Page 39 of Brutal Vows

I smirk and crack my neck before taking an ominous step toward her.

“If I’m going to make you pay for it anyway, don’t you want to make it hurt as much as possible?” I challenge.

Her expression blanks, and for a moment, I worry I went too far again, but she meets my stare with a challenge of her own and drops her gloves to the floor.

“Good girl. You gonna come get me, or do I need to chase you a bit first?”

“Don’t blame me later if you can’t handle it,” she snarls.

“Oh, don’t worry,gattina. I will,” I promise.

She darts toward me with surprising speed and pulls her right arm back.

I lift my forearm to block her, but she shifts her balance and jams her knee into my thigh.

Fuck. Maybe I underestimated her. I assumedmia gattinawould play by the rules, but I should’ve realized she’s smarter than that.

Even as the minutes morph into an hour and beyond, she keeps her secrets close to her chest. One moment, she hits with the force of a full-grown man and shuffles backward as though in a boxing ring. The next moment, she pulls out some fancy footwork and dodges my every attempt to snatch her up, and when that doesn’t work and I rush toward her, she jabs me with knees and elbows in the most painful parts of the body. I avoid several debilitating blows to the groin by sheer desperation. When I finally pin her to the ground, she becomes a contortionist and somehow slips out from under me and almost locks me in an arm bar before I flip us over and squish her under my full weight. All the air whooshes from her lungs and she wheezes as she inhales.

“Feel better,mia gattina?” I ask.

Unapologetically winded, I heave and scramble to keep her under me as she wriggles and tests my balance. Her craftiness, unlike Julieta’s selfish conniving, is a breath of fresh air to my soul, and with the scent of her sweat and musk mingling within mine, my cock—which softened out of instinctual fear—throbs thicker with every heartbeat.

“Yeah, I do, but I’ll feel a lot better if you get off me,” she wheezes.

At least in this way, I fully understand her. The fortitude to never back down and the need to extol violence to shed stress resonate within every cell of my body.

Lighter than I’ve felt in months—fuck it, years—I rise and jump out of the way when she sweeps her foot toward me. She would’ve sprawled a lesser man on the floor again. I chuckle and hook my thumbs into my waistband as I saunter toward the bathroom.

“I’m done. Unless you’d like to continue this in the shower?” I suggest.

She rolls onto her back and lolls her head from side to side on the floor in answer, but a small smile pulls at her lips right before the wall blocks my view.

“Maybe next time,” she mumbles under her breath.

I back track and meet her eyes. The unfettered glint shining from her brilliant green orbs fills me with pride and yearning. To my surprise, she lifts three fingers—like what the fucking Boy Scouts do when they’re making a pledge—and smirks at me.

I nearly fall to my knees and crawl to her. She’s too perfect—too sassy—even as she throws my own words back at me.

I said nothing I didn’t mean.

Holy fuck, I might jizz in my pants. I hurry down the hall and shut the bathroom door between us before I embarrass myself worse than her stepsister ever could.

I shuck out of my pants and step into the shower as I turn the dial. Ice-cold water pelts me.

My cock doesn’t care. I brace my forearm on the wall and do something I haven’t done since puberty hit. To visions ofmia gattinawrithing and flushed underneath me, I stroke myself to completion and watch in breathless frustration as my cum drips down the tiles and swirls into the drain.

The next time I orgasm will be with my cock buried balls deep insidemia gattina.

Maybe I should drag her to the courthouse tonight. She’s mine, whether or not she wants to be, and I can’t wait to give her my last name.

Because fuck if I’m ever letting her go. The Giordanos don’t deserve her. She may love her twin, but Livia can’t have her anymore, not when she’s treated her with such disdain for so long. No one worth loving would put their family through that much emotional and mental torture.

I’ll give her everything. My name. My protection. My comfort.

Fuck, I’ll even give her my family. Not just the one I hope to build in the future, but the one I already have.

As soon as I marry her, the Russo family will earn another member.

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