Burn It All Down

Candice’s P.O.V.

The second the lock clicked, the air in the room changed.

It wasn’t soft anymore.
It wasn’t tender.
It was oxygen meeting gasoline.

Mantovani turned from the door and looked at me like a man who’d just heard his own death sentence and decided to greet it with teeth bared.

“You want me to ruin you?” His voice was barely human. “Fine.”

He crossed the room in three strides, grabbed the front of the cut still hanging open on my shoulders, and ripped it down my arms. Leather hit the floor with a heavy thud. Then his hands were on my throat…not squeezing, just holding me still while his mouth crashed into mine so hard I tasted blood.

I kissed him back just as violently, biting his lower lip until he growled. My nails clawed down his chest, reopening the scratches from earlier. He hissed in pain and liked it.

He spun me, slammed me chest-first against the wall beside the bed. One brutal hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back until my spine bowed.

“You want the real me, Candice?” he rasped against my ear. “No more pretending I’m safe?”

“Yes,” I sobbed, pushing my ass back against the ridge of his cock. “Give me …the monster.”

His belt buckle clinked open. Jeans shoved down. Then he was inside me no warning, no gentleness—just one savage thrust that punched the air from my lungs and buried him so deep I felt him in my throat.

I screamed.

He didn’t let me breathe. He fucked me like he was trying to split me in half, hips slamming against my ass hard enough to bruise. Every stroke dragged over that spot inside me that made my vision white out. His free hand snaked around my hip, fingers finding my clit and rubbing brutal, perfect circles.

“You feel that?” he snarled, teeth scraping the shell of my ear. “That’s me carving my name into your soul. You’ll never wash me off.”

I came so hard my legs gave out. He held me up by the hair and the arm locked around my waist, pounding through my orgasm like he wanted to punish me for it.

But he wasn’t done.

He pulled out suddenly, spun me again, and threw me onto the bed on my stomach. Before I could catch my breath he was on me—knees forcing my thighs apart, one hand pressing between my shoulder blades, pinning me flat.

Then he pushed into my ass.

No prep. No warning. Just the blunt, burning pressure of his cock forcing past that tight ring of muscle.

I screamed into the mattress, fists clawing the sheets. It hurt—God, it hurt—but the pain twisted into something darker, something that made my pussy clench emptily and leak onto the sheets beneath me.

He gave me one inch, then another, slow and merciless, until he was seated to the hilt and I was sobbing from the stretch.

“Take it,” he growled, voice shaking with restraint. “Take every fucking inch of what you asked for.”

Then he started moving.

Slow at first—long, punishing strokes that lit every nerve on fire. His hand slid under me, two fingers shoving into my pussy, curling hard. The dual invasion broke me open. I came again instantly, violently, my whole body seizing around him.

He cursed in Italian, hips stuttering.

“Mine,” he snarled, fucking me harder, deeper, the slap of skin on skin echoing like gunshots. “This body, this heart, this fucking soul—mine.”

I lost track of how many times I came. Lost track of everything except the brutal rhythm of his cock in my ass and his fingers wrecking my pussy. Tears and drool soaked the sheets beneath my cheek.

When he finally came, it was with a roar that rattled the walls. Heat flooded me, pulsing deep, marking me in a place no one else would ever reach.

He collapsed over me, both of us shaking, sweat-slick and ruined.

For a long moment the only sound was our ragged breathing.

Then he turned my face gently…so gently it broke something else inside me and kissed the tears from my cheek.

“I warned you,” he whispered, voice cracked open and raw. “I warned you I’d destroy you.”

I turned in his arms, trembling, and pressed my forehead to his.

“Then destroy me,” I breathed. “But never stop.”

Outside the door, I swear I heard footsteps…hesitant, horrified, then the soft click of someone walking away.

Mom had come back.

She’d heard everything.

And for the first time, I didn’t care.

Let her hear.
Let the whole fucking world hear.

I was his.

And I was never going back.