Page 84 of The Mafia King's Reign
I didn't look back.
I just kept walking, thinking she would surrender and head to her room. I should have known she wouldn't give up until she felt heard, but I kept walking anyway until I reached my bedroom. I didn't think she'd be bold enough to follow me in here. Not knowing how badly I want her, not knowing how dangerous I could be, not knowing just how badly I could ruin her.
I walk in, and I don't look back, but most importantly, I don't close the door either.
I left the door open intentionally, a silent invitation… or maybe a challenge. Either way, I knew exactly what I was doing.
And I should have known better than to think she’d ignore a challenge, especially one I put in front of her.
She is as defiant as she is mine.
It is clearer now than it has ever been. The way she challenges me without flinching. The way she refuses to lower her chin, even when every instinct she has should be telling her to. Valentina is no longer afraid of me. Maybe she should be. But she isn't, and that absence of fear doesn't soften me. It sharpens me. It makes me want to ruin her slowly and completely.
I turn to face her now.
She is standing in the middle of my bedroom like she owns it. Chin lifted. Dress slightly wrinkled.
I want the dress off of her.
The control I've maintained for weeks. The cold strategy. The careful distance. The calculated performance of a man who has everything under command is gone.
I take one step toward her. Then another.
She doesn't move.
Good. If she'd taken a single step back, some fragment of control might have held. Might have kept me from doing what I am about to do. But she holds her ground the way she always holds her ground. Chin up. Green eyes locked on mine, pupils blown wide, lips parted.
I stop in front of her. Close enough to feel the warmth off her skin.
I frame her face in my hands.
She is so beautiful it's almost hard to look at her directly. Dark hair falling loose. That pretty little smart mouth waitingto be claimed. I have obsessed over that mouth for weeks with a specificity that embarrasses a don. The precise shape of it. The way it parts when she's angry. The way it pressed tight when she was trying not to cry in the library, and didn’t think I was watching.
There are things I want to say. There is a version of this where I am eloquent. Where I tell her everything I've been building behind every careful word and strategic silence. Where I explain what she has done to a man who believed he was past this. Past falling, past caring, past wanting someone so bad it fucking hurts. What it meant when she put her hand on my leg, and my body went quiet for the first time in years. Completely, strangely quiet.
I don't say any of it.
Instead I look at her, and she knows. She can see that I'm hungry. I want her surrender, and I want it now.
"Take off your clothes, Valentina."
* * *
She says no. Of course she does.
Just that. One word, flat and clean.
"No?"
"You don't get to give me orders, Salvatore."
She says it with a confidence I've never seen in her before. A steadiness that isn't bravado and isn't performance. It is simply her, standing in my bedroom, refusing me.
I am enjoying every second of it.
"You know what you can give me?" she continues.
"Name it." I hold her gaze, unable to look away.
