I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

I hadn’t planned to invade Luc’s space. I’d only sensed he was hurting. His story—the agonizing way in which he’d told it—had made me see him in a different light. I’d followed him with no plan, just a need to make sure he was okay. But standing in the shadows in his bathroom, watching him under the spray of the shower, I felt the pain radiating from him in waves. And that pain was so raw, so fierce, so all-consuming, it pushed my feet forward before I realized what I was doing.

I stepped beneath the spray—clothes and all—and moved toward him. He didn’t speak. Didn’t even flinch. But I felt his agony. Felt it wrap around my body and squeeze so tight my chest ached. And when I caught the heady scent of his skin—citrus and spice and musk—when his body heat seeped into mine, all my instincts told me to comfort him. To protect him. To reassure him he was not the evil monster he thought he was.

My pulse raced. Heat spread all through my belly, seeped into my veins, and prickled my flesh. Common sense told me I shouldn’t be here, but I didn’t care. He needed this. He needed help. When his eyes slid closed, I lifted my hands to his chest and pressed my fingers against his damp skin, then inched even closer, until my nose and lips brushed his chest and he was all I could see.

His hands came up and cupped my jaw on each side, lifting my face toward his. And in that moment when our eyes met, I was sure the world stopped spinning. Everything else fell away until we were the only two people left on the planet.

His eyes were glazed. Pained. Sad. But lurking beneath all the sorrow, I saw hunger. And heat. And a passion I thought I’d only imagined back in Italy.

He groaned and lowered his mouth to mine. And I gasped and opened, unable to do anything but let him take me, taste me, and to kiss me so deeply, I forgot whose air I was breathing. To claim me, exactly the same way he’d claimed me in that elevator back in Rome.

My heart pounded hard. The blood in my veins turned to a roar in my ears. I reached for him, drinking him in like a desert traveler guzzles water in the middle of an oasis. A growl rumbled from his throat, and then I felt myself moving. Felt the cool tile wall at my back. Felt my entire body melt when he pressed his hard, hot, very naked and very aroused body against my wet clothes and all but devoured me with his mouth.

All the reasons this was wrong seemed to slip from my grasp. I still had a dozen causes to be angry with him, but at the moment, I didn’t care about any of them. I just wanted this. I just wanted him. I just wanted us.

He drew back, his breaths fast and hot against my lips, and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Cradling my face, he kissed the corner of my mouth. Nipped at my bottom lip until I groaned. Dipped inside for another taste before easing back once more to look down at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from them. I’m sorry for everything that happened and that I couldn’t stop it.”

His eyes were glassy. His hair wet and dripping across his rugged features. But something in the way he looked at me tightened my chest. I saw doubt. I saw confusion. And I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking and why he was suddenly apologizing when these last few days, he’d seemed only to want to bully me into accepting this marriage.

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice shakier than I wanted it to be.

A pained expression crossed his features just before he pressed his forehead against mine. “No, you’re not. You’re not, and it’s all my fault.”

I didn’t like the haunted sound of his voice. I didn’t like the way it made my whole body tremble with a fear I couldn’t understand. Lifting my hands to his face, I brushed the wet hair back from his temples, drew a breath away, and kissed his forehead, wanting only to banish that fear from both our minds. “Don’t talk.” My lips skimmed his cheek. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” I pressed a soft kiss to the scruff at the corner of his mouth, knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop. “Everything will be fine.”

He lifted his head, and for a heartbeat, he froze, his lips millimeters from mine. And when I glanced up, I saw the heat in his unique eyes. I saw the need. And my body answered with a rush of warmth that condensed in my stomach and pooled between my legs.

His lips captured mine in a searing kiss I felt all the way to my toes. I sucked in a breath as his tongue swept into my mouth, tasting me, invading me, taking me. His hands streaking down my body to grasp my drenched tank, and I didn’t stop him from pulling it up over my breasts. Didn’t stop him from breaking our kiss and wrenching it above my head until I was standing bare and glistening and aroused in front of him against the shower wall.

His eyes locked on to my breasts, and he groaned again as he palmed the right one, then did the same with the left. Electricity arced from my breasts to my sex, and I moaned as he pinched my nipples, then lowered his head to lick and lave the sensitive tips.

I dropped a hand onto his wet head, couldn’t seem to stop myself from arching so my breast filled his mouth. He sucked and squeezed and licked until I was writhing against him, all but begging for more. And even though I knew we needed to talk about so many things, I didn’t want to talk right now. I wanted to forget about Houses and Ententes and unseen forces lurking in the shadows. I wanted to forget the outside world existed and get lost in pleasure for however long it could claim me.

“Per te farei di tutto.”

I didn’t know what he said. I didn’t care. All I wanted was more of his hot breath washing over my skin, making me forget.

He kissed his way down my torso, sliding his hands from my aching breasts to the waistband of my pajama bottoms. His tongue traced a wicked circle around my belly button as he pushed the soaked fabric down my hips and over my legs. I shivered as I braced a hand against the wall for support and looked down at him. Wetness gathered between my legs, a wetness that had nothing to do with the shower and everything to do with the hunger I saw in his eyes.

When the fabric hit my feet, I stepped out of the garment and lifted my chin so the spray couldn’t hit me in the face. And then his mouth was on me, faster than I expected, devouring me in a way I hadn’t anticipated. And as his wicked tongue licked a path of fire straight up my sex, all I could do was groan long and deep and hope I didn’t collapse from the ecstasy.

Pleasure arced through my whole body, then condensed in that spot between my legs he knew how to strum and lick and tease to the perfect rhythm. My eyes fell closed. I laid my head back against the cool tiles and flexed my hips forward, seeking more, seeking everything. He took the cue and licked faster. Moaned against my clit so vibrations echoed all through my lower body. Then drew the nub of nerve endings between his lips and suckled until I saw stars.

My orgasm spiraled toward me at the speed of light. I rocked against his mouth. Braced one hand on the slick wall and the other in his wet hair to hold him closer. And cleared my mind of everything except the stroke of his slick tongue, the suck of his talented lips, the way his thick finger—Oh, yeeeessss—was suddenly filling me.

The climax hit me hard, stealing my breath, sending a shock wave of light and heat and mindless pleasure through every cell in my body. I cried out as it consumed me. My knees buckled and my hand slipped against the wall of the shower. Water sprayed in my face, but before I collapsed, Luc’s arms were around me. And with the release still vibrating through my limbs, I felt his lips blazing a trail of heat up my abdomen, over one breast and then the other, before finding my mouth again and claiming me with a kiss that rocked the floor right out from under me.

I was breathless. Light-headed. Trembling from my release. But one taste of his sinful lips, one brush of his rock-hard body against mine in that steamy shower, and I wanted more. I wanted everything.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, sucked his tongue into my mouth, and moaned. His arms came around me. His erection—hard and thick and weeping with his own need—brushed against my stomach, making me ache to feel him inside me. I slid my hands up into his hair, fisted the wet locks, and kissed him deeper. He answered by groaning into my mouth, turning me away from the wall so the spray hit us on both sides, and palmed my ass to lift me up off the floor.

My legs immediately wrapped around his waist. My whole body tightened in anticipation of his touch, right where I needed it most.

“C’è un vuoto dentro di me che solo tu puoi colmare,” he mumbled against my lips as he shifted one arm underneath me to hold me up and hit the power button on the wall panel to turn off the water with the other. I groaned as the shower stopped. Kissed him again. His fingers dug into my ass as he carried me out of the shower. “Sei la mia ossessione. Ho bisogno di te.”

I didn’t understand his words. I didn’t know where he was taking me. I didn’t care either. I just wanted more. Tightening my hold, I lifted myself higher in his arms and kissed him deeper. He groaned into my mouth again and licked my tongue as if he couldn’t get enough. Cool air brushed my spine. Hot, hard male flesh pressed against my front. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I wiggled in his arms, searching for his cock, desperate to have him fill me.

Before I could find it, I felt myself falling. My back hit the mattress, then Luc kissed me hard as he climbed over me. I let go of his shoulders and reached for his hips. My fingertips grazed his steely length, and my whole body shook with the need to draw him inside me, but I didn’t get the chance. In a rush, he drew back from my mouth and flipped me to my stomach.

I gasped. Pressed my hands against the comforter. Drew my knees in so I could push myself up, flip back, and grab him like I wanted. But he held me still at the hips and said, “Apri le gambe.”

He pushed my knees apart, and then I felt his cock straining against my thigh. “Spread your knees wider.”

Anticipation curled hot and needy inside me at his domineering tone, the same tone he’d used on me in Italy. I did as he said. He leaned over my back, sank his teeth into my earlobe, and wrapped his arms around me. I shivered in anticipation. With one hand, he found my breast and squeezed. With the other, he trailed a path of heat down my stomach and into the wetness between my legs.

“Oh God…” My eyes slid closed. I rocked into his hand as he stroked me, as he spread my wetness all around my clit. Reaching back, I hooked one arm around his neck, pulling him closer to my spine. The other I braced on his thigh as he ground his erection against my ass, the teasing sensations making me high with lust.

He sucked my earlobe until I trembled, squeezed my other breast, then slipped his fingers lower, sliding one thick digit up inside me.

I groaned at the exquisite fit, but when his thumb found my clit and he stroked in time with his shallow thrusts, I almost came right there on his hand. “Oh yes…”

“Dio, you’re so wet. Does that feel good?”

“So good.”

“Do you want more?”

Tingles rushed all through my body, and I tightened around his finger, aching for him to press deeper. “Yes, yes, more…”

He drew out with one finger and pressed back in with two, making me groan and gasp. Then his thumb flicked across my clit, and it was all I could take. “Please. Give me more.”

He growled and pulled free of my sex. I gasped as he drew away and pressed a hand against my spine. “Arch your back.”

The pressure pushed me forward. My palms hit the mattress, and I grunted. My hair fell over my eyes to block my vision. But I didn’t protest, I didn’t cry out because he was already grasping me at the hips with his wicked hands, positioning his magnificent erection at my slick entrance, and pulling my hips back until I was completely impaled on his thick, pulsating cock.

We both groaned at the tight fit. He held still inside me for several seconds, letting me adjust to his size. And even though we’d fucked like rabbits in Italy, even though this wasn’t our first time, something inside my chest broken open wide, and I felt as if it could be. I wanted it to be.

Tears sprang to my eyes, tears that made zero sense considering everything that had happened between us. I had an overwhelming urge to savor the moment. To hold him inside me as long as I could. To cement this connection before the outside world could shatter it. Reflexively, I tightened around him, trying to keep him with me, not understanding why I was such an emotional mess when only moments ago, I’d wanted friction and fucking and a rapid release as hot as the sun.

And then he moved, and all those thoughts slipped right out of my head.

I groaned as he drew his hips back so his cockhead dragged along my inner walls, stopping just when he was nearly free of my body, then whimpered when he thrust deep again with a grunt, hitting my G-spot at the perfect angle. Each time he drew out, I tightened around him, increasing every inch of friction, and the orgasm I’d almost reached before came screaming back, overwhelming every one of my senses.

His thrusts picked up speed. Skin slapped in the darkness. Perspiration dotted my spine. Shaking from the pleasure, I dropped to my elbows, angling my body so he could drive deeper, pushing back against him with each thrust, desperate for the release I knew only he could give me.

“Don’t stop.” My hands fisted the comforter. My eyes slammed shut. I was close, so close to coming undone. “Please don’t stop.”

He thrust harder. Deeper. Dug his fingers into my hipbones. “There?”

Electrical arcs shot all through my body as I rocked back against him. “Yes, oh yes. More.”

He leaned over my back, wrapped an arm around my waist, and slid his fingers over my clit. “There?”

“Oh yes.” I lifted my head, loving his hot breath against my neck. My skin was on fire. My body ready to ignite. “More.” He pounded into me and stroked in time with his thrusts, but my orgasm still hovered just beyond my reach, and I groaned because it was close, but for some reason, I couldn’t seem to reach it. “I need more…”

He drew my earlobe between his lips again and sucked hard. “You can have as much as you want, as often as you want it. Tell me you want it.”

My body was slicked with sweat, my mind a whir of nothing. I groaned as he continued to fuck me hard and deep, knowing it wasn’t enough. “I want it.”

“Tell me you want me.”

I dropped my head forward and pressed my forehead against the mattress, aching for release. “I want that,” I whispered, focusing on tightening every time he drew back. “I want…”

“Me,” he growled in my ear. “Tell me you want me.”

Oh God, I did. Even with everything still a mess between us, I wanted him. I always wanted him.

Tears sprang to my eyes again. Tears I still didn’t understand. “Yes,” I whispered. “I want you, Luc.”

An animalistic sound rumbled at my back. On the next stroke, he pulled free of my body. I gasped as cool air whooshed over my spine, then he flipped me to my back in one quick move, and my eyes flew open wide as I stared up at him.

His face was flushed with arousal and excitement, and his forehead glistened with sweat. But it was the haunted look I saw in his stormy asymmetric pupils that nearly did me in. One that said he needed this. He needed me. Even more than I’d thought when I’d followed him into his shower.

My stomach quivered with a mixture of fear and exhilaration and uncertainty. Yes, I wanted him. Yes, I wanted this. But this suddenly wasn’t about me. This was about him and his demons, and for the first time since I’d touched him tonight, I realized he hadn’t said my name. He hadn’t used that nickname—angioletto—he always whispered when we were close. And I couldn’t help but wonder if he was seeing me now, or a woman from his past.

He shoved my knees to my chest before I could find the words to ask, looked down to line up his cock, and drove inside me. We both groaned when he bottomed out, and then his mouth was on mine, claiming my lips the same way he was claiming my body, with fervor and a possessive need I’d never felt from him before.

He fucked into me almost violently, as if he were fucking away the memories. And I let him. Tears sprang to my eyes once again as I wrapped my legs around his waist, as I closed my arms around his shoulders and held him close while he used me. Tears I didn’t understand because my climax was spiraling straight toward me once again and my body ached for everything he wanted to give me. But I still wasn’t sure what it all meant. Where we stood. Or if there even could be an us once this night was over.

“Mine.” He grasped my head in both of his big hands and held me still as he kissed me. “You’re mine.”

Was I? I hadn’t felt like I was his since I’d learned who and what his family really was. Since I’d run from his parents’ villa in Tuscany. Ever since that night, everything had been jumbled in my head, and my heart had been in knots. I didn’t know how to untie it or even if I could after everything that had happened between us.

His cock repeatedly struck that perfect place, driving me harder toward the edge. I gasped against his lips as he thrust deep again and again. Tried to hold back, wanting his orgasm to trigger mine, wanting to go over the edge with him, but he continued to hammer into me, faster and harder with every plunge. And my orgasm, which had seemed so far away, slammed into me before I could stop it, crashing with the ferocity of a tidal wave against the shore. One that cleared my mind of all my doubts and fears and swept me under until the only thing I knew was mind-numbing pleasure and body-shaking bliss.

I was sweaty when I opened my eyes. Sweaty and limp where I lay pinned against the mattress. Above me, Luc twitched, and I felt the aftershocks of his own orgasm deep inside me where his cock was only just now starting to soften.

His face was buried in my hair, his hot breath washing over my neck, his hands against the mattress on both sides of me. I didn’t remember him coming. I didn’t remember anything but my own release. But I suddenly wanted to. I wanted to know how he’d felt, if he’d called my name when he’d spilled himself inside me, or if someone else had been on his mind at the height of his pleasure.

An irrational wave of jealousy swept over me. One I didn’t like. What he’d confessed to me hadn’t been easy. He’d only told me about his past so I would understand the danger I was in now. And logic told me he’d barely even known that girl—the one he’d fucked yet had never even dated. But that didn’t stop my jealousy. Because that girl had shaped him into the man he’d become, not me. That girl was the reason he’d left his family, not me. And I knew now without a doubt that what had happened to that girl was at the root of why he was so obsessed with keeping me safe.

My stomach pitched, and uneasy questions filled my mind. Had he saved me from his brother and the evils of his House that night on Long Island as a way to right the wrongs of his past? Had he taken me with him to Rome only to ensure what happened to her wouldn’t be replayed through me? And did that mean the connection I thought we’d forged was real, or had our relationship been set up on his part to prove to himself he wasn’t completely consumed by the darkness of his House as he so feared himself to be?

Bile pushed up my throat as I lay still beneath him, listening to his heavy breaths slowing in the darkness. I didn’t like where my thoughts were going. I didn’t like the sickness stirring inside me. But so many of his reactions and words made sense to me now. I couldn’t deny that tonight in the shower, after he’d confessed what had happened to that girl, that his eyes had been different. Not just filled with pain but haunted. Glazed. Unfocused. And when he’d looked at me, I’d felt as if he wasn’t seeing me. I’d felt as if he were looking through me at someone else.

I also couldn’t avoid the brutal reality that he hadn’t once said my name since I’d come to him. Not in the shower when he’d kissed me like a man starved. Not in this bed when he’d claimed me with an almost violent need. Not even now, when his naked body was limp and sated and pressed against every inch of mine.

“I’m crushing you,” he mumbled in my hair.

The sound of his ragged voice made me blink, and I swallowed hard around the lump of fear wedged tightly in my throat. “I’m fine.”

He braced his hand on the mattress and pushed his torso off me. Glancing down my naked body, he reached between us. “I need to take care of this.”

Cool air washed over my body as he lifted off me and disappeared into the dark bathroom. He didn’t bother with a light, but I heard the toilet flush, a sound that suddenly triggered another realization.

Looking down at my body, I saw no sign of his release between my legs. My flesh was swollen and still wet, but from friction and my arousal, not from him. Which meant he’d worn a condom. A condom I hadn’t even realized he’d used because I’d been so lost in him when he’d carried me into this room that I hadn’t noticed him grab it or put it on.

By now, the birth control implant he’d placed in my arm had to be working. Why would he go to the trouble of putting that in my body without my consent if he still planned to use condoms when he fucked me?

The answer hit me like a hard punch to the gut, and I sucked in a shocked breath as I stared at my arm in the dark.

He hadn’t placed the implant there to protect me from getting pregnant from him. He’d put it there as a backup safeguard to protect me from any unwanted consequences should what happened to that girl from his past happen to me.

Water ran in the bathroom. My chest constricted, choking the air in my lungs. I needed to get up. Needed to go back to my room. Needed to find a way to protect my stupid heart. Needed to think.

Footsteps sounded from the bathroom before I could do any of those things, and panic squeezed my lungs even tighter. Knowing I’d look like a total idiot if I ran right now, I rolled to my side, away from the bathroom, away from him, and closed my eyes. Hoping he’d think I was asleep. Hoping it would keep me from seeing that haunted look in his eyes again, the one that told me he was thinking about her and not me. The one I was pretty sure might actually break my heart for good this time.

His footsteps went silent as he hit the carpet. I squeezed my eyes, wondering if he’d get dressed and disappear into his office. Wondering if he was finally seeing me now that the sex was over.

No sound met my ears. Long seconds passed where I wasn’t even sure if he was there anymore, but I was too afraid to roll over and look in case he’d already gone. Then the bed dipped. A soft blanket slid over my naked flesh. Followed by his warm, strong, still completely bare body pressing in close at my back.

My stupid heart bumped. I still didn’t move, though. Not when he slid one arm under my neck and wrapped it around my chest. Not when he closed his other arm over my waist and tugged me tighter into the heat of his body. I was still too scared. Still too confused.

We lay like that for a long time in the dark, only a sliver of moonlight through the wide windows shining over us on the bed. He pressed his face into my hair. His hot breath fanned my neck, but I fought the shivers. I breathed deep, slowly, in and out, pretending to sleep, the whole time hurting from an ache deep inside because I missed this.

I missed being close to him just as I was now. I wanted more nights like this where he made me feel as if I was his everything. And I was deathly afraid this had never been real and that I was a complete fool for giving myself to him tonight after everything I now knew.

“I love you, Natalie.”

His voice was low. Soft. Barely a whisper. And everything inside me froze because I wasn’t sure if those words were real or if I’d fantasized them in my head.

He swallowed at my back. “I know you don’t believe that right now, but it’s true. I love you.” His arms tightened around me. “I won’t let them touch you. I promise I’ll keep you safe. You’re mine. You’re mine and I’m yours, and I’ll never let them hurt you. I love you, sweet Natalie.” He pressed his lips against the sensitive skin behind my ear. “I love you so much. Please give me a chance to prove it to you.”

Tears burned my eyes. Tears of joy because he’d said my name. Because those were the words I’d wanted to hear from him since I’d awoken on this island. I opened my mouth to respond, only no sound came out. And as I tried to find my voice, I realized why.

His words might sweep away the sickness and doubt that had plagued me these last two weeks, but they didn’t change our reality. I was still trapped on this island. If I didn’t go along with this marriage, his family would try to have me killed. Probably raped and tortured first to punish him. And the fact he’d implanted a birth control device in my arm told me he wasn’t entirely sure they wouldn’t try to do that even if I acquiesced and acted like the overjoyed bride we both knew I wasn’t.

A heavy weight pressed down on me. One that stole the brief rush of happiness I’d felt at his words and left me more a prisoner than I was before.

What could I do? Did I even have free will anymore? If I couldn’t choose my own path forward, what did that mean for me? What did it mean for Luc?

And most importantly, what did it mean for the future? A future I was now nearly too afraid to even contemplate.