Chapter 5 - Marked by the Beast
The master bedroom smelled of antiseptic, copper, and rain.
Laura sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, her hands steady now as she cleaned the deep graze along Arturo’s muscular shoulder with iodine. Arturo sat stripped to the waist, a landscape of old scars carved across his olive skin—a knife wound across his ribs, two bullet scars on his lower abdomen, and a massive tattoo of the D’Angelo crest sprawled across his back.
He didn't flinch as she wiped the stinging antiseptic over the open flesh. His eyes never left her face.
“You’re good with your hands,” he remarked, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room.
“My mother was a nurse before she passed,” Laura answered softly, applying sterile gauze and securing it with medical tape. “I used to help her wrap Toby’s sprains when we were kids. You have a lot of scars, Arturo.”
“Every scar has a name,” he replied, looking down at his scarred knuckles. “Every scar is a reminder of someone who thought they could take what belongs to me and failed.”
Laura finished taping the bandage, but she didn't pull her hands away immediately. Her fingertips lingered on his warm, taut skin, tracing the edge of the dark ink on his collarbone. Arturo caught her wrist. His grip wasn't harsh, but it was unyielding, holding her hand against his racing heart.
“You aren't afraid of me tonight,” he stated, his thumb lightly stroking the sensitive inside of her wrist.
“I was terrified,” she admitted honestly, meeting his piercing gaze. “I’m still terrified. But not of you.”
Arturo’s jaw clenched. He pulled her forward until she was kneeling between his thighs on the edge of the mattress. The proximity was intoxicating, dizzying. “You should be afraid of me, Laura. I am not a good man. I don't build things; I break them. I rule a world that would chew you up and spit your bones onto the pavement.”
“Then why did you put yourself between me and those bullets?” she countered, her voice barely a whisper, her lips inches from his. “Why did you run up three flights of stairs to lock me in your closet instead of coordinating your men from the security room?”
Arturo stared at her, his dark eyes burning with an intensity that made the room feel dangerously small. He reached up, his large, rough hand sliding into the hair at the nape of her neck, tilting her head back.
“Because if anything happened to you,” he whispered, his voice thick with raw, unfiltered emotion, “I would burn this entire city to the ground. And I wouldn't stop until there was nothing left to bleed.”
May you like
Before she could process the weight of his confession, his lips crashed down onto hers.
It was not a gentle kiss; it was hungry, demanding, and born of adrenaline and long-suppressed desire. Laura gasped against his mouth, her hands gripping his bare shoulders as the world spun around them. The kiss tasted of copper and wild possessiveness, and for the first time in her life, Laura didn't want to run away. She melted into him, opening her mouth to his, matching his fierce hunger with a desperate need of her own that had been building since the moment he caught her dancing in her bedroom.
