Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
ENZO
I feel like I’m entering an alternate reality as our car pulls off the road towards the house. The last time I was here this was our safe house, but now it’s the base of operations for the entire Bianchi organisation. What was our secret, secure haven is now a heavily defended compound.
I’m not surprised, and I’m not upset. It just feels different, and highlights how much I’ve missed, how long I’ve been gone, and that maybe, I just don’t fit anymore.
The boundaries have been secured with discreet perimeter fencing, only interrupted by a new and heavily fortified iron gate, complete with guard house and armed guards. As the car rolls through the open gates, I recognise one of the guards along with one of Stefano’s crew and it goes a long way to reassuring me that my family is protected.
I don’t know when I stopped thinking of them as my team, but to refer to them as anything other than my family feels like a betrayal of the sacrifices we’ve made for each other .
I called Stefano first thing this morning and asked him to arrange to bring me back early. I couldn’t bear to spend one more minute in the hospital and thought I’d surprise them. As the car pulls into the garage, I’m so eager to get inside that I open my door while the car is still moving. My body complains, stiffness and a dull pain radiating through my torso reminding me I’m not back to full strength yet. Once the car comes to a stop I haul myself out more carefully than I’d like. I’m moving into the house, ignoring the driver calling out to me.
“I’ll leave your bag in the hallway, sir.” He shouts after me and I wave my arm, acknowledging him but eager to have him gone so I can find my family.
It’s early but I would’ve expected them all to be up already. I make my way through the rooms and notice that inside nothing much has changed. The outside may scream, ‘Bianchi headquarters’ but it still feels like home. I push open the door to my study and it’s like a shrine to my memory. I’m not sure I like it. It’s a representation of everything I was before, but so much has changed.
I retreat quickly, closing the door, and heading towards the stairs. As I pass what was the dining room, I see a big change. This must be Aurora’s office. It’s filled with familiar furniture from her dad’s office, and I can’t help but smile. Not only does the room feel entirely like her, but she made her own space here, meaning that she feels like she belongs.
I continue towards the stairs, my limbs complaining as I climb each step. Bearing in mind how close they’ve all become in my absence, I have no damn clue which room I’ll find anyone in, so I decide to head to mine. I like the idea of lying in my own bed for the first time in weeks.
The scene that greets me when I open my door pulls a contented sigh and a broad smile from me. There’s a tangle of people in my bed. Benedict and Aurora lie in the centre, their arms and legs entwined like ancient vines. Nico is plastered to Benny’s back with a possessive arm thrown across both of them, and Sinclair mirrors his position behind Aurora.
I’m in awe of the closeness they have, and I’m a little jealous that I’m not a part of it. I should feel honoured that they’re all in my room, but I feel like an intruder.
I ease back out of the room and head downstairs, straight to the basement. I’m out of breath by the time I reach the med-room and as I step through the doorway I notice it doesn’t feel like it did before. It doesn’t carry Aurora’s scent or have Benny’s TV in it.
“You’re home,” comes a familiar voice behind me. I hear the gentle pad of her feet on the tile floor, the snick of the door as she closes it behind her, and then her hands fall softly against my back. Shivers snake up my spine, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Tracing her fingers along my shoulder blade and then gripping my bicep she turns me to face her.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispers, her voice choked with emotions that I can’t help but mirror. I can’t believe I’m here. I never thought I’d see her again.
I’m scared to meet her gaze. Worried that if I do, it will break some spell and I’ll wake up alone in that basement again. Despite how many times she’s proven that this is real, sometimes I still doubt it.
When her lips touch mine, I feel like new life is being breathed back into me. I forget every doubt. Every niggling worry that there’s no place for me here anymore. Every caress of her lips is a declaration that I’m hers, and it stirs up a myriad of emotions that clear out my thoughts and leave me breathless.
She pulls away slowly, her hands stroke my face and her long nails tease the hair at my temples, making me lean into her touch. “Why didn’t you wait for us? We were coming to bring you home.”
“I couldn’t wait, mia guerrierotta, ” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Then why are you down here, mio re ? Why are you hiding from me? From us?” she says, dropping one hand and interlacing her fingers through mine. I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes. It’s easier to say this when I’m not lost in those emerald irises.
“I saw you all upstairs, and honestly, I felt like I didn’t belong. Like maybe there wasn’t a place for me.” My words pull a soft gasp from her lips.
“You don’t think that maybe all of us sleeping in a shrine to you every night you’ve been gone means the exact opposite? That we were incapable of functioning without you being present in some way?”
I can’t help but smile. “Well… when you put it like that.”
“I’m sorry you felt like that when you saw us. To be honest, we maybe should have warned you, and we definitely should have moved out so you could have your space back.”
I cup her face and angle her chin up. “When you thought I was dead, it’s what you needed?” She nods. “You don’t need to apologise for doing what you needed to do to keep going.” I press my lips to hers and lose myself in her again. Her tongue sweeps across mine, eager and urgent, like she’s trying to prove that I’m really here. That I’m not going anywhere.
It’s hard to pull away, but I have to. There’s nothing I want more than to never come up for air again. But I’m already fading fast. The short trip home has exhausted me and the dull throbbing of the most recent surgical scars in my arm are as regular as clockwork, reminding me that it’s time to take my painkillers .
“Let’s get you upstairs and evict the guys. You need to rest.” She’s already guiding me out of the room. She looks back over her shoulder with a sly smile and says, “Besides, it’s my time to play nurse.”
I wake up a few hours later and everything feels right. I’m surrounded by the familiar. I’m not alone in the dark, or being bombarded by loud machines announcing my medical status to strangers.
I’m truly safe for the first time in weeks.
As odd as it was earlier, finding them all bundled in my bed, it’s strangely reassuring to know that they’ve been keeping me close to them. That it hasn’t been left stale and lifeless, like a tomb to my memory, like my office had. Waking up here surrounded by their scents—it makes my whole room feel like home and draws a contented smile from me.
I hear Aurora’s soft sighs before I crack my eyes open and spy her curled up in a chair that wasn’t there when I fell asleep. I must have been out for the count if they were able to bring that in without waking me. It’s an oversized round, slouch-cushioned armchair that looks like several muppets were skinned to cover it with its obnoxiously loud green shaggy fabric. Aurora is fast asleep, cocooned in a blanket, with an e-reader clutched in her arm.
I can’t help but stare. Aurora’s a strange and wondrous creature who’s somehow entwined herself through every part of our lives, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s a force of nature. I’m awed that a woman so petite can embody such strength and power. Over the last few weeks in the hospital, she never once let her guard down. She was every ounce the leader her capos needed. But I’ve been so eager to get home. To see the side of her that she only shows us.
I was worried that things would have changed. That Max might have taken the last little pieces of her fragility. But seeing her curled up now in her ridiculous chair, I know there’s still a part of her that’s just ours.
One that wears sweats and slipper socks and still looks sexy as fuck. One who refuses to get her own e-reader so that she can fill Sin’s with all manner of smut. I can see from the cover displayed right now that she’s currently reading something that features an axe-wielding lumberjack.
That’s when my gaze flicks to the hand she’s cradling her e-reader with and I smile at my signet ring on her index finger. I noticed it when we were in the hospital, but it never felt like the right time to bring it up. I hated thinking that she’d felt the need to memorialise me, but also loved that something of mine was always with her. It made me wish I could always carry something of her with me. I might need to talk with Nico about a tattoo. Something I could have etched on me that no one can take away. Something permanent.
“I can feel you watching me, Zo,” she says with a little smirk before stirring into a cat-like stretch. “You fancy curling up with me and catching up on some shows?”
I use my good arm to hoist myself up to a seated position against the headboard after jamming the pillows behind me.
“Doesn’t the Bianchi don have more important things to do than volunteering for babysitting duty?” I joke, but I don’t quite manage to sound as light-hearted as I’d like. I hate that I’m her weakest link right now when I should be her strongest line of defence.
“I have the day off,” Aurora says with a broad smile. “There have to be some perks to being the boss.”
“Where’s everyone else? ”
“The security detail is outside, and Sin, Nico, and Benny are following up on a lead they discovered last night. It’s just us today.” She rises from the oversized armchair before lowering herself onto the foot of the bed and crawling towards me. My entire body comes alive under her gaze.
Being so much taller than most people, I rarely feel like I’m the prey in any situation. However, right now I feel like I’m entirely at her mercy as she slinks towards me. She settles herself, straddling my lap and capturing my face in her hands. There’s something about the way her fingertips dance across my skin that captivates me. It’s like I’m under her spell, ready to dance to whatever tune she plays.
It’s a blissful state where I don’t have to be in control. The responsibilities that weigh me down float away into the ether. We have a connection—she knows what I need, and instinctively provides it.
She is my solace.
I close my eyes and feel the warmth of her breath across my lips a moment before she presses them against mine. Gentle at first. Teasing, encouraging me to let her in. Her tongue twines with mine, sending heat burning through me, straight to my cock. She rocks against me, and I can’t tell whether she whimpers first or I growl. Either way, we both seem to have lost the ability to use our words, and neither one of us seems to want to come up for air.
It’s heaven to simply be able to hold each other. Her hands roam across my body and end with her dragging her nails through my hair, tugging to tilt my head so she can explore me from every angle.
She’s careful to avoid my left shoulder. While there’s no more metal framework, I still have a few dressings from the most recent surgery. Most days I feel a bone-deep ache where my arm and shoulder are healing, but I barely register any lingering pain from the abdominal incisions. In all honesty, nothing I experienced in the hospital will ever compare to those weeks at Max’s mercy.
The memory makes me flinch and pulls me out of the moment.
“Where did you go, mio re ? How can I bring you back to me?” she whispers in my ear, never letting go of her grip on my hair.
“Don’t treat me like I’m fragile, Aurora,” I mutter, fighting against the barrage of images my memory is hurling at me. “If you want me, take me. Don’t treat me with kid gloves.”
She pulls me forward, away from the headboard and wrenches my head back, rising on her knees, forcing my eyes to hers, which sets my heart racing. My pulse throbs in my throat under the strain of her grip. “You want me to take what’s mine, Enzo? I’ve waited so long for you. Are you sure you’re ready to be owned by me? Because that’s what you are. You’re fucking mine.”
“Entirely yours,” I say between heavy breaths. “All of me.”
This time when she kisses me, I feel like she’s conquering me on a cellular level. She’s aggressive and powerful and I’ve never been more turned on in my life. My cock is rock hard and only getting harder as her hips rock against me. She breaks our kiss and I curse in frustration. Her fingers run under the hem of my shirt and she starts to pull it up. I felt ridiculous when I left the hospital in a racer-back tank, but it was the only shirt I could get on myself with my shoulder.
She tosses it to the floor and then steps off the bed. I make a move to follow her and she stops me dead in my tracks, laying a hand in the centre of my chest and scratching gently against my chest hair before pushing me back against the headboard .
“You are going to stay where you are and be patient,” she croons. “Only good boys get rewarded, Enzo.”
Her words are everything I didn’t know I needed to hear.
She peels her hoodie over her head, revealing that she’s braless underneath. I bite my bottom lip and do my best to control the instinct to jump off this bed and rip the rest of her clothes from her body, because I don’t want to risk making a move that will stop whatever is happening here. I’ll do whatever she wants. I’ll be her good boy.
“How long have you wanted me, Enzo? Wanted to be mine?” she asks, almost purring as she brings her hand up to the gentle slope of her neck before tracing it between the valley of her breasts. My eyes follow the trail of her fingertips and I can tell how much my gaze turns her on by the rosy flush it triggers in its wake. Her nipples peak and sway gently, as she bends, hooking her thumbs into her sweats and pulling them down. There’s something indescribably sexy about how her hips rock from side to side as she lifts each leg to step out of them.
“Honestly?” I ask.
“I always want your honesty.”
“The first time your lips touched mine, I wanted nothing more than to surrender myself entirely to you.”
“Interesting choice of words, Zo. There’s something about the idea of having my most fierce protector surrender to me that makes my heart pound and pussy clench.”
“Holy fuck,” I grind out, balling my fists, ridiculously aroused at the thought of being controlled by someone I love and trust so implicitly.
I feel like I’ve slipped into a lucid dream, where every fantasy I’ve ever had about her has been conjured before me. From the delicate flare of her hip where she stands with one hand on her cocked hip, to the heave of her breasts every inch of her is perfection. I smile when I notice she’s lost in thought while her eyes rove along the planes of my chest.
I’m still fit and obviously toned, but I lost some of my muscle mass in the last eight weeks, and until my shoulder is healed, it’ll be a while before I’m fighting fit. That doesn’t seem to be altering Aurora’s opinion of me if the way she’s devouring me with her eyes is anything to go by.
I fucking love that inspecting what’s ‘hers’ pleases her. Fuck, why is that thought so hot?
“You’re wearing too many clothes, mio re,” she says and I nod a little too eagerly. “Are you more comfortable sitting, or lying down?”
I cock my head to the side as I think about it. “Er, lying down, I guess.”
“Lie down,” she commands. I shuffle myself back down and start to move my hand to my waistband, ready to shuck down my sweats. “Uh-uh-uh,” she interrupts, gripping my wrist. “Don’t spoil my fun. I want to unwrap my present.”
I can’t stifle the sound that leaves me. Half moan, half whimper.
Aurora fucking Bianchi is stripping me naked.
It’s becoming harder and harder to hold myself back with every brush of her body against mine as she moves. The way her hair rakes across my chest. How her breath dances across my thighs as she leans over and drags my sweats down.
“How obedient can you be, Enzo? You’re a master of denying yourself everything, but can you obey me and not touch me?”
“I can try.” My voice trembles, revealing how hard it will be to keep my hands off her.
As she reaches my ankles, she hooks her fingers in my socks, pulling them off too, leaving me completely naked. Kneeling at my feet, she takes her time, her eyes roving over my body, as if she’s inspecting her prize, and it sends a flurry of nervous energy barrelling through me. I swallow hard, trying to dampen my nerves. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted and I’m terrified that I’m not the man I was before.
“We’re going to have to find a way to switch that brain of yours off, Enzo,” she murmurs, obviously noticing the moment my mood shifts.
She slowly wraps her hand around my throat. A sense of contentment settles in my chest as her fingers gently press against my neck. I lift my chin and arch into her touch.
“You like that, don’t you? Look how eager your body is to submit to me when you stop letting your head get in the way of our pleasure, mio re. ”
I’m nodding again because my ability to speak has vanished. Along with all my worries. I stare into the deep green eyes holding me captive and giving me my first sense of peace for longer than I can remember. When she looks at me like this, I have no other responsibilities other than to obey. No problems to solve, no one to protect, no burden to carry. There’s no sacrifice to make other than that of my body to hers.
I can see all manner of emotions burning within her. Her hips are swaying, wiggling like she can’t hold herself back much longer. As if she’s about to pounce.
And she does.
Our tongues clash as our bodies meld into each other. The sensation of having her pressed against me short-circuits my brain and I’m nothing but feral grunts and desperate need.
“Please, mia guerrierotta, please let me touch you. I need to hold you. I need to know this is real,” I beg, my voice frantic. “I dreamed of coming home to you every minute I was away. It’s the only thing that kept me going.”
Aurora’s eyes flare and I see her acknowledgement of everything I’ve been through, how our pain and our scars mirror each others, but there is also a look of understanding and I know that she will give me everything I need. She will take my pain and reward me with pleasure.
“Such a good fucking boy, asking me for permission,” she says, a sultry smile dancing across her features as she sits back on her haunches and snakes her hips against mine.
I moan and flex against the grip she still has on my throat. Restrained by only her will. If I wanted to, I could move my hands, but there’s an exquisite pleasure found in her denial.
She brings her lips to the shell of my ear. “I want your tongue on my clit and your fingers fucking me, while I hold on to the headboard and ride your face.”
“Fuck, yes. Ti prego, lasciati divorare, Don Bianchi.”