Chapter 10: Brutal Claiming
The deep blue silence of the room was a blanket, one Isabella clung to, her body heavy and spent against Gianna’s side. She traced idle patterns on the smooth skin of Gianna’s stomach, over the faint, silvered scar, a question she’d never asked. Gianna’s fingers were still laced with hers, a grounding weight.
“Tell me about the scar,” Isabella whispered, her voice raspy from crying out.
Gianna didn’t open her eyes. A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “A souvenir from Naples. A disagreement over port authority. It’s ugly.”
“It’s not.” Isabella leaned up, pressing her lips to the pale line. She felt Gianna’s abdomen tighten under her mouth. “It’s part of you.”
Gianna’s hand came up to cradle the back of her head, holding her there for a moment before gently guiding her back up. Her green eyes were open now, reflecting the first glints of starlight from the window. “Don’t,” she said softly. “Don’t make a saint of me, Isabella. Not tonight.”
The tenderness in her voice was laced with a warning. Before Isabella could answer, Gianna moved, rolling over in one fluid motion to hover above her. The languid peace shattered, replaced by a crackling, renewed intensity. The look in Gianna’s eyes was pure possession, no longer veiled by gentleness.
“I need more,” Gianna stated, her voice dropping to a gravelly register. “I need to feel you in a way he never did. In a way no one ever will again.”
Isabella’s breath caught. This was a different Gianna—the one from the shadowed corners of her life, the one who commanded rooms with a glance. The Gianna who took what she wanted.
“Show me,” Isabella breathed, the words both submission and challenge.
A low sound, almost a growl, rumbled in Gianna’s chest. In one powerful motion, she hooked her hands under Isabella’s hips and flipped her onto her stomach. The crisp linen scratched her cheek. Before she could adjust, Gianna was behind her, kneeling on the bed. Strong hands yanked her hips up into the air, arching her back, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.
“Gianna—” The name was half-muffled by the sheets.
Gianna’s palm came down in a sharp, stinging slap on the curve of her ass. The sound echoed. The pain was a bright, shocking bloom that melted instantly into a deep, throbbing heat. Isabella gasped, pushing back instinctively into the touch.
“You are so fucking beautiful like this,” Gianna muttered, her voice thick. She leaned forward, spreading Isabella with rough, impatient fingers. “Soaked for me. Still dripping from my mouth.” She swiped two fingers through Isabella’s slickness, then pushed them inside, not gently. Isabella cried out, her fingers clawing at the bedclothes. “Mine. Say it.”
“Yours,” Isabella moaned, the words dissolving into a gasp as Gianna curled her fingers, hitting a spot that made her vision blur.
“Again.”
“Yours! God, Gianna, please…”
Gianna withdrew her fingers with a wet sound. Isabella heard the rasp of a drawer opening, the soft click of a buckle. Her heart hammered against her ribs. A moment later, she felt the cool, firm pressure of silicone against her, larger than fingers, slick with lube. Gianna’s hand was on her hip, a steel clamp.
“You’re mine now,” Gianna snarled, the words final and absolute.
There was no slow testing, no careful entrance. Gianna slammed forward, burying the strap-on to the hilt in one brutal, perfect thrust.
Isabella screamed. The sound was torn from her throat, swallowed by the linen. The stretch was immense, overwhelming, a breathtaking fullness that tipped instantly from pain into a pleasure so sharp it was almost agony. Gianna didn’t wait, didn’t let her adjust. She pulled back and thrust again, setting a relentless, punishing rhythm.
The world narrowed to the slap of skin on skin, the creak of the mahogany bedframe, and Gianna’s ragged grunts with each driving plunge. Isabella was powerless, reduced to a vessel for Gianna’s claiming, and the raw surrender of it was more liberating than anything she’d ever known. Each impact sent shocks through her, forcing choked sobs and pleas from her lips.
“Fuck… yes… like that…”
Gianna leaned over her, one hand braced by Isabella’s head, the other gripping her hip hard enough to leave bruises. Her breath was hot on Isabella’s ear. “You feel that? You feel how deep I am? This is what you needed. To be fucked properly. To be owned.”
Isabella could only nod, her mind fragmenting. The coarse language, the sheer physical domination, it stripped away every last pretense, every memory of her husband’s timid, selfish touches. This was annihilation. This was rebirth.
Gianna’s pace became erratic, animalistic. “I’m gonna make you come on my cock,” she panted. “Then I’m gonna turn you over and watch it happen again.”
The promise, the crude certainty of it, tipped Isabella over the edge. Her orgasm erupted, a violent, convulsing wave that clenched around the hard silicone inside her. She shrieked, her body bowing, her vision whiting out. Gianna cursed, a raw, guttural sound, and drove into her through the contractions, fucking her through the peak and into a trembling, oversensitive haze.
As Isabella’s spasms began to subside, Gianna was true to her word. She pulled out, flipping Isabella onto her back with an ease that spoke of formidable strength. Isabella blinked up at her, dazed, wrecked. Gianna was breathing hard, sweat gleaming on her brow and between her breasts. She quickly unbuckled the harness, letting it fall to the floor with a dull thud.
Then she was on her, covering her, her mouth devouring Isabella’s in a kiss that tasted of salt and sex. She slid a thigh between Isabella’s legs, applying pressure to her still-throbbing clit.
“Look at me,” Gianna demanded, her own need naked on her face.
Isabella focused on those fierce green eyes, anchors in the storm. Gianna began to rock against her, her own hips finding a grinding rhythm. The friction was exquisite, maddening. Isabella’s hands flew to Gianna’s back, nails digging into the taut muscles.
“Come on, baby,” Gianna urged, her voice a broken whisper against Isabella’s lips. “One more. Give it to me. Let me see you.”
The coil, impossibly, wound tight again. Isabella’s second climax crashed into her, less violent but deeper, a rolling wave of pure sensation that wrenched a long, shuddering cry from her chest. Gianna followed her over, her own body tensing, a muffled groan lost in the sweat-slick skin of Isabella’s shoulder.
They lay tangled, a mess of limbs and spent breath. The only sound was the distant shush of the sea against the cliffs. Gianna finally rolled off, collapsing onto her back. They didn’t touch for a long minute, both staring at the nymphs on the ceiling, their blurred faces now seeming to leer knowingly.
The buzz was faint at first, vibrating against the mahogany nightstand. Then it grew persistent, angry. Gianna’s phone.
She let it ring three times before swearing under her breath and reaching for it. She didn’t leave the bed. “Yeah.”
Isabella watched her face. Saw the mask of calm, cold control slide back into place. The woman from moments ago—vulnerable, voracious—was gone.
“Where?” A pause. Gianna’s eyes flicked to Isabella, then away. “How many?” Another pause, longer. Her jaw tightened. “I’ll be there in forty minutes. Contain it. And Sal? If the carabinieri are there before I am, you’ll be swimming back to Sicily. Understand?”
She ended the call and dropped the phone on the bed as if it were something foul. The silence that followed was different now, charged with the world outside their linen-and-sweat sanctuary.
“You have to go,” Isabella said. It wasn’t a question.
Gianna turned her head on the pillow. The look she gave Isabella was complex—regret, defiance, a steely resolve. “I do.”
“The disagreement over port authority?” Isabella asked softly, nodding toward the scar.
A grim smile touched Gianna’s lips. “Something like that.” She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist. The movement was all business, the languor gone. “There’s a car coming. I’ll be back before morning.”
Isabella sat up too, pulling the sheet around her shoulders. “Be careful.”
Gianna stood, a lean silhouette against the starry window. She walked naked to the walk-in closet, a figure of unapologetic power. “Careful,” she said, pulling on black trousers and a simple, expensive-looking shirt, “is for people who have something to lose.”
She returned to the bedside, fastening a watch to her wrist. She leaned down, cupping Isabella’s face, her thumb brushing a tear Isabella hadn’t realized had fallen. Her touch was surprisingly gentle.
“I have everything to lose now,” she said, her voice low. Then she kissed her, a hard, possessive stamp. “Sleep. Don’t wait up.”
She was gone a moment later, the bedroom door clicking shut with finality. The room felt cavernous without her. Isabella slid down into the bed, into the space that still held Gianna’s warmth and scent. She listened to the distant sound of a car engine turning over, the crunch of gravel fading down the cliff road.
Outside, the nymphs danced in their eternal, mosaic waves. Inside, Isabella pulled the sheet over her head, trying to hold onto the feeling of being owned, of being claimed, as the chill of the empty villa began to seep in.