I am fuming. It’s late and I’m sitting on the bus and can’t even see straight, I’m so mad.

My phone rings. It’s Sergio again. He’s been calling me for the last half hour. This time, I switch it off altogether.

I didn’t get a look at Professor Dayton myself because he was gone by the time I got to the office, but the looks I got from everyone else told me his spur of the moment vacation plans had something to do with me. I’d gone in to let him know I was no longer interested in the internship. That I was withdrawing my application and no longer would be available to volunteer. But that didn’t happen.

Lisa, the airhead receptionist, told me two men had come in to see Professor Dayton. That they’d been wearing suits and were good looking in a bad-boy, dirty kind of way. She’d sighed after saying it. She’d actually sighed. Of course, she couldn’t remember their names. I’m surprised she remembers her own some days.

I knew exactly who she was talking about and texted Sergio that dinner was off. Told him I knew what he did.

I should never have mentioned the internship or the professor. I just didn’t think it was a possibility he’d hurt him. But he must have had it on his mind all that time because he went behind my back and did what he wanted anyway completely ignoring what I said.

The bus pulls up to my stop about thirty minutes later. I get out, cursing the high heels I’m wearing. I had a presentation at school today, but I’d much rather be in an old pair of jeans, a huge sweater and comfy boots. Carrying my large, cumbersome portfolio along with my backpack and the few things I’d left at the office in a plastic bag, I walk the six blocks home. The streets are busy, it’s the dinner hour, but for some reason, I find myself looking over my shoulder more than once, unable to shake the feeling I’m being followed. That’s got to be Sergio’s influence on my life. He’s a mobster. What he does he proved tonight. He beats people up. Hurts them. It’s what he knows.

Is it all he knows? With me, he’s been so gentle. So generous.

I shake my head. Trying to reconcile these two sides of him is giving me a headache.

Elftreth’s Alley is empty. No reason to be here unless you live here. The tourists usually come by during the day, not at night, at least not during the winter months. I dig my new key out of my pocket. The fact that I have these new locks—courtesy of Sergio who steamrolls to get his way—irritates me. I unlock the door and step inside. The first thing I do is slip off my shoes, leaving them as I walk to the kitchen table to set down the portfolio. I realize it’s strange Pepper didn’t greet me tonight. I’m later than usual and she’s probably hungry.

“Pepper, I’m home. Sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe my day.” I walk around the table to open the cabinet under the sink and get her food. “Come on, honey. Dinner.”

Nothing. Not even when she must hear the sound of food filling her bowl.

I stop. “Pepper?” My heart races. Shit. She’s so old. What if…

I straighten, thinking the worst, and turn to head into the living room. I switch on the light and let out a scream because I’m not alone.

Sergio’s here. Sitting in the middle of the couch, arms spread wide, eyes hard.

And right now, he looks like a fucking Godfather.

Pepper’s on the floor, her head on his shoe, sleeping.

“I fed her.” He’s pissed, I can hear it in his voice, feel it coming off him. There’s a half empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“She was hungry.”

“How did you get inside?” I repeat. I can match his anger.

“I told you I had a key.”

Fuck. That’s what he’d meant last night. “You can’t have a key. I never gave you one.”

“You switched off your phone.”

I walk over to Pepper, squat down to pet her. I don’t look at him when I answer. “Because I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“When I call you, you answer.”

“Doesn’t work that way.” I say, standing, spinning on my heel. I’m about to walk away when he captures my wrist, his grip firm, more firm than he’s ever been with me. I make a sound, try to pull free, but he tugs on my arm, kicks my feet out from under me so I fall face down onto his lap. “What are you—”

He slaps my ass hard ten times in succession.

I’m gasping, instinctively reaching back to cover the spot. He captures my wrist, so he has both now, and holds them in one of his hands. I crane my neck to look up at him. He keeps his eyes locked on mine and rubs one hand over my ass, then spanks it again, ten more times on the other cheek.

“Stop!” It fucking hurts.

“When I call you, you answer, Natalie.”

I tug at my arms, but his grip is vice-like.

“Do you understand?” he asks.

“Let me go.”

“Do you fucking understand?”

“Yes!”

He gives me one more hard smack before releasing me, and I stumble to my feet. I feel hot, embarrassed, and I’m clutching my ass.

“I just want you safe.” He gets to his feet.

I step backward.

He’s wearing a suit, the jacket of which is hanging over the back of a chair. He gently moves Pepper’s head off his foot before he walks toward me.

I’m mute as he approaches. There’s a darkness to Sergio Benedetti. It clings to him, like a shadow. It’s the one thing that scares me about him because I trust that he won’t hurt me. And I believe that he wants me safe. I may not understand it, but I believe it.

But this shadow, it’s not one he casts. The opposite. It seems to cast itself over him. To have a claim on him. Some strange, powerful hold over him.

“You shouldn’t have hurt him,” I say when my back’s against the wall and he’s standing inches from me.

“You couldn’t protect yourself so I did it for you. Besides, this isn’t important. That idiot isn’t important.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t want—”

“How does it work?” he asks, one corner of his mouth curling upward. He looks me over, leans his forearms against the wall on either side of my head. “Huh?” He dips his head closer, inhales, touches the scruff of his jaw against my cheek. “Explain to me how it works.”

I look up at him, at his midnight eyes. I smell his aftershave, remember what we did last night. My body remembers too.

“How does it work, Nat?”

I hate the nickname. Always have.

“Huh?” he continues. “I stand back while some asshole intimidates you into his bed?”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I’m not fucking stupid. And I don’t need someone to protect me. I don’t need some knight in shining armor and I’m not looking for a hero.” Tears warm my eyes. I hate them, hate the weakness. But what I’ve said has made him stop. Confused him almost.

Then he laughs. “You think I’m trying to be the hero?” A moment later, he drops his head. His forehead creases and he’s looking down for a long time before he shifts his gaze back up to mine, searching mine as if it holds the answers. “I’m not the hero, sweetheart. I’m the fucking monster.”

When I don’t reply, he grins. It’s a sad, one sided thing.

“What do you think of that? Makes more sense, right?”

I push against him, but it’s like trying to move a wall, and the look in his eyes, the dark desperation in his words, his voice, it scares me. “Let me go.”

“No.” He takes my wrists in one of his hands, draws them over my head, pins them to the wall. His other hand grips my skirt, yanks it up. “You’re good. You’re the only good in my life, you know that?” His eyes skim my bared legs, the stockings that reach mid-thigh. “And I want what I want,” he finishes, dragging his gaze back to mine. “I should let you go. It’s the right thing to do, I know.”

I can’t process what he’s saying—it’s almost like he’s not talking to me but to himself. Like he’s been thinking and thinking and he’s just saying it out loud now.

He touches my face, my cheek. His thumb presses against my lower lip, forces my mouth open. “But I can’t,” he says finally.

“You have a key to my house.” It’s all I can say and fuck, he’s so close and when he presses against me, against my clit, it takes all I have to not wrap my legs around him. Rub myself against him. Hump him like some animal. Because I do want this. Want him. It’s not just that part of me, either. It’s all of me. Even though I know my heart will shatter when it’s finished. When he’s gone.

He kisses me hard, not waiting for me to kiss him back. His fingers curl into the crotch of my panties, push them aside, roughly rub my clit.

“You’re wet.”

“This is too fast. We don’t even know each other. Don’t you see how strange this is? How not normal?” I’m just talking though. I don’t want him to go. To walk away. Even if it is wrong.

Keeping me pinned to the wall, he undoes his belt, the buttons of his pants. He pushes them down and the smooth skin of his cock makes me moan as he rubs against my clit, between my folds.

“You should make me stop,” he whispers into my ear, then bites my earlobe. It’s like neither of us is listening to the other, though, because we’re saying the same thing but we’re both powerless to do it.

When he puts his mouth to mine, I open for him, our kiss wet, his tongue dipping inside my mouth as he sets my hands on his shoulders and lifts me up by my hips.

“Say no and I’ll stop,” he says, biting my lip, making me taste the metal of blood. “Say no, Natalie. Make me go. Make me walk away.” He pauses, looks at me. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He whispers the next part: “It’s better for you if you do.”

He thrusts inside me, making me grunt, making me suck in breath. His thick cock stretches me and when he slides out a little, it’s only to thrust in harder. He’s watching me, eyes black but for the narrow ring of midnight, pupils dilated. He kisses me, but our eyes remain open. He’s sucking my lower lip. I know he tastes blood. He must.

Again, he slides out a little, only to punish me with another thrust.

“Say it,” he demands, a threat in his tone. “Say it now. Tell me to stop, this is your chance. Save yourself.” He thrusts painfully and when I don’t say what he wants me to say, when he speaks again, there’s a violence to his words. “Tell me to fucking stop.”

I gasp, cling to him.

“You know who I am. What I do,” he continues.

It hurts, the wall at my back, his too thick cock driving into me, deeper and deeper, tearing me in two, tearing through to my core, piercing my heart.

“If you don’t tell me to stop now, I won’t. Not now. Not ever.”

He stops moving, and I’m impaled. He takes my jaw in his hand again, makes me look up at him.

“Say it now. Tell me to stop. Tell me to go. It’s your last chance.”

I shake my head as much as I can with him gripping my face. Fuck. I’m going to come. I’m so fucking close, I just need…just one more thrust.

He smiles. He’s got his answer. And that smile turns into a wicked grin a moment later.

“You want to come?” His voice is low, the words drawn out.

I make a sound, but I can’t say the word.

“Say it.”

I’m pressing against him, trying to grind against him. This isn’t me. But he does something to me. Makes me something different. Makes me someone I don’t recognize.

“Fucking say it.”

“Make me come. Please!” I want him, and I can’t get close enough. I want to be filled up by him. Possessed by him. Fucking owned by him.

“Good girl,” he says, kissing me, grinning wide, drawing farther out than before and thrusting so hard, I cry out. “Come, Natalie. Come on my dick. Come all over me.”

That’s all it takes, his command, his cock inside me, his eyes on me, watching me, seeing me, seeing me splinter and break. Seeing everything.

I squeeze my eyes shut and I come. I come so fucking hard I can’t breathe, I can’t think, and if he didn’t have me, I wouldn’t be able to stand. It’s like an explosion, orgasm claiming my body as Sergio claims my everything, and when I feel him come, when I feel him throb inside me, feel him release inside me, I open my eyes and I watch him, clinging to him, wanting him, wanting it all.

My hands wrap around his shoulders, nails digging into his shirt, his back and he’s coming inside me and I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight than Sergio’s glistening midnight eyes. Sergio lost in bliss. In ecstasy.

I adjust the crotch of my panties, straighten my skirt.

“We should have used a condom,” I say, because in my head, I’m counting days.

“I like coming inside you. I like knowing part of me is inside you.” He zips and buttons his pants and buckles his belt.

“Sergio—”

“I’m clean, Natalie,” he says.

“I’m clean too, but there are other things.”

He seems surprised for the first time since I’ve known him. “You’re not protected?”

I shake my head.

“Where are you—”

“I should be okay.” I think. My period ended eight days ago. I still have a few days. “But we can’t do that again. I mean without a condom.”

He’s deep in thought, suddenly. Not angry, just concentrated. Like something’s just occurred to him. Something he’s never thought of before. It’s strange, the look in his eye. Unsettling.

“Our conversation isn’t over,” I say, simply to break into whatever is happening in his head.

“It’s not?”

“You can’t just hurt people in the name of protecting me.”

He walks into the kitchen. “That prick deserved to be punished.”

“That wasn’t up to you.” I follow him but he’s not paying attention to me. He’s opening a cabinet, taking out the coffee. “Sergio, I mean it.” He’s busy opening drawers, closing them, looking for a spoon, I assume. “Hey.” I pull on his arm, make him stop. He does, turns to me, walks me backward until he’s got me backed up against the refrigerator.

“Natalie.”

I’m looking up at him, at his dark eyes. I smell aftershave and sex.

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. This bastard isn’t important. We’re wasting words. Wasting time.”

I push against him. “This is too much. Too fast.”

He studies me but doesn’t reply. Doesn’t budge.

“You have a key to my house. You beat up my professor. For what? An internship I wouldn’t even take.”

“What do you mean you wouldn’t take?”

“I told you I didn’t want it. You didn’t think I’d work for him knowing what he’d expect, did you?”

“You withdrew willingly?”

“What would you do if I said no? That he disqualified me.”

“That fucking—” he’s suddenly so angry, that the shift in his mood is startling.

“See. This is what I mean! No, I withdrew. He wasn’t even there when I got to the office. But see what I mean? You can’t just beat up every guy who’s an idiot.”

“Why not?”

“I can handle myself.”

“Nat—”

I put my hands on his face, wanting to make him hear me. “I can handle myself.”

It takes him a moment, but he nods once.

“We’re moving too fast.” I say it because I feel like I have to. Not because I want to stop.

“No, we’re not.”

I blink, open my mouth, close it again. I’m not expecting that answer.

“I know what I want, Natalie. Do you?”

When he looks at me, his eyes are alive, searching and wanting more. More than I think I can give.

“I’ve never thought,” he starts, speaking slowly, like he’s choosing each word carefully. Purposefully. Darkness casts its shadow over him and he looks away, shakes his head, exhales before meeting my gaze again. “I’ve lost a lot of friends. Cousins. Uncles. Many of them too early. Most of them too early.” He steps backward, releases me. “Time is a luxury, Natalie. One I don’t think will be afforded me.”

There’s a sadness in his words. In his eyes. And that shadow, it seems to swell behind him. Always there. Ever present.

Ready to swallow him up and carry him away.

I shudder. “Sergio—”

“I won’t waste it,” he says. He steps closer again, this time, taking my jaw in his hand, tilting my face upward. He looks at me, my eyes and mouth, and then he kisses me. It’s hard, there’s nothing tender in this kiss. He doesn’t slip his tongue between my lips. He isn’t tasting me. He’s laying claim to me.

When he breaks the kiss, he doesn’t pull back. Instead, with eyes locked on mine, he reaches under my skirt, smears his hand over the cum drying on my thigh, slips his fingers inside my panties.

“I want my cum on you. I want it inside you. I want it to mark you.” He rubs me, and somehow, feeling as raw as I do after that fucking, I’m aroused again. I want him again.

He grins. He knows it. He pinches my clit. It hurts and he knows that too, I can see it on his face, but he takes a minute to pull his hand out from under my skirt.

When he releases me, I have to grip him to remain standing because my knees are wobbling.

He wraps his hands around my arms. It takes me a minute to get my breathing under control. To straighten my legs. To process his words. To try to understand what he’s saying.

I look up at him, but am unable to speak.

“It’s not too fast. There’s no such thing. I don’t want to stop what’s happening between us,” he says, searching my face. “If I were a good person, I’d walk away, but I’m not. I’m not. I’ve done bad things. My hands are so fucking dirty. You need to know that. You do, don’t you? You know that?”

I nod.

“Do you know what you want?” he asks.

I know this is important. I know he’s important. But I can’t say that. I’m still caught on his other words.

“Do you?” he repeats.

“What do you mean that time won’t be afforded you?”

“I think you understand.”

We look at each other for a long while, the only sound is that of Pepper’s soft snores coming from the other room.

“Do you want me to go?” he finally asks. “I’ll ask this exactly once so think hard.”

I swallow, every hair on my body standing on end. Every nerve alive.

“Do you, Natalie? Do you want me to go?”

My mind is whirling, so much is happening so fast. I look away, down at my feet, at the cracked, old tile beneath them.

He squeezes my arms. “Answer my question.”

“No.”