Page 71 of Claimed Through Deception

"Tell me you don't want this," I taunt him. "Look me in the eye, Niccolò, and tell me that my body disgusts you. Tell me you don't want to rip this silk off my shoulders and bend me over that table. If you are truly done with me, then push me away."

His chest heaves against mine, his obsidian eyes dilating until they swallow the irises completely. The veins in his neck bulge as he wages a violent, impossible war against his own biology. He is starving, physically vibrating with the effort it takes to keep his hands off me, and I refuse to give him a single inch of mercy. I slide my hand up to the nape of his neck, tangling my fingers in his dark hair, and pull his face down until our lips are a fraction of an inch apart.

"Liar," I breathe against his mouth.

His control snaps and groans, a feral, animalistic noise that vibrates through my bones. His hands crash down on my waist. He grips my hips with bruising strength, lifting me completely off the floor before slamming my back against the edge of the conference table. My legs automatically wrap around his waist, pulling him into the cradle of my thighs as his mouth crashes violently onto mine.

He devours me, his tongue sweeping into my mouth with a relentless, hungry rhythm that tastes like coffee, scotch, and unfiltered desperation. I kiss him back with equal ferocity, my nails biting into his shoulders as I chase the intoxicating heat of his skin. The cold, impenetrable ice wall he built is obliterated in seconds, melted by a lust so consuming it overrides every logical thought in my brain.

God I have missed him.

He sweeps his hands down the curve of my spine, gripping the hem of the crimson slip and shoving the silk up to my waist. His rough palms find the bare, sensitive skin of my thighs, his fingers digging into my flesh as he grinds his hips aggressively against my center. The friction sends a blinding shockwave of pleasure straight to my core, and I cry out into his mouth, my back arching off the polished wood.

"Fuck," he rasps against my jaw, his breath coming in jagged, broken bursts as he trails wet, open-mouthed kisses down my neck. "You drive me insane. You tear my fucking mind apart, Livia."

"Then take me," I whimper, my hands fumbling frantically with the buckle of his belt. "Right now, Niccolò. Claim me."

I slide the leather strap loose, my fingers grazing the bulge behind his zipper, and the contact sends a violent tremor through his entire frame.

He freezes.

The feral, consuming hunger contorts into a mask of panic. Niccolò tears his mouth away from my neck, gasping for oxygen as if he is drowning. He grabs my wrists, pulling my hands away from his trousers with a sudden, jarring force that stops the blood in my veins.

"No," he chokes out, stumbling backward and tearing himself out of my grip.

He puts three feet of distance between us, his chest heaving, his hands shaking so violently he has to clench them into fists at his sides. The lust is still burning in his eyes, but it is overshadowed by a self-loathing so massive it completely breaks my heart.

"Niccolò," I plead, reaching a hand out toward him.

"I can't," he rasps, shaking his head as he takes another step back toward the doors. "I am not going to let you use sex to manipulate me into forgetting the truth. You ran from me because I am a danger to you. Fucking you on a desk isn't going to wash the blood off my hands."

He doesn't give me a chance to argue. He turns on his heel and strides out of the war room, the heavy mahogany doors slamming shut behind him with a definitive, ringing finality.

I do not even notice the tears falling from my eyes.

28

Niccolò

I stand by the sprawling bay windows, staring out at the torrential rain washing over the manicured grounds of the estate, but I do not see the storm. My mind remains trapped in the war room, replaying the agonizing moment I tore myself away from the woman I love. The ghost of her mouth still burns against my jaw. The phantom scent of vanilla and warm skin clings to my clothes, a reminder of the surrender I forced myself to walk away from. I left her sitting on that conference table, trembling in a scrap of crimson silk, because I am terrified that my touch will inevitably corrupt the child growing inside her.

"You are a monumental fucking idiot," Alessio announces from the center of the room. He lounges across the leather sofa, his boots propped carelessly on the mahogany coffee table, swirling a generous measure of my most expensive scotch in a crystal tumbler. "I have watched you do some genuinely unhinged things in your life, Niccolò. I watched you overthrow Roberto. I watched you gut men in filthy warehouses. But walking away from a beautiful, pregnant woman who is literally begging you to claim her? That is a new level of masochistic insanity."

I do not turn around. I keep my eyes fixed on the rain-slicked glass. "Keep your mouth shut, Alessio. You understand nothing about the threat I pose to her."

"I understand that you are punishing both of you for a hypothetical future," he shoots back, the ice clinking against the glass as he takes a long swallow. "You are playing the tragic martyr, isolating yourself in this study while the mother of your heir sits upstairs, wondering why the man she loves treats her like a disease. You aren't protecting her. You are breaking her heart."

Enzo stands near the massive stone fireplace, reviewing a stack of digital security logs on his tablet. Our Consigliere rarely agrees with my brother’s reckless commentary, but tonight, the two men seem united in their frustration regarding my fractured state of mind.

"Your brother is crass, but his assessment is accurate," Enzo murmurs, his icy blue gaze flicking up from the glowing screen. "Your prolonged withdrawal is a liability. The men require a leader who operates with unshakeable certainty. Right now, you project volatility. The Falco family is bleeding territory, cornered like wounded animals, and they will exploit any perceived weakness in our armor. You need to solidify your reign, Niccolò, and that requires stabilizing your home. Go upstairs. Reconcile with Livia, and put your fucking house in order before the chaos outside these walls breaches the perimeter."

"My house is secure," I growl, finally turning away from the window to glare at the two men questioning my authority. I grip the edge of my desk, the wood biting into my palms. "I banished my father. I crippled the Falco supply lines. The perimeter is fortified with forty armed guards, and nobody sets foot on this property without my explicit authorization. She is safe. What we should be concerned about is how she got out."

The universe chooses that exact, boastful moment to prove me catastrophically wrong.

The floorboards beneath my boots violently heave upward, launching me off balance. A split second later, a deafening, catastrophic roar obliterates the quiet study, shattering the reinforced glass of the bay windows into thousands of lethal, flying shards. The sheer concussive force of the explosion throws me against the edge of the desk, knocking the breath from my lungs.

Alessio is hurled off the leather sofa, crashing into the coffee table as plaster rains down from the ceiling. Books tumble from the towering shelves, the air instantly filling with choking, acrid gray smoke and the unmistakable, sulfuric stench of high-grade explosives.