Chapter 83: Applied Pressure
The silence in the hallway after Marco left was a living thing, thick and charged. Beth could feel the heat of Damien’s stare from twenty feet away, a physical pressure against her skin. She didn’t turn. Instead, she smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her emerald silk dress, a gesture of pure, defiant composure.
His footsteps were silent on the polished runner, but she felt his approach in the disturbance of the air, in the way the very light seemed to bend toward him. He stopped behind her, so close the heat of his body radiated through the thin fabric of her gown.
“A private word,” he said, his voice a low vibration against the back of her neck. It wasn’t a request.
“We’re speaking,” she replied, her gaze fixed on a grim portrait of some long-dead Rossi patriarch.
His hand closed around her upper arm, his grip firm, insistent. “Now.”
He guided her—not toward the main house, but down a narrower, darker corridor lined with closed doors. This was the private wing, where family and trusted associates were housed. The party’s din faded to a distant murmur. He unlocked a door with a key from his pocket and pushed it open, ushering her inside.
The guest room was opulent and cold. Emerald velvet drapes, mahogany furniture, art chosen for value, not warmth. It smelled of lemon polish and, faintly, of Damien’s cologne. He closed the door, the click of the lock echoing in the spacious silence.
Beth walked to the center of the room, putting space between them, before turning to face him. “Well? Get it over with.”
Damien leaned back against the locked door, studying her. The playful flirt was gone, stripped away by the events of the evening. What remained was the ruthless calculation, the possessiveness, the raw, unguarded curiosity. “What did you say to my father?”
“I reminded Vincent Accardi of a debt owed to Samuel Montgomery,” she said, her tone flat. “It settled him down. That’s all.”
“That’s all,” he repeated, pushing off the door. He began to slowly circle her, a predator assessing. “You stood in the middle of my family’s war room and you negotiated a ceasefire with a ghost. My father doesn’t look at ghosts. He looks at power. And now he’s looking at you.”
“Let him look,” she shrugged, though her spine was rigid. “It changes nothing.”
“It changes everything!” The sudden ferocity in his voice made her flinch. He stopped in front of her, his eyes blazing. “You think this is a game? A way to prove you’re not the sweet little thing I left behind? You just painted a target on your back in a room full of men who specialize in hitting them.”
“I handled it.”
“You unsettled it,” he corrected, his hand coming up to cup her jaw, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone. The touch was deceptively gentle. “You were magnificent. And it scared the hell out of me.”
She tried to twist away, but he held her fast. “I don’t need your fear, Damien. Or your protection.”
“I know,” he breathed, his face inches from hers. His scent, whiskey and spice and pure male heat, enveloped her. “That’s what terrifies me. You don’t need anything from me. Not my name, not my money, not my… world.” His other hand slid around her waist, pulling her flush against him. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection through his trousers, a blunt confession against her stomach. “Except this.”
“That’s a weakness,” she whispered, but her own breath was hitching.
“It’s the only hook I have left.” His mouth descended, not on hers, but against the frantic pulse in her throat. He sucked at the skin, a claiming, painful kiss that she knew would bruise. “And I’ll use it.”
His kiss was a battle. He crushed his lips to hers, all teeth and desperation and furious need. It wasn’t gentle. It was a conquest. She met him with equal fury, her nails digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders through his shirt. She bit his lower lip, and he growled, the sound vibrating into her mouth.
He walked her backward until her knees hit the edge of the massive bed. He broke the kiss, both of them breathing ragged. “Take off the dress.” The command was guttural.
“You take it off.”
A dark smile touched his lips. He obliged, his fingers surprisingly deft on the hidden zipper at her side. The silk sighed open. He pushed the straps from her shoulders, and the gown pooled at her feet, leaving her in only a lace bra and panties, the same deep green. His gaze devoured her, hot and hungry.
“Always in my colors,” he murmured, his fingers tracing the lace edge of her bra.
“I look good in green,” she said, her voice unsteady.
He unhooked the bra with a single twist, his palms rough against her bare breasts as he pushed the lace away. He bent his head, taking one nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, his tongue lashing the taut peak. A sharp cry tore from her throat. Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, holding him to her, arching into the exquisite, rough pressure.
He switched to the other breast, his hand squeezing and kneading the wet flesh he’d just abandoned. She was panting, liquid heat pooling between her legs. He slid a hand inside her panties, his fingers finding her slick and swollen. “Fuck, Beth,” he groaned against her skin. “So wet for me. Even when you hate me.”
“I do hate you,” she gasped as two fingers pushed inside her, curling.
“I know.” He added a third, stretching her, his thumb circling her clit with ruthless precision. “Show me how much.”
The climax ripped through her suddenly, brutally. Her legs buckled, and a ragged, broken sound was torn from her chest as she convulsed around his invading fingers. He held her up, fucking her through it with his hand, watching her face with an intensity that was almost violent.
Before the last tremor had subsided, he was pushing her back onto the bed, stripping her panties away. He stood, tearing at his own clothes, his eyes never leaving her splayed, spent form on the emerald coverlet. He was magnificently, brutally naked, every muscle defined, his cock thick and rigid, curving up toward his stomach.
He didn’t join her. Instead, he grabbed her hips and dragged her to the edge of the bed. “On your knees,” he ordered, his voice thick.
She understood. She turned over, the cool velvet rough against her breasts and belly, and rose onto her knees, presenting herself to him. She heard his sharp intake of breath. Then the broad, blunt head of his cock was pressing against her soaked entrance.
He didn’t enter her. He teased, running the tip through her folds, gathering her wetness, circling her clit until she was pushing back against him, a wordless plea.
“Say it,” he demanded, one hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise.
“Fuck you,” she panted into the coverlet.
He chuckled, a dark, sinful sound. Then he drove into her, one brutal, complete thrust that buried him to the hilt.
The force knocked the air from her lungs. She cried out, the sound muffled by the bed. He was so deep, so impossibly full. He held himself there, letting her adjust, his own body trembling with the effort of control.
“You feel that?” he rasped, pulling out almost all the way before slamming back in. “That’s mine. All of it. This tight, perfect cunt is mine.”
He set a punishing rhythm, each thrust jolting her forward. The slap of skin on skin, the crude, wet sounds of their joining, filled the room. It was raw, devoid of pretty pretense. This was fucking. Claiming. A physical argument where neither would yield.
“You think you can play in my world?” he grunted, his hands moving to her ass, spreading her, owning her. “You think you can talk to men like Accardi, like my father, and just walk away?”
“Yes,” she moaned, pushing back against him, meeting every thrust.
He leaned over her, his chest pressed against her sweaty back, his mouth at her ear. “Then take this, too. Take all of me.” His pace became frantic, wild. He was losing control, his rhythm fracturing. “Come for me again. Now.”
His hand snaked between her legs, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing in tight, frantic circles. The pressure, the fullness, his filthy words in her ear—it was too much. She shattered, her climax a white-hot detonation that clenched around him like a vise. A guttural shout was torn from his throat as her contractions milked him, and he plunged deep one final time, his body rigid as he emptied himself inside her with a raw, shuddering groan.
He collapsed over her, his weight crushing, his breath hot on her shoulder. They stayed like that for long minutes, a tangled, sweaty mess of limbs and spent passion. The only sound was their ragged breathing slowly returning to normal.
Finally, he softened and slipped out of her. He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, tucking her against his side. Her head lay on his chest, listening to the frantic beat of his heart gradually slow.
He traced idle patterns on her damp shoulder. The anger had bled out, leaving something more complicated in its wake.
“He’s going to dig, Beth,” Damien said quietly, echoing Marco’s warning from the hallway. “He won’t stop until he knows what kind of soil you’re rooted in.”
She stared at the ornate ceiling, feeling the ache deep in her muscles, the sticky evidence of their collision cooling on her inner thighs.
“Let him dig,” she repeated her own words, but the defiance was quieter now, tempered by a new weariness. “But you should know something, Damien.”
“What?”
She turned her head to look at him, her green eyes clear and hard in the dim light. “My father didn’t just teach me how to bury secrets.” She held his gaze, letting the truth sit between them, stark and undeniable. “He taught me how to plant landmines.”