When She Falls (The Fallen, #3)(73)

I shake my head. “I’m not leaving. I can’t.”

He presses his lips to the palm of my hand. “I’ll call Damiano right now. We’ll make a plan. We’ll figure out a way.”

“Stop,” I plead. “Don’t make it harder than it already is.”

His eyes flash, and he pulls away from my touch. He’s getting frustrated with me now. “Damn it, Gemma. I’m not offering this lightly. Why won’t you even consider it? Let me do this for you.”

I take in a shaky breath. “There’s something you can do.”

“Anything. You know I’d do anything.”

“Spend tonight with me. I want you to be my first. Not Rafaele. You.”

It’s my consolation. My last attempt at doing something for myself before I become an empty shell.

When he catches on to what I’m saying, an angry kind of heat flickers behind his gaze. The air around us becomes thick, wraps around my limbs, presses on my lungs.

“So you want me to have you, and then you want me to give you away?” he growls, backing me against the floor-to-ceiling window. “You want me to break you in for him?”

My blood heats. It’s the one thing I have left to give to him. “Don’t you want to?”

He slams his palms against the glass beside my head. “I don’t want to be your first, Peaches. I want to be your last. And I don’t want your fucking virginity. I just want you.”

My heart shatters, but I keep my tears in check because I know if I let even a single one fall, this will be over.

“This is our only chance,” I whisper. “In the morning, you’ll take Cleo and me home, and we’ll never have this again.”

He exhales a long breath and slides his palm to cup the side of my neck. “Or I can take you far away. Fuck, I don’t know how, but I’ll figure it out some way.”

“Enough.” I hold his gaze, making my conviction shine. “Most of my choices have been stripped away from me. If I mean anything to you, let me make my own choices tonight.”

My words manage to get through to him. I can see his resolve start to break beneath the hard layer of his anger. His hand tightens around my neck. “You haven’t thought this through.”

Oh, but I have. I thought about it plenty at the Hamptons even before tonight happened.

I’m supposed to be a virgin. It’s probably written in the contract between Papà and Rafaele. Everyone seems to think it’s what’s most valuable about me.

The wedding night. The sheets.

Warning bells should be ringing, but like the ambulance, the sound is dulled.

I want to do this for myself.

Whatever price I’ll eventually have to pay for this…I’ll pay it. By that point, Rafaele and I will already be wed.

“I have thought about it. I know it will create problems for myself.” I slide my hand up Ras’s warm, broad chest. “I don’t care.”

His hand leaves my neck, and he pushes his fingers into the hair at my nape, holding it tightly as he tips my head back. I meet his heavy gaze. It’s fractured between frustration and desire, and it makes a low buzz appear beneath my skin.

“If you want someone gentle, you picked the wrong man. I’m not in that kind of mood tonight.”

My pussy pulses at his words. “I won’t break. Treat me like you would anyone else.”

“You’re not like anyone else,” he says gruffly.

A crack appears in my heart.

“Then treat me like we’ve done this before,” I whisper. “Like you’ve already fucked me dozens of times, and you know I can handle everything you have to give.”

He blows out a breath, pressing his hips against mine and letting me feel his growing erection.

Excitement gallops down my spine.

Below us, the city is cold, but here, in the space between us, a fire crackles.

He wants this just as much as I do.

His breath tangles with mine. “You sure you can handle it?”

Nerves skitter up my arms, but the answer comes immediately. “Bring it on.”

A shiver goes through him. And then he’s pressing his lips to mine.





CHAPTER 24





GEMMA


Flutters explode inside my belly and then drop lower. The moment we make contact feels like a rip in the universe. There’s nothing soft about this kiss. Ras’s mouth grinds against mine, his tongue snaking its way inside and claiming territory.

He tastes like the whiskey he drank at the club.

He kisses like he wants to conquer me.

Suddenly, we’re moving. One hand gripping my hair and one molded to my waist, he walks me backward in the direction of the main bedroom, his mouth never leaving mine.

I’m oxygen. He’s a man starved for air.

For a second, I wonder how he knows where to go. Did he map out this place while I was with Cleo? But the thought becomes irrelevant when my back slams against the wall, and he drops to his knees before me.

My breath hitches.

He’s still in his suit, but as he stares up at me, he slowly undoes his tie—a frustrated, beautiful beast taking off his leash.

He shucks off the tie and drops it to the floor. “Take off your dress,” he directs, his voice a low rasp.