LOGINLuca’s POV (Slight mature contents ahead)
Her lips were soft... too soft. I could feel it without touching it. I wanted to punish her, to teach her a lesson for daring to enter my room. But the moment I saw the shadow of her petite figure, my anger twisted into lust. I wanted to claim her... to devour her... to ruin her... I couldn’t really explain the kind of pull I had towards her at that moment. I pressed against her, caging her between my arms as my fingers threaded through her silky strands, forcing her to tilt her head up. She barely reached my chest, she was small and fragile, so easy to overpower, to bend to my will. The stark contrast in our height and weight sent a thrill down my spine. It felt like a doll trapped in the grasp of a beast. My breath fanned against her trembling lips, and I could feel the way she quivered beneath me. Utterly trapped. Her inexperience was obvious, and it only fueled the hunger coursing through my veins. So innocent... So tempting.... My lecherous gaze flickered between the shadows of her face and her ample breasts. Her frame was petite, her curves were defined, although nothing like those voluptuous, curvy women I usually took to bed. Her mounds might be too small to fill my palm, yet tempting enough to hold my attention. "You're a virgin, aren't you?" I taunted, lowering my head until my lips were just a breath away from hers. "I... I am not a...." She tried to speak, but the moment my thumb traced her lower lip, her voice died in her throat. I smirked. " I don't kiss," I told her, my voice dark, filled with promise. "Never saw the point of it." Her breath hitched. "But for you... " I exhaled sharply, "I'll make an exception." And then I slammed my lips against her soft lips. Dio mio this softness!! She froze beneath me, completely still, completely lost. Her lips trembled beneath mine. I claimed her mouth with sinful expertise. My fingers tangled in her soft and silky hair, tugging her head back to deepen the kiss. My other hand slid lower, gripping her waist, pressing her against me. She was small, soft, too damn delicate, and utterly trapped against my muscular, heavy chest. Her tiny hands fisted against my skin, her soft velvety touch sending a pulse of heat straight through me. My grip tightened on her hair as I moved against her. But she didn't respond the way I expected…. My tongue tried to push past the seam of her lips, but her lips remained tightly sealed. She was different. Unlike the women who eagerly parted their legs for me. She stiffened in my arms. Her lips remained tightly closed at first. But her resistance wasn't helping me to stop, it only fueled my hunger. I pushed against her lips, demanding entrance. My tongue traced her lips. But her stubborn lips were still tightly closed. I lost patience and nipped her lower lip softly, bringing out a tiny whimper, and the sound sent a jolt of satisfaction through me and straight to my already aching cock. The moment her lips parted, I seized the chance, slipping my tongue inside and tangling with hers. She trembled beneath my hold, her tiny fingers clutching over my bare shoulders, caught between resistance and surrender. She wanted to push me away but didn't know how. But I deepened the kiss, claiming her mouth like it was mine to take. She whimpered, gasped, her soft protest lost between us as I swallowed every sound she made. Her body tensed, her struggles growing more frantic as if she was trying to say something but I kept devouring her mouth. But then....one gasp shattered everything. "Luca! Brother!." I froze. My entire body went still. The breathy, desperate gasp hit me like lightning, snapping me out of the feverish haze. The intoxicating haze... the burning need... all of it shattered in an instant. My grip on her hair loosened, my fingers slipping away from her waist as if her skin burned me. I pulled back slightly, barely holding on to control as I pressed my forehead against hers, trying to steady my ragged breaths. My lips are still hovering over hers. My pulse pounded like war drums, my mind reeling from what I had just done. I quickly turned on the lights. "Sofia?" The name rasped from my lips, raw, like I was choking on it. But suddenly my demeanour changed. My fists clenched. I took a slow, dangerous step back and gritted my teeth. “Who the fuck let you in here?” My voice was low, furious, and rough. She didn't answer. She didn't even move. Just stood there, frozen, her wide, startled eyes locked onto mine. My patience snapped. "You lived here for Seven fucking years!" My voice thundered through the room, rough, furious. "DON'T YOU KNOW YOUR WAY AROUND HERE?" She flinched, startled, her body jerking slightly at the harshness of my tone. "I... I... got lost," she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers trembled as they clutched the fabric of her dress. "You got lost and wandered into my room, huh?" I took a slow step towards her, my voice dropping into a low rasp. My gaze flickered to her trembling lips, still swollen from my kiss. "If you get lost again, I can show you the way…" I groaned in a slow, husky whisper, my lips brushing against her ear. ...straight to my bed." As the last words left my mouth, my fury melted into something far more sinister, as if the anger was nothing but just a pretence to frighten her. A wicked grin tugged at my lips, my gaze flickering with dangerous intent as I noticed her shiver. Her breath hitched, horror flashing through her eyes. She stumbled away, and for the first time in my life, I let a woman go when I was painfully hard for her. But the taste of her lingered on my lips. The burn of her body against mine refused to fade. "Fuck!..." I exhaled harshly, dragging a hand through my hair. As I sat on the edge of my bed. My entire body burned, every nerve screaming for relief. My fingers curled around my aching length through the towel, I quickly unwrapped myself as I leaned back, about to jerk off... A sudden knock on my door made my frustration spike. I was about to yell when…. “Luca” Victor my right-hand man and best friend hollered from outside the door.? I gritted my teeth, cursing under my breath “What fucking perfect timing”. My fingers twitched and my cock was hard as rock but I forced myself to stand, slightly adjusting myself with a frustrating groan. Apparently, we had plans to go to one of my clubs today. I opened the door with my face twisted in frustration. Victor stood there with his usual cocky smirk. “Took you long enough” he said, stepping inside without an invitation. “Don't tell me you were jerking off Luca” I shot him a cold glare as I walked past him towards my closet to change. “Shut the fuck up”. Victor chucked “Well, we could have some fun with some of the girls tonight at the club, but it looked like you found a better distraction” I froze for half a second “Was it one of the maids?” he continued. “I do not have time for your bullshit Victor”. Then he smiled “but seriously, who was the chick that turned you on and left without—” This time I shot him a deadly glare, my voice low and edged with warning “Say one more word, and you'll regret it”. His brows lifted in amusement “Fine……fine…..” he said raising his hand in a mock surrender. “Anyway, there's a celebratory dinner for Sofia's return tomorrow and I thought to let you know” then he left. I just stood there thinking of Sofia and and her soft lips.Sofia’s POV I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time. I did not cry. I had promised myself I wasn’t going to cry and I kept that promise with the focused stubbornness of someone who understood that if she started she might not stop for a while. I looked at the ring on my finger. Simple gold band. Warm in the lamplight. Matching the one on the hand of the man at the end of this corridor who had pressed his lips to my forehead in a courthouse with no flowers and no guests and made me his wife. I had known it would cost something. I had stood in that courthouse and looked at the priest and the rings and the man holding my hands and understood completely and without self-deception that this was going to cost something significant and I had said yes anyway. I had not fully understood until this moment exactly what the cost felt like. You disgust me. From Valentina. My Valentina. I pressed my fingers flat against my sternum and breathed with the deliberate focu
Upstairs in her room Valentina sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall. She had not cried. She was not going to cry. She was going to sit here and feel what she felt and then she was going to decide what to do with it. Sofia. Her Sofia. Who had grabbed her hand at seven years old and held on. Who had been her person for Sixteen years. Who had come home from London after eight years of being away and somehow still exactly herself and Valentina had been so happy — so genuinely, completely happy — to have her sister back. And the whole time. The whole time. She pressed her fingers against her mouth. She thought about Luca’s face when Sofia left the dinner table. She thought about things she had seen and filed and told herself she was imagining. She thought about the boutique. About a hundred small moments she had watched from the outside without understanding what she was watching. She stood up. She was going to find Sofia. She had things t
Luca’s POV Romano’s office was the room in the Virelli estate that had always felt most specifically like him — large, ordered, the furniture dark and solid and chosen for function over aesthetics. The desk that had been his father’s before it was his. The bookshelves that held things he had actually consulted. The particular smell of old paper and wood polish and something underneath that Luca had associated with his father’s authority since he was old enough to understand what authority was. He closed the door behind him. Romano was standing at the window with his back to the room. Elena sat in the chair beside the desk with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on her husband’s back. Luca stood. Nobody spoke for a moment that lasted longer than moments usually lasted. Then Romano turned. He looked at his son with the dark eyes that Luca had inherited and that looked different on the face of a man twenty six years older — carrying more, showing less, the specif
Luca’s POV He had started wars before. He knew what they felt like in the room before they were declared. The specific quality of silence that preceded them. The way the air changed. The particular stillness of men who understood that something irrevocable was about to be said and were deciding, in the seconds before it was said, where they stood. He had started wars and ended them and managed the space between with the cold efficiency of someone who understood that conflict was simply another form of negotiation conducted at higher volume. He had never started one in his own family l. With his mother’s hands pressed flat against her mouth. And his father looking at him like he didn’t recognize him. The room had gone the specific quiet of a space that had received too much information simultaneously and hadn’t yet decided what to do with any of it. Sofia was still beside him — he was aware of her the way he was always aware of her now, with the particular peripheral a
The ceremony was the smallest thing. No flowers. No music. No gathered family with their collective breath held. Just a priest and a registrar and Victor standing to one side with the careful expressionless face of a man performing his function and taking nothing for himself from the moment. And Luca’s hands holding mine. He had large hands. Steady. The particular warmth of them was something I registered with the specific attention of someone cataloguing a thing they intended to keep. The priest spoke. Luca said what he was asked to say. I said what I was asked to say. My voice came out steady throughout. When it came to the rings I looked at Luca and he reached into his jacket pocket and produced two bands — simple, gold, exactly matching — and I understood that he had planned this. Not impulsively in the night. Planned it. The courthouse, the priest, the rings. He slid mine onto my finger. I slid his onto his. We looked at each other. “I now pronounce you
Luca didn't hesitate. Once the thought settled in his mind… it became action. "Victor," he said into the phone, his voice calm, precise. "Yes, boss." "Bring the car around. Quietly." A pause. "And find Sofia. Quickly" Sofia’s POV “Has anyone seen my blue cardigan?” Valentina’s voice carried down the corridor with the particular volume she reserved for questions she expected the house to answer collectively. I heard Elena respond from somewhere below and Matteo say something that earned an immediate rebuttal and the sounds of a normal Virelli morning assembled themselves around me while I sat at my desk and pretended to read. I had been pretending to read for forty minutes. The book was upside down for the first twenty before I noticed. Last night had settled into me the way significant things settled — not loudly, not with the drama of the moment itself, but quietly, in layers, the way sediment set







