All Chapters of Forbidden Never Felt This Good: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

0032~ Aria ~I woke up in the dead of night, the room shrouded in darkness except for the faint glow of moonlight slipping through the curtains. My body felt heavy with sleep, but something was holding me close, a warm pressure against my back that made me stir. It took a moment for my foggy mind to register, it was Luca's arm draped over my waist, his body pressed flush against mine. And there was something else, something firm and insistent poking against my thigh, sending a rush of heat through me.His member. Hard and unyielding, even in sleep. I shifted slightly, trying to ease away without waking him, but the movement only made it press more firmly against me. Luca drew in a sharp breath, his hold tightening just a fraction."Unless you want me to take you right here, Aria," he murmured in a voice that was low and edged with danger, "stop wiggling."His words hung in the air, thick with promise. I froze, my heart pounding. But then a thought flickered through my mind, isn't tha

0034~Aria~My father was already in the living room when we arrived.He was seated in the high-backed chair near the window. He looked up when we walked in with that steady, patient expression that meant he had been waiting and was ready. He looked frail. Every time I saw him now there was a little less of the physical force that used to fill a room when he entered it, and a little more of this, the careful stillness of a man conserving his energy for the things that mattered.But his eyes were sharp. They were always sharp."Sit down," he said.We sat.He looked at me first, then at Luca, then back at me. "Jean-Paul Merci," he said simply, and opened the folder on the table in front of him.What followed was not pleasant.The records that my father's people had compiled overnight were thorough in the way that only Vittorio Santoro's intelligence network could be thorough, names, dates, connections, movements going back years. I sat forward in my chair and read what was put in front

0036~Luca~I couldn't leave.My body wouldn't do it. I sat in the chair beside her bed and watched her sleep and every time I considered getting up and moving to my own room, something settled heavier in my chest and I stayed exactly where I was. This was not entirely professional. I was aware of that. But Aria waking up alone in this room after what she had seen tonight was not something I was willing to allow.So I stayed.I kept my phone in my hand and worked quietly. First, a message pushed through the secure channel to the senior subordinates, brief, direct. Meeting. Eight in the morning. Be there.Then I called Elisha.He picked up on the second ring, which meant he had been awake, which meant Vittorio had already been making calls of his own."Elisha.""Already on it, boss.""I want the electric chair set up." I kept my voice low, aware of Aria sleeping a few feet away. A pause. "Understood. Someone specific?""Someone who made a very stupid decision tonight." I looked at Ari

0038~Luca~Vittorio's study smelled like old wood and older decisions.I had been in this room more times than I could count, for strategy, for counsel, for the kind of conversations that don't get written down anywhere. I knew every corner of it. I sat across from him and we got to work."Marcello called in an hour ago," Vittorio said, setting a single sheet of paper on the desk between us. "He has a location."I looked at the address. A cabin property, rural, about forty minutes southeast. Not registered to Jean-Paul directly, it never would be, men like him kept several layers between themselves and anything traceable, but Marcello was the best tracker I had ever worked with and if he had placed Jean there, Jean was there."He knows we're looking for him," I said."Of course he does." Vittorio leaned back slightly. "A man who sends that kind of message to a woman's bedroom knows the response it will generate. He ran before we could move." He paused. "But he didn't run far enough.

0040~Luca~Jean didn't make it far.He came out of that warehouse door moving with the frantic, uneven urgency of a man running on fear and adrenaline and the desperation of escape, how far to the road, which direction, whether his leg would hold long enough to matter. He was making calculations. Survival calculations, the kind that collapse the entire world down to the next thirty seconds and what they need to contain.He got about forty meters.Then he heard Brady.The sound came first. That is always how it is with Brady, the sound before the sight, a low resonant thing that doesn't belong in any category the human brain files under manageable. Jean stopped moving. People always stop moving when they hear Brady for the first time. The body makes that decision before the mind catches up.Then he saw him.Brady was large in the way that makes the word large feel inadequate. A lion, fully grown. He had been with us for four years. We kept him for specific occasions. Rapists, mostly.