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~ Aria ~

Something broke inside me—four years of restraint, of pretending I'd forgotten him, of trying to be someone other than Vittorio Santoro's daughter. The whiskey had melted my filters, and I was so tired of fighting.

"I've wanted you since I was eighteen years old," I said. "I used to lie awake at night in Provence thinking about you. Imagining what it would feel like if you touched me. Kissed me." I moved toward him. "I'm not eighteen anymore, Luca."

"Aria…"

"Tell me you don't want me. Tell me you never thought about it. All those times you found excuses to be near me that summer. The way you watched me. Tell me I imagined it."

His control was fracturing; I could see it in the tension of his shoulders, the rapid pulse at his throat. "You didn't imagine it."

"Then stop fighting it."

"I work for your father. You're…"

"I'm what? Off-limits? Forbidden?" I closed the distance between us, tilted my face up to his. "I'm tired of being something people protect and manage and control. I want to feel something real."

His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "This is a mistake."

"Then make it with me."

For one suspended moment, nothing happened. Then Luca's control shattered.

He kissed me like a man who had been starving for years — brutal, consuming, teeth clashing before our tongues found each other in a wet, filthy slide. One hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back so he could devour my throat; the other clamped possessively around my ass, hauling me up his body until my legs locked around his waist.

I moaned into his mouth, grinding down hard against the thick ridge already straining behind his trousers. I could feel how brutally hard he was and the realization made me clench emptily.

Four years of suppressed fantasies detonated inside me.

He carried me into the bedroom without breaking the kiss, kicked the door shut, and dropped me onto the mattress hard enough that I bounced once.

Before I could catch my breath he was on me, ripping my sweater over my head, tearing the thin lace bra down so my breasts spilled free. His mouth closed over one nipple—hot, wet suction followed by the sharp edge of teeth.

I arched with a broken cry, fingers digging into his scalp.

"Fuck… Luca…"

He bit harder, just shy of pain, then soothed the sting with slow, filthy licks while his hand shoved under my skirt.

Then two thick fingers slid through my folds and pushed slowly inside me.

I keened, hips lifting to meet him. He curled them, stroking that swollen spot with devastating patience, and his thumb found my clit.

"You're soaked," he murmured against my hip. "You have imagined this countless time. You are such a bad girl, Aria."

"Wanted you…" I was already shaking. "Wanted this… so badly…"

He didn't look away from my face once. He watched every gasp, every flutter of my lashes, every time my thighs tightened around his hand, as if my pleasure was the only thing in the world worth his attention. When I came, it tore through me with his name on my lips, and he stroked me through every shuddering wave until I pushed his wrist away.

I didn't give him time to gloat.

I shoved at his shoulders, and he let me roll him onto his back. My fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons, then gave up and yanked. I tore his belt open, dragged his zipper down, and freed him—thick and heavy, the head flushed dark and already slick.

"My turn," I said.

Something flared in his eyes. He didn't argue.

I straddled his hips and sank down on him slowly, inch by inch, the stretch burning so good my breath stuttered. Luca groaned like he'd been wounded. His hands gripped my hips, not guiding me, just holding on.

"Aria…" His voice was wrecked. "Dio, Aria."

I rode him the way I'd imagined for four years: slow at first, then harder, watching the consigliere who never lost control come apart beneath me. His head pressed back into the pillow. His fingers bruised my hips.

Then he surged up, rolled us, and pinned me to the mattress, and everything turned fast and desperate. He hooked my knee over his arm and drove into me deep enough to steal my breath, the headboard knocking against the wall with every stroke.

"Harder," I gasped. "Fuck me like you hate me."

"Hate you?" He laughed, low and ragged, against my throat. "I've spent four years trying to. Every time you wore those little sundresses in Provence. Every time you looked at me like you knew exactly what I wanted to do to you."

His thumb found my clit again, rubbing fast circles while he pounded into me, and I felt the second wave building, bigger than the first.

"Luca… I'm… fuck… I'm gonna…"

"I know," he breathed. "Let go. I've got you."

I shattered. It tore a raw scream from my throat, my nails raking lines down his back, my body clenching around him so hard he swore. He slammed home one final time and came with a guttural curse in Italian, hips jerking as he spilled deep inside me, his forehead pressed hard to mine.

We collapsed together, chests heaving, bodies slick with sweat. Neither of us moved to separate.

"Luca…"

"I know." His voice was wrecked. "I know."

But he stayed buried inside me, one hand tangled in my hair, his lips pressed to my shoulder like he couldn't bring himself to stop touching me.

Outside, the Boston skyline glittered in the darkness. And in a few hours, the jet would be ready to carry us both back to France, back to my father's world, back to consequences neither of us were ready to face.

But for now, in this stolen moment, I let myself have this. Let myself have him.

Even if it could only be once.