Vittorio gave no verbal reply.
He took her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. A gesture worth more than any speech.
He turned toward Andrea, who watched them with an expression somewhere between disbelief and resignation, like a man who has just unburdened himself only to feel heavier than before.
"Well, Andrea... we are leaving," Vittorio said, with the lightness of someone departing a party that has grown tedious. "Group therapy is over."
Andrea made a move to speak, perhaps to hold them a little longer in his vortex of frustration, but Vittorio stopped him with a final observation. Not advice. An aesthetic judgment.
"And for the record," he added, a cold smile barely rippling his lips, "this imitator of yours is... disappointing. He lacks style. He is just a small man with large, vulgar resentments."
He squeezed Elena's hand, as if to underscore the difference between them and that mediocrity.
"Don't look for an evil genius. Look for a mediocrity making noise because he doesn't know how to do anything else. It is an insult to good taste, more than to the law."
Andrea remained open-mouthed, his words of protest dying in his throat.
Vittorio had already turned away.
Wasted breath.
He guided Elena out of the apartment, leaving the detective and his useless questions behind.
Luca stood motionless watching them leave, his blue eyes glossy with something that looked like pain.
But neither of them looked back.
He climbed into the driver's seat. He closed the door, sealing the world out.
Control, Vittorio. Control.
Delusional.
He didn't even have time to put his hands on the steering wheel.
Elena had already moved. She leaned toward him, ignoring the obstacle of the center console, invading his entire space.
Vittorio felt her sudden weight against his side. Warm. Solid.
No symphonies. Just the rustle of clothes and a low moan that filled the silence of the cabin better than any music.
Discipline.
Her fingers went straight for his zipper. It wasn't a courtship. It was an explicit demand.
He waited for that moment with a patience that was almost divine.
Almost.
Because inside, beneath the mask of ice he had worn for years, he was catching fire.
A hunger that had nothing divine about it. He wanted to grab the nape of her neck, push her down, dictate the rhythm. He wanted to skip the preliminaries and take what he wanted.
But he didn't.
Because yielding to haste meant admitting she had him in her grip. That her touch reduced him to pure instinct.
And Vittorio never admitted to being controlled.
Not even when he completely was.
"Gently," he murmured, clinging to a control he didn't possess.
His voice was a low, hoarse growl. No pleasantries.
His hands slid over her back with calculated slowness, gripping her, holding her steady. Or perhaps he was just hanging on.
"Don't rush," he told her, his breath hot on her skin. "Enjoy the anticipation."
Liar.
The voice in his head was ruthless.
Ravage me.
But the voice stayed inside. On the outside, Vittorio remained motionless. Statuesque.
The sound of the zipper descending was a metallic crash in the silence. An obscene, intimate sound.
Elena arched her back to make room.
When the fabric parted, the cool air hit Vittorio's skin. A second later, the heat of her breath arrived.
His breath hitched in his throat.
He could feel the curve of her back under his palms, the promise of those fingers descending...
Faster. Please.
His body screamed. The muscles of his thighs tensed against the seat.
Vittorio had to clench his jaw not to groan. He searched for his breath, searched for his voice, clinging to the last remnants of his authority.
"You have a lot of confidence in yourself," he managed to say. His voice didn't shake, but it was darker, deeper than usual. There was no trace of philosophy, only pure tension.
He watched her fingers go lower still.
"...convince me."
He was lying. Lying to her, lying to himself.
He was desperately trying to say something intelligent, something that would put him back in a position of advantage, but it sounded utterly ridiculous.
His mind said: control, patience, discipline.
His cock screamed: now, immediately, everything.
Vittorio chose to listen to his mind.
Delusional.
Not because he actually believed it.
Exactly. Delusional.
But because he knew that losing control in front of her, giving in to that animal haste, meant handing her the knife handle-first.
And he never surrendered power.
Not even while every fiber of him begged to surrender.
Elena laughed.
A low sound that vibrated against his stomach.
Talk all you want. Hide behind your words.
She wasted no time. Her answer was tactile. Immediate.
Her hand, agile and ruthless, slipped past the last obstacle of fabric. She found the scorching skin. She wrapped around him with a firm grip that cut the breath from both of them.
The contrast between the cold of her rings and his heat was an electric shock.
Her thumb caressed the tip of his arousal.
Elena felt the violent jolt under her palm.
There is your control.
"You are trembling..."
She spoke only to interrupt his pleasure.
Sadist.
She slid lower in the cramped seat. Her hair brushed the waistband of his trousers.
She looked up. Locked her eyes onto his.
They shone with a challenge that admitted no replies. Her pupils were so dilated with hunger they had swallowed the blue into black.
"Shut up, Vittorio," she whispered, her lips a breath away from his exposed skin. "And let me teach you the difference between tasting... and devouring."
Without breaking eye contact, she opened her mouth and descended on him.
She swallowed his composure in a single fluid, hot movement.
Mine.
Vittorio's groan died in his throat.
No rules. No order. Just the raw sound of a dam breaking.
"Yes..." he tried to say. His voice cracked in half.
His mind floundered, trying not to surrender. Looking for a phrase. Something.
Say something intelligent, controlled. Re-establish dominance.
But the words didn't come.
The void.
For the first time in his life, Vittorio had nothing to say.
Vittorio's fingers dug into her hips. Then they slid into her hair, gripping at the roots.
Not to guide her.
To anchor himself.
I am falling.
Elena felt the desperate grip.
Good.
She picked up the rhythm. No strategies. Just friction, heat, wetness. The leather seat creaked under the violence of their movements.
Vittorio opened his mouth. Tried to form a sentence. Any sentence.
Tell her to stop. Tell her to slow down.
Only a broken moan came out.
Pathetic. You are pathetic, Vittorio.
Elena felt his body stiffen. She felt his hands tighten in her hair with a force that bordered on pain.
Hurt me.
That brutal grip was better than a caress. It was tangible proof that logic had abandoned the interior.
Squeeze. I want the beast.
She smiled around him.
Elena moved her body with deliberate slowness, then with sudden acceleration. Every movement was a pickaxe strike against the wall of his composure.
His hands yanked her head back. A firm, brutal hold.
The mind ordered Enough.
The body screamed Don't stop.
His eyes closed. Logic dissolved into the dark.
Control... gone.
Elena didn't slow down. That painful grip on her hair was like gasoline.
She tilted her head. She abandoned herself to that violence, aroused by the fact that he needed to use physical strength because he had lost the mental kind.
Yes. Lose yourself.
She felt his hips snap upward. An involuntary, animal movement. He was seeking maximum depth. Oblivion.
Right on the edge of the precipice, Elena slowed.
A fraction of a second. A calculated, delicious cruelty. She did it to deny him immediate relief, to keep him hanging by a thread, to make him feel that pleasure was a gift she could grant or deny.
Vittorio's eyes flew open. Blind.
No. No, no, fuck. Don't stop.
She barely lifted her gaze without breaking contact. Her eyes nailed to his.
Look at me.
Her lips clamped tighter around him.
Watch me as you break.
With one last movement, deep and ruthless, she dragged him over the edge.
Vittorio stiffened violently. A raw, stifled cry died in his throat.
Void.
He poured into her with powerful, rhythmic, devastating tremors.
Elena accepted everything. She swallowed every pulsation, every jolt. Her hands ran over his legs, feeling the muscles trembling beneath the tailored trousers.
Mine.
All mine.
She stayed there until the last echo of his pleasure had faded. Until Vittorio's breath returned to being a recognizable sound, albeit ragged.
Only then did she pull away slowly, lips slick and swollen, a thread of saliva connecting them for a moment longer before breaking.
She straightened up. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth with a gesture of feline sensuality. She looked at him.
Vittorio was slumped against the seat. Head thrown back, chest rising and falling heavily, hair plastered to his forehead.
Undone.
Magnificent.
"So, Vittorio..." Elena murmured, her voice husky and satisfied. Her eyes were laughing. "...did I convince you?"
Vittorio didn't answer. His lips slowly curved into a crooked, exhausted smile. A white flag waved with elegance.
Words were unnecessary.
She leaned toward him. She did up his zipper with slow gestures, accompanied by a proprietary smile.
"Now you can take me home. I have the impression you need to recover your strength."
Vittorio kept his eyes closed for a moment longer.
He inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly.
Elena saw the transformation happen in real time. His shoulders straightened imperceptibly. The muscles of his face smoothed out, erasing the traces of abandon. The fortress was raising its drawbridges again.
The mind, magnificently violated, was rebooting its security systems.
He opened his eyes.
The black of the pupil had retreated, making room for control once more, even if veiled with fatigue.
"Do not underestimate my resources," he murmured. His voice was raspy, scratched, but his gaze on her had returned to vigilance.
He stopped her hand at his wrist as she finished adjusting his clothes.
"But I accept the proposal."
A lopsided smile.
"Let's go home."
Elena didn't return to the passenger seat.
With a sigh, she let herself slide against him. Head in the crook of his shoulder, warm body pressed against his left side.
Vittorio didn't protest. He drove with one hand, the other remaining wrapped around her.
He maneuvered the Mercedes through traffic with absolute fluidity.
My gravity.
The only thing keeping me on the ground.
The car slipped away from the darkness of the industrial district.
In the rearview mirror, Vittorio caught one last image.
A solitary figure under a streetlamp. Luca.
Standing on the sidewalk, hands in pockets. His gaze lost in the void.
A ghost fading rapidly into the night.
Vittorio tightened his grip on Elena's shoulder.
Don't look.
She didn't turn around. She curled closer, as if she had sensed the shadow without needing to see it.
Vittorio didn't take the shortest route.
Instead, he curved toward the back roads. The longer ones. Darker.
He was in no hurry.
Not when she was like this, curled against him, warm and soft. The weight of her body anchored him to reality better than any logic.
He wanted to prolong that moment.
Just a few minutes more.
He rested his chin on the top of Elena's head. He breathed in the scent of her hair.
The silence in the cabin was dense, broken only by the hum of the engine and their synchronized breathing. There was no need for words. Not after what had happened.
His hand caressed her bare arm. A slow, absentminded gesture.
Possessive.
He stopped at a red light.
He took advantage of the moment to kiss her temple.
"I didn't think it was possible," he murmured against her hair.
Elena didn't ask what.
"To shut everything off," he continued, voice low. "The noise. The logic. All switched off."
The light turned green.
He accelerated gently. But not toward home.
Not yet.
He did another lap of the neighborhood.
Only later, when he felt her breathing slow down, heavy, almost on the verge of sleep, did he finally steer the car toward home.
The Mercedes pulled up to the curb in front of the imposing building in Porta Venezia. The Art Nouveau façade rose elegantly in the dark, an oasis of stone and discretion.
Vittorio killed the engine. The silence that followed was charged with expectation.
He didn't move to open the door. He let the moment stretch a second longer.
He lifted her chin slightly with his index finger.
Their eyes met in the dark.
"Let's go," he said. Voice low.
He opened the door.
Elena made no move to loosen the embrace. On the contrary, when the cool night air entered the car, she clung even tighter. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck.
She seemed to be seeking warmth. Vulnerable.
Seemed to be.
But the tension in her muscles and the possessive grip of her fingers interlaced at the nape of his neck told another story.
Vittorio perceived that exquisite dichotomy, the innocence of the form and the ferocity of the substance, and a smile of pure indulgence curved his lips.
He didn't ask her to walk.
With an ease that betrayed his strength, he passed one arm under her legs and the other behind her back. He lifted her from the seat as if she had no weight.
He exited the car carrying her in his arms. An ancient gesture. Protective.
He closed the door with a bump of his hip.
It was then that he noticed it.
A black motorcycle, abandoned sideways on the sidewalk, almost in front of the main entrance. A mechanical intrusion into the perfect order of the street.
The engine was still ticking in the night silence, radiating waves of heat and the smell of burnt gasoline. The exhaust pipes were still smoking.
He raced.
While we were elsewhere, he was racing.
Vittorio barely tightened his grip on Elena but continued walking toward the entrance.
Elena remained there, suspended against his chest, eyes closed, lulled by the rhythm of his steps.
It was a tableau of absolute intimacy. Sacred in its exclusivity.
But when Vittorio climbed the few stone steps leading to the entrance, the rhythm of his pace halted abruptly.
Elena felt his heart skip a beat against her cheek.
She opened her eyes.
On the threshold, leaning against the dark wood of the heavy door, was Luca.
He had been there for some time. He had burned through the traffic lights of Milan to beat them.
He looked like a tormented ghost. Hands buried in his pockets, hair ruffled by the wind of the ride.
But it wasn't exhaustion dominating his face as he watched them, Vittorio standing, Elena in his arms like a dark bride.
The incredulity of someone facing a locked door for which they hold no key.
It was shock.