Page 55 of The Ache That Stayed

I’d spent these years living in a kind of hell most people wouldn’t survive. Pretending the hunger wasn’t there. Pretending she was untouchable because she belonged to someone else.

Now she was here.

Close enough to smell. Close enough to watch. Close enough that my body reacted before my brain had time to remind me she was still off limits.

Across the manor site, she moved through the chaos like she owned it. Workers calling out measurements, trucks reversing, tools clanging—none of it rattled her. She stood in the middle of it all in black leggings and a long cardigan that brushed just below her ass. Sleeves pushed up. Hair tied into a careless knot that was already falling apart in the wind.

The cold didn’t seem to bother her. Nothing here did. On site she was always steady. Always in control, like the ground belonged to her. Like this was the one place in the world where life did exactly what she told it to. Maybe because the rest of it hadn’t.

My eyes followed her as she leaned over the drawings with one of the contractors. The leggings stretched tight over her ass and the monster immediately supplied the same thought it had every day this week.

My hand imprinting on her ass. Hard enough to make her arch. Hard enough to remind me why staying away from her was the only smart thing I’d ever done.

I shifted where I leaned against the car and tugged my jacket forward. The last thing I needed right now was half the construction crew noticing exactly what Roxanne Talati did to me.

Her voice carried faintly across the halls, calm and sure. And all I could think about—like a fucking idiot—was the way she’d looked that night in the cottage.

Flushed. Breath uneven.

Watching me crawl toward her like a starving animal.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I’d jerked myself raw that night, three goddamn times, hand wrapped around my cock, jerking it until limp and still I woke up hard the next morning like a teenager who’d just discovered porn.

Pathetic.

One thing I knew for sure—if she ever put me on my knees again, I wasn’t stopping there. I’d devour every inch of her.

Seeing her like that had been enough to fuel a week’s worth of bad decisions and late-night cold showers. And I still wasn’t over it. I told myself that was normal. Anyone with a pulse would have replayed that night on a loop in their head.

Still didn’t mean it was safe.

Roxanne still kept her space. Treated me like something dangerous she wasn’t sure she should trust.

But she let me follow her to the site now. Openly. Just not in the car with her. Not yet. Progress. A dangerous kind.

Because making me kneel had cracked a floodgate open. Years of discipline didn’t disappear overnight, but the leash felt thinner. And every day I spent near her made it harder to pretend the hunger wasn’t there.

Wanting her was one problem. Protecting her was another.

The trouble was I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began anymore.

I’d spent years convincing myself she was off limits.

Marcello’s woman. Marcello’s life. The mother of his child.

And still…

My mind kept circling back to the same memory.

I should’ve known I was in trouble the day she ran across the courtyard in Alibaug and threw her arms around me like I was the one she’d been waiting to see. I remember freezing.

Because the moment she saw me, she let go of Marcello’s hand and ran straight into my arms. And that should have been the moment I walked away. But she’d grabbed me like I was someone familiar. Someone safe.

That was the moment I stopped pretending she was just Marcello’s woman. The moment an obsession started rooting itself inside my ribs. That was the moment I realised wanting her was already too late.

I rubbed a hand down my face and exhaled slowly.