The penthouse door clicked shut, sealing them in a tomb of silence and city light. Luca stood across the vast living room, a statue carved from fury and fear. Bella’s heels caught on the rug as she stumbled, the whiskey in her veins making the world tilt. His gaze was a physical weight, pinning her where she stood—a dark, consuming storm.

Then he moved.

Three strides. The space between them vanished. His hands found her face, fingers digging into her jaw, tilting her head back. His mouth crashed down on hers.

It wasn’t a kiss. It was a reckoning. His lips were hard, demanding, and then his teeth caught her bottom lip. He bit down. The sharp, bright pain made her gasp into his mouth, and he took the sound, swallowed it, his tongue claiming the space he’d opened.

He tasted like expensive scotch and cold rage. She tasted like cheap whiskey and the night she’d spent running from this. His tongue pushed deeper, a brutal invasion that was also a homecoming. He sucked on her tongue, the pull desperate and raw, and a low groan vibrated from his chest into hers.

Her hands came up, fluttering against his chest. To push him away. To pull him closer. She didn’t know. The world was his mouth, his hands, the bite blooming into a throbbing heat on her lip.

He broke the kiss just enough to breathe, his forehead pressed to hers. His breath was ragged. “Where were you?”

The words were a blade, low and quiet.

“Out,” she slurred, defiance a thin veneer over the shake in her voice.

His hand slid from her jaw to her throat. Not squeezing. Just holding. His thumb pressed against the frantic pulse hammering there. “I called you. Twelve times.”

“I was busy.”

“Doing what?” His other hand fisted in the silk of her dress at her hip, twisting the fabric. “Getting this drunk? Letting someone else touch you?”

“Maybe.”

The word hung between them, a lie so transparent it was its own confession. His eyes, black in the shadowed light, searched hers. The fury in them cracked, just for a second. Something raw and terrified flickered beneath.

He kissed her again. Softer this time. A brutal kind of tenderness. His lips moved over the place he’d bitten, soothing the sting with his tongue. The hand at her throat slid into her hair, gripping the ruined curls, holding her still for this apology he wouldn’t speak.

She melted into it. The fight drained out of her, replaced by a wave of dizzying want. Her body arched into his, the hard planes of his chest against her breasts. A whimper escaped her, and he drank that, too.

His kiss deepened, turning hungry again. His hands began to move. One stayed tangled in her hair, anchoring her. The other slid down her side, over the curve of her hip, gathering the hem of her little black dress. His knuckles brushed the bare skin of her thigh.

She shuddered.

He pulled back, his breathing harsh. He looked at her mouth, swollen and glistening from his. At her eyes, wide and drunk and fixed on him. “You’re mine,” he whispered, the words a vow and a curse. “Even when you run. Especially when you run.”

His hand pushed her dress higher. The cool penthouse air hit her skin. His fingertips traced the lace edge of her panties, a slow, deliberate stroke along the line where the fabric met her thigh.

She stopped breathing.

His gaze locked on hers, he hooked a finger under the lace. He didn’t pull. He just held it there, the delicate barrier stretched taut. The promise of what came next hung in the silent, charged space between one heartbeat and the next.