Page 20 of Empire
His laugh’s thin, breathy—already cracked at the edges—and it sends a rush straight to my cock. “That’s your fault too.”
I slap his jaw just hard enough to ring bone. “Of course it is. I make beautiful things ugly, and you love it.”
His eyes burn at that—anger, shame, hunger all fighting for top billing—and God, I love him like this: furious and needy with no clue which urge to obey first.
“Don’t be soft,” he says, and there’s a tremble under the challenge. “Don’t treat me like glass when I’m begging you to be mean.”
I tighten my grip hard enough to make him inhale sharply. “Stop begging so sweet, then. Makes me almost merciful.”
His eyes flash with challenge, the Vieri arrogance sparking through the wreckage. Perfect. I shove him backward, not toward the bed—beds promise softness—but until the edge of the heavy desk bites into the meat of his hips and forces a hiss out between his teeth.
His hands fly back to brace himself, knuckles whitening against polished wood. The room’s dim lamplight slants across his cheekbones, catching the faint tremor in his jaw. Polished Vieri veneer stripped down to raw want and a dangerous little smile that tells me he enjoys every second of the cruelty I pour into him.
This is the part right before the fall. The last clear second before everything goes hot and filthy and simple in the way only bodies can make it when words have done too much damage already.
I know I should be thinking about endings. About my father. About my engagement hanging over my head like a blade. About how I need to break this off before it gets one of us killed.
None of it matters right now because my ruin is dragging his nails down the back of my neck, leaving burning tracks. “Please,” he snarls, as if the word disgusts him.
I pull back to meet his gaze and ask, because I need him with me for this, “Please, what,lyubimiy?”
The endearment hits him exactly where I know it will.
His eyes darken, his mouth parts, and for one second, the armor slips completely, and all I see is the man under it. Raw, wanting, and wrecked enough to hand me the truth if I ask the right way. “Don’t make me feel tonight. I can’t fucking do it.”
I cup the back of his neck and look at him for one long, hard second.
Then I answer the only way I can.
“There’s my whore, begging me to treat you like you’re nothing but a hole to fill,” I tease.
For all the ways this is going to ruin me, for all the ways I know better and do it anyway, there’s one truth I can’t fucking outrun.
He is my weakness.
He tips his chin up, challenging me to move first, but his grip on my shirt says he’s already surrendered the choice. I crowd in,thighs pressing to the inside of his, feel the sharp hitch of his breath when the desk edge digs into his lower back.
He wants bruises tonight—inside and out, marks that’ll sting under starch and silk tomorrow morning, reminders that despite all his polished control, he begged not to be spared.
I lean in, drag my lips over the shell of his ear. “Hands flat, pretty thing. You move them before I say, I’ll walk out and leave you dripping for me.”
He shudders—God, he loves threats—and plants his palms flat on the desk, spreading his fingers wide, spine arching just a little to present for inspection. He could shove me off any time he likes; we both know it. The obedience is a gift he gives because he likes the way it makes me snarl.
“Can’t decide if you’re brave or stupid tonight,” I tell him, popping open the first button of his shirt slow enough to make him crazy. “Asking to be treated like trash.”
“Not trash,” he spits, but his voice is already unsteady. “Yours.”
Mine.The word punches straight through every barricade I pretend to keep in place. I answer by ripping the next buttons instead of undoing them; little mother-of-pearl disks ricochet across the hardwood just so he’ll hear how little I care about the cost.
I shove the ruined shirt wide. Dark hair dusts his chest, thick at the center line, tapering to the trail I’ll lick later—masculine in every way. The kind that leaves delicious scraps of friction on my tongue. I lean down, bite a mark high on his chest hard enough to earn a broken Italian curse.
He writhes but keeps his hands where I told him—good boy—and when I pull back, teeth aching from how hard I clamp down, I watch the blood rise purple under his skin and feel my cock throb mean in my trousers.
“Still want me cruel?” I ask.
“Crueler,” he whispers, and that razor-edged smile curves again. “If you stop now, I’ll beg someone else to finish the job.”
Jealousy lights through me bright as nitro. I palm his jaw, squeeze until he winces. “You so sure I won’t break your fucking neck for that?”
