The night stretched long and unyielding, each tick of the clock echoing louder in Aria's ears as she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The silk sheets beneath her felt foreign, too smooth, too luxurious for the storm twisting inside her. Sleep would not come, not after what had happened in the study, not after Luca's lips had claimed hers with such brutal tenderness that every nerve in her body still hummed with the memory.
Her hand drifted to her mouth unconsciously, as though to confirm it hadn't been a dream. She could still taste him, dark, intoxicating, impossible to erase. A man she should fear, a man she should despise, had somehow become the one her body ached for. And that realization terrified her more than any gun, any rival mafia family, any whispered threat in the night.
