Chapter 22: Tender Inquiry
The silence in the penthouse was a different creature than the one in Rome. Here, it was vast and humming, filled with the latent energy of the city twenty floors below. A waiting silence.
You stood at the marble island, your palms pressed flat against the cool, veined stone. The shirt you wore—one of his, soft from a hundred washes—hung to mid-thigh. The fabric smelled like him, like cedar and clean sweat, and it was the only thing between your skin and the cool morning air drifting from the climate vents.
Your mug of tea steamed, untouched. Your focus was turned entirely inward, to the dull, heavy ache in your breasts. It was a new sensation, a tender heat that seemed to pulse in time with your heartbeat. You’d woken with it, a soreness so pronounced it had pulled you from a dreamless sleep.
You heard him before you felt him. The soft pad of bare feet on polished concrete. You didn’t turn.
His warmth enveloped you from behind, a solid wall of sleep-warmed muscle. He didn’t speak. His hands, those elegant, brutal hands, slid slowly up your bare thighs, beneath the dangling hem of the shirt. His palms were furnace-hot against your skin. They moved upwards, over your hips, your waist, tracing the indent of your spine until they reached the underside of your breasts.
He stilled. His thumbs brushed the swollen curves, a feather-light pass over the sensitive peaks pushing against the thin cotton. A shockwave of sensation—not quite pain, not quite pleasure—jolted through you. You sucked in a sharp breath.
His lips found the shell of your ear. “Is it from last night,” he murmured, his voice gravelly with sleep, his accent thickening the words, “or is it something else?”
His thumbs circled again, more deliberately now, applying a gentle, maddening pressure. You leaned back into him, your head resting against his shoulder, your eyes closed. The city’s light was a grey-pink smear through the windows.
“It’s different,” you whispered. “It started before you touched me. I woke up with it.”
His breathing hitched. The hands on your breasts stilled, then cupped you fully, weighing the new heaviness. A low sound vibrated in his chest. He turned you slowly to face him. His eyes, still heavy-lidded, scanned your face, then dropped to your chest. The shirt’s thin fabric did little to hide your peaked, darkened nipples or the visible fullness.
“Since Rome?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
You nodded. “Getting more… definite.”
A storm of emotions crossed his face—a flash of awe, a flicker of primal male satisfaction, then a surge of something fiercely protective. He bent his head and put his mouth over one cloth-covered nipple, sucking gently through the material. The wet heat, the pull, sent a bolt of pure lightning straight to your core. You cried out, your hands flying to his hair, tangling in the dark waves.
He released you with a soft pop, looking up at you. His pupils were blown wide. “They taste different,” he said, raw and wondering. “Even through the cotton. Sweeter.”
The clinical part of your mind, the part that was still scared, whispered about confirmation. The animal part of you, the part he owned completely, throbbed with a wet, desperate ache.
“We need to know,” you breathed.
“We will.” His hands went to the shirt’s buttons. He didn’t fumble. Each button slipped free with a precise click. He pushed the fabric apart, letting it fall from your shoulders to pool at your feet. The cool air pebbled your skin, but his gaze was a brand. He looked his fill, his eyes devouring the changes in your body—the fuller breasts, the subtle, new roundness of your belly he’d been worshipping for days.
“But first,” he said, stepping into you, backing you against the hard edge of the marble counter, “I need to taste it for myself.”
He dropped to his knees on the hard floor. His hands hooked behind your knees, pulling you forward to the very edge. The marble was shockingly cold against the backs of your thighs. He buried his face between your legs without preamble.
His tongue was not gentle. It was a claiming. A thick, flat stroke that lapped up the gathering wetness already soaking your folds. He groaned into you, the sound traveling through your very bones. “Fuck,” he muttered against your skin, his breath hot. “You’re drenched. Is this the ache? This needing to be filled?”
You could only nod, gripping the counter’s edge, your knuckles white. He speared you with his tongue, fucking into you with shallow, relentless thrusts. Then he zeroed in on your clit, sucking the swollen bud into his mouth, worrying it with a rhythmic pressure that had your thighs trembling.
“Matteo… I can’t…” The orgasm was building too fast, a runaway train fueled by sensitivity and emotion.
He pulled back, leaving you empty and quivering. “Not yet.” He rose, his own need straining against his sleep pants. He shoved them down, his cock springing free, thick and flushed. He was already leaking. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, never breaking eye contact.
He spun you around roughly, bending you over the cold marble. Your cheek pressed against the stone. Your sore, heavy breasts were crushed against the unforgiving surface. The contrast was obscene.
His hand came down on your ass, a sharp, stinging smack that made you gasp and push back against him instinctively. He smoothed his palm over the heat. “This cunt is mine,” he stated, his voice guttural. “Whatever’s growing in it is mine. You understand?”
“Yes.” The word was a moan.
He guided himself to your entrance, the broad head nudging through your slickness. “Then take it. All of it.”
He slammed home in one relentless drive. The fullness was shocking, breathtaking. You were so sensitive, so swollen inside that every ridge of him felt etched in fire. You screamed, the sound echoing in the vast, sterile kitchen.
He set a brutal, deep rhythm, each thrust jolting you against the counter. One hand anchored on your hip, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. The other hand fisted in your hair, pulling your head back, arching your spine. “Watch,” he commanded, nodding towards the black reflective surface of the oven door.
In the distorted reflection, you saw the frantic scene: him, a powerful shadow pistoning into you; your own face, contorted in ecstasy; your body, swaying with each powerful impact. It was raw. It was filthy. It was yours.
“See how deep I go?” he grunted, his rhythm faltering. “See how I own this perfect fucking pussy? My come’s already in you. Maybe my child is, too. This is just making sure.”
His words undid you. The climax ripped through you with a violence that turned your vision white, your inner muscles clamping around him in a vicious, milking rhythm. You chanted his name, a broken litany against the marble.
Your pulsing tightness dragged him over the edge. With a final, ragged shout, he buried himself to the root and held there. You felt the hot, spurting flood of his release, another claiming, another desperate attempt at creation. He collapsed over you, his weight pinning you to the cold stone, his breath sobbing into your shoulder.
Long minutes passed. The city began to wake up below. He slowly softened and slipped from your body. A warm trickle followed, down the inside of your thigh. He turned you, his eyes soft now, scanning your face. He kissed you, deep and slow, tasting himself on your lips.
Without a word, he lifted you into his arms, carrying you from the kitchen, down the hall, into the clinical white of the master bathroom. He set you on the closed toilet lid and turned to the cabinet.
He pulled out a small, sleek blue box. A pregnancy test. The brand known for early detection. He’d bought it days ago. He’d been waiting.
He opened it, his hands perfectly steady, and handed you the stick. “Now we know,” he said, his voice quiet.
Your hands shook as you took it. The moment stretched, taut and immense. The ghost of his possession still throbbed between your legs. The soreness in your breasts pulsed. Your future hung in the balance of a plastic stick and a few drops of urine.
You looked up at him, at the man who fought paparazzi and knelt on kitchen floors, his face an open ledger of hope and fear.
“Together,” he said.
You nodded, and turned towards the toilet, the first concrete step into the unknown.
The urine was warm, the plastic stick cold in your trembling hand. You placed it on the edge of the sink and stepped back, into the cage of his arms. He pulled you against his chest, his chin resting on your head. The only sound was the distant hum of the building and your own heartbeat, a frantic bird against your ribs.
You watched the liquid creep across the little window. One line, bold and blue, appeared immediately. The control line. Your breath hitched. Matteo’s arms tightened. Seconds stretched into a lifetime, measured in the syncopated thump of two hearts.
Then, without ceremony, a second line blossomed. Faint at first, then deepening, solidifying into an undeniable parallel truth.
Positive.
A choked sound escaped you, part sob, part laugh. Matteo’s body went rigid behind you. He slowly turned you to face him. His eyes darted between yours and the stick on the counter, back and forth, as if reconciling two separate universes.
“Cazzo,” he whispered, the word reverent and rough. His thumb traced your lower lip. “Really?”
You nodded, tears blurring his face. “Really.”
The awe on his face morphed, shifting into something darker, more possessive. The protective gentleness from the kitchen hardened into a sheer, predatory focus. He scooped you up, your back pressed against his chest, and carried you from the bathroom’s clinical light.
He didn’t take you to the sofa or the chair. He took you straight to the massive bed, the sheets still tangled from sleep. He laid you down in the center, following you down, caging you with his body. His kiss wasn’t celebratory. It was devouring. A claiming of this new reality with teeth and tongue.
“Mine,” he growled against your mouth. “You’re full of me. You understand that? You’re carrying my child.”
His hand slid between your legs, finding you already wet, swollen, sensitive from earlier. He pushed two fingers inside, curling them. “This heat,” he muttered. “This is where I put it. This is where it’s growing.”
He stripped the rest of his clothes off, his cock already hard again, jutting against his stomach. He knelt between your thighs, his gaze burning over your body. “Look at you. Already changing for me.” He leaned down, sucking a nipple into his mouth. The pull was electric, sharp, making you arch off the bed. “So sweet,” he hissed. “All for it. All for us.”
He notched the head of his cock at your entrance, pressing in slowly, a relentless invasion. The fullness was immense, overwhelming. You cried out, your nails digging into his shoulders.
“Fuck,” he breathed, sinking deeper. “Tighter. So fucking tight around me.” He began to move, a deep, rolling rhythm that felt less like lovemaking and more like a branding. Each thrust was a punctuation mark on his claim.
You were fracturing, pleasure coiling so tight it was pain. The words spilled out, unbidden, fueled by the primal rhythm and the truth humming in your blood. “Yes… daddy… just like that.”
He froze. Inside you, around you, the entire world stopped.
A violent shudder ran through him. His eyes, locked on yours, glazed over with something feral and unrecognizable. The switch flipped.
“What did you call me?” His voice was low, dangerous silk.
You whimpered, the word hanging in the air between you. He pulled out almost entirely, then slammed back in with a force that stole your breath. “Say it again.”
“Daddy,” you gasped, the title feeling illicit and perfect on your tongue.
A guttural sound ripped from his throat. He hooked your legs over his elbows, spreading you wider, driving into you with a brutal, punishing pace. The headboard slammed against the wall in a chaotic drumbeat. “That’s right,” he snarled, sweat dripping from his brow onto your chest. “I’m your fucking daddy. I planted this life in you. I’ll keep you full of it. You’ll take every fucking inch, won’t you?”
You could only nod, incoherent, as the coil snapped. Your orgasm tore through you, a raw, screaming thing that clenched around him like a vise. He fucked you through it, his pace never faltering, chasing his own peak.
“Come for daddy again,” he demanded, his hand sliding down to rub your clit in hard, rough circles. “Come on this cock that made you a mother.”
The overstimulation triggered another wave, a sharp, subordinate clench that made you sob. He watched your face unravel, his own control shattering. With a final, deep roar, he buried himself and pulsed, jet after hot jet flooding into you, claiming the space his child already occupied.
He collapsed, his weight a smothering, beloved anchor. His breath was hot and ragged against your neck. His fingers traced your stomach, over the flat plane where everything had just changed. “Daddy’s got you,” he murmured, the violence gone from his voice, replaced by a thick, solemn tenderness. “Both of you.”