body. Not the kind that makes you moan, but the kind that makes you sigh.

Something I only ever felt with … Luca.

After he looks at me over his shoulder with a tempting gaze, he walks out of the closet, leaving me in here with a pounding heart while staring down at a small bunny nibbling on some food.

All this time, I thought I was going insane, that what I felt when he first kissed me was just my raging hormones betraying me, and he took advantage of that.

But I was wrong.

So wrong.

I fought so hard not to feel anything to fit in, to make my parents proud, that I ignored everything that took me off the path that led me to Liam. And it hurt the only guy who ever cared enough about me and what I wanted.

I hurt Luca so much he wanted nothing more than to hurt me as much as I had hurt him.

I stumble through the closet and head out into the living room, where he’s peering out the window, looking down onto the rainy street below like he’s admiring the dark empire that he’ll soon inherit. But there is nothing but frustration in his eyes.

He’s got all he ever wanted. Money. Power. All the sex he could ever want just with one snap of the finger.

But it’s never going to be enough until … my heart is his.

I swallow, flushing away my pride, my honor, my dignity … so I can finally focus on the one thing that truly matters, the one thing that’s kept us fighting all this time.

Us.

“When I kissed Liam, I felt nothing.”

He looks up at me, the anguish still filling his dark-stained eyes as his heart bleeds into mine.

“But when you kiss me … I feel everything I’m not supposed to feel.”

He turns, his muscles straining against his black suit as he loosens a button at the top of his shirt, and it’s then that I realize I’ve never actually seen what’s underneath. And the thought of finding out titillates me more than I ever thought it would.

And as he looks me dead in the eye, he says, “Tell me what I want to hear.”

“Show me what it means. Please.” My voice is hoarse with emotions. “Kiss me.”

He pulls off his jacket, the fabric straining against his thick muscles. His eyes don’t stop gazing straight into mine as he drops it to the floor. One by one, he unfastens the buttons of his shirt until that too is peeled away, revealing all the rippling muscles and tattoo-covered skin underneath, and to say that I’m not prepared for the holy hotness is an understatement.

I expected a lot of things from Luca De Vos, but to add this kind of ripped body to that thick, bulging cock in his pants is just too much.

“It was easy to play with you when you hated me.”

A smirk forms on his lips as his tongue dips out to lick them, the bulge in his pants only growing harder and harder. Is it because of me? Because of the way I look at him?

“But when you don’t? That’s when things get real.”

I gulp down the lump in my throat.

“I’m going to ask you again … Are you sure? Because I am not going to fucking hold back if you choose this. I don’t love gently. My love is hard and rough and all things unholy,” he says, his voice raw. Goose bumps scatter across my skin just from hearing him talk.

I nod, clutching my hands into fists, equal parts terrified and curious of what might happen.

But I need to know what this could be.

If Luca could be more than just my evil husband.

If I feel more for him than the lust I’ve been experiencing for so long.

And if this could be more than just revenge and hatred between us …

Maybe we could be fucking good together, just like he said.

But am I really ready?

His eyes lower, like a tiger ready to pounce. “Use. Your. Words.”

I swallow away the last drop of fear. “Make my heart yours.”





Chapter 28





Luca



* * *



For all these years, I hated her for even existing, and I could never understand why, but now I do. She made me feel something I didn’t want to feel. Not just lust but also a kind of greed that’s indescribable, and it made me do horrible fucking things. Torture, kill, maim, as long as it meant I got to keep her, even if it was in a cage.

But she didn’t want me the way I wanted her.

I’m a bad guy, a mobster … the devil himself.

And she was a perfect little angel.

Until she killed my brother and gave me the only excuse I needed to do all the depraved things to her I always wanted to. If I caught her and made her mine, I could play with her, use her, fuck her, make her pay.

But that was all a story I told myself to make it easier for me to make her body mine without involving my own shriveled-up heart.

I snorted her up like heroin but never felt the high.

Because she wasn’t truly mine, and it never felt real.

All she wanted was to run away from me, fight me, use my weakness against me, and I hated it. Every kiss I took felt like a betrayal. I could never have what I truly wanted all along. Her fucking heart.

It was everything to me, everything I ever fought for, hated her for.

And now it’s being offered to me on a platter, willingly. Freely.