Santa Lucia Convent, 10:47 p.m.
Alexia lay fully dressed on her narrow cot, habit still pinned and perfect, staring at the cracked ceiling as though it might open and offer her an escape route straight to heaven.
The black envelope burned a hole through the mattress where she had hidden it beneath her pillow.
Confessional. Tonight. 11 p.m.
Come willing, Sister, or I come for you at dawn.
She'd spent the whole day swinging between terror and this shameful throbbing ache in the pit of her belly. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt him again: the thick drag of his cock, the way he'd pinned her wrists, the filthy praise growled against her throat. Every time she opened them she saw the crucifix on the wall, watching her with accusation.
Go to him, and damn herself willingly.
Stay and wait for him to take her all the same.
She had chosen neither.
Instead, she had swallowed two of the sedative drops Sister Chiara kept for migraines, curled into a ball, and let exhaustion drag her under like a tide.
She never heard the lock pick.
Never heard the soft scrape of the window latch.
Never heard the whisper of expensive shoes on ancient stone.
She woke to a gloved hand sealing her mouth, a weight settling across her hips.
Pure instinct surged, mouth opening to scream. The hand tightened, leather creaking against her lips, and a familiar dark chuckle ghosted across her ear.
"Told you I'd find you, Sister."
Luca.
Moonlight sliced through half-open shutters and painted silver across his face: high cheekbones, cruel mouth, eyes blacker than sin. All in black, cashmere sweater, tailored trousers, he might have been a demon who'd traded horns for Armani. The San Michele medal glinted at his throat and mocked her.
Alexia's heart slammed against her ribs so violently she felt it in her clit. She'd danced for dangerous men, fucked strangers in club bathrooms, let herself be watched and used and worshipped in the dark. None of them had ever made the air itself feel lethal.
She tried to speak against his palm, but he eased the pressure just enough.
"Wha… what do you want?" The words came out small, trembling.
Luca smiled slowly, wolfishly. "You."
One syllable. Absolute. Irrevocable.
Then his mouth crashed down on hers.
It wasn't a kiss; it was conquest. Teeth and tongue and the faint taste of blood where he bit her lower lip too hard. She whimpered into him, hands flying up to push at his chest-useless. The wool of her habit rasped against his sweater as he pressed her deeper into the thin mattress.
She managed to tear her mouth free. "This is a convent," she hissed, voice cracking. "You're defiling the house of the Lord—"
"The Lord can watch," he growled, voice hoarse with lust and amusement. "He made this cunt. He'll understand."
Before she could protest further, his hands were on her. Not gentle-never gentle. He seized the front of her habit and ripped it.
Fabric tore like paper, buttons scattering across the stone floor with tiny, sacrilegious pings. Cool air hit her bare breasts; she hadn't worn anything beneath the habit since last night's bruises still bloomed across her skin.
Luca's breath stuttered at the sight of them, his marks purple and perfect. Something feral flashed across his face.
"Mine," he rasped, and lowered his head.
His mouth closed over one nipple, sucking hard enough that her back bowed off the bed. Teeth scraped, tongue flicked, and the pleasure was so sharp it felt like pain. She bit down on her own fist to muffle the cry. He moved to the other breast, biting a ring of teeth marks around the areola, branding her again.
His hands shoved the ruined habit higher, bunching it at her waist.
No underwear to get in the way-she never wore it on nights she danced. She was already drenched, thighs slick, the scent of her arousal thick in the tiny cell.
Luca pulled back just far enough to look at her spread open for him on the convent cot; his pupils were blown wide.
"Christ, look at you," he said reverently, "soaked for the devil in a house of God."
He dropped to his knees beside the cot, grasped her thighs and yanked them wide apart - so wide her hips protested the stretch.
Then his mouth was on her - no teasing, no mercy. Just his tongue plunging inside her, fucking her with it while his nose ground against her clit.
Alexia's head slammed back against the pillow. She was clawing at the sheets, at his hair, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away. He was eating her like a starving man, his tongue licking deep, sucking her folds into his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to make her sob. When he sealed his lips around her clit and sucked hard, she came instantly - violent, wrenching, thighs clamping around his head as she flooded his tongue.
He didn't stop.
He pushed two fingers into her spasming cunt and curled them ruthlessly, stroking that spot that made her see stars. A third joined, stretching her, scissoring wide while his mouth continued tormenting her clit. She came again almost immediately, harder, a gush of wetness that soaked his wrist and the sheets beneath her.
Only then did he rise, his lips shining with her, eyes glittering.
"Turn over," he ordered.
She couldn't have disobeyed if she wanted to. Body still trembling with aftershocks, she rolled onto her stomach. He dragged her hips up until she was on her knees, chest pressed to the mattress, habit bunched around her waist like a fallen halo.
She flinched at the sound of his belt buckle. Then the blunt, velvet head of his cock was nudging her entrance.
"Look at me," he ordered
She twisted her head. He stood behind her, sweater rucked up to reveal carved abs and that obscene bulge now free-thick, flushed, a bead of precum glistening at the slit. He held her gaze as he pushed in.
Relentlessly, one agonizing inch at a time.
Alexia's mouth fell open in a silent scream. He was bigger than memory, burning, stretching her until she felt split in half. When he bottomed out, balls pressed tight against her clit, he leaned over her back, chest to her spine, and bit the nape of her neck like a stallion breaking a mare.
Then he started to move.
Long, punishing strokes that dragged over every nerve ending inside her. The cot creaked beneath them, headboard knocking against the wall in a rhythm which would wake the entire dormitory if anyone was listening. His hand fisted in her hair, arching her neck back until she felt the strain in her throat.
"Say it," he snarled against her ear, hips snapping hard enough to jolt her forward with every thrust. "Tell me who this pussy belongs to."
She tried to shake her head. He slammed in deeper, grinding against her cervix, and she broke.
"You," she sobbed. "Luca—God—it's yours—"
He growled triumphantly and fucked her harder, the slapping of skin on skin going off like gunshots in the tiny cell. His free hand snaked beneath her to pinch her clit, rolling it between rough fingers until she was keening, tears soaking the pillow.
"Come on my cock again, Sister," he rasped. "Show your God how pretty you fall apart for a sinner."
The orgasm crashed over her like a tidal wave-brutal, blinding. Her walls clamped down on him so hard, he cursed in Sicilian, pace stuttering.
He was close; she could feel it in the way his cock swelled inside her, the way his thrusts turned erratic.
He pulled out suddenly, flipped her onto her back again, and straddled her chest. Two rough strokes of his fist and he came with a guttural groan-thick ropes painting her throat, her lips, the ruined wimple still clinging to her hair. He marked her like territory.
For a moment there was only the sound of their ragged breathing, and the distant chime of the convent bell marking the half-hour.
Luca tucked himself away, eyes never leaving her sprawled, trembling form.
He leaned down and brushed a surprisingly gentle kiss across her swollen mouth, tasting himself on her lips.
"Pack nothing," he whispered. "You won't need clothes where you're going."
Alexia's heart stopped.
From the hall came the sudden scuffling of feet, more than one pair, hurried, panicked. A fist pounded on her door.
"Sister Alexia!" Sister Chiara's voice, high with terror. "Mother
Superior says men are at the gate, armed men! They have guns and they're demanding—"
The door exploded inward.
Three Moretti soldiers in black filled the frame, guns raised. Nuns in the background were screaming.
Luca straightened slowly, calmly buttoning his belt, as if he had all the time in the world.
He looked down one last time at Alexia, naked, trembling, covered in his come, habit in shreds around her.
"Time to go, amore," he said softly.