Forbidden Never Felt This Good

~ 21

0021

~ Aria ~

The words hung between us, heavy and suffocating, lighting every nerve ending in my body on fire with anticipation.

I could feel myself getting wet, my body answering the dark promise in his voice before my mind could even process it.

Yes. God, yes.

Then, his eyes changed.

"But I won't."

The words hit like ice water. "What?"

"I won't." He stepped back, putting physical space between us. He ran a hand through his hair, his broad chest rising and falling in sharp, frustrated breaths. "I'm not doing this. I don't want everything between us to be reduced to sex."

I blinked, dizzy from the sheer emotional whiplash. "You literally just said—"

"I know what I said! I meant every f*****g word, Cristo." His voice snapped, rough and raw, revealing the absolute war raging inside him. "And that is the problem, Aria. Every single time we are alone, every time the tension gets too high, we fall into the exact same pattern. I touch you, you touch me, and we burn each other down until neither of us can think straight. Then the smoke clears, and we go right back to pretending it didn't happen."

"Then talk," I demanded, stepping into his space, my voice sharper than I intended. "You just said you care. So talk to me. Tell me what's going on in that head of yours. What is holding you back?"

"It isn't that simple."

"It is exactly that simple! You are the one making it a war! Pushing me away, claiming me, retreating the second things get real—" Frustration boiled over, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What are you so afraid of, Luca?"

"There are things you don't know. Complications about my—"

A sharp, high-pitched beep shattered the silence.

We both froze.

Luca’s head snapped toward the security panel on the gray wall. A green light was flashing in rhythmic pulses.

In a heartbeat, it was like we weren’t just talking. He cleared the space between us, tapping the console with fast, practiced strokes.

"What is it?" I asked, my blood still humming from the unfinished fight.

"All-clear signal," he said, his tone flattened into cold, professional efficiency. "Threat neutralized. We can leave."

Just like that. From the edge of something raw and terrifying back to this.

I wanted to scream until the concrete walls cracked.

Instead, I bent down, grabbed my heels, and shoved my feet into them with brutal force. "Great. Let's go then."

"Aria..."

"No. Don't." I slammed my palm up between us. "You don't get to do this, almost tell me the truth, and then hide behind your job. Not this time."

A flash of genuine agony flickered through his gray eyes. "I am trying to keep you safe."

"The right thing would be honest communication. But apparently, that's too much to ask."

I brushed past him toward the reinforced door, my shoulder deliberately clipping his chest. He didn't flinch, nor did he try to grab me. He simply unlocked the heavy steel bolts in absolute silence, opening the door to let me through.

The walk back through the maintenance tunnels was thick with unspoken anger. We passed a half-dozen tactical team members, men from our estate who gave Luca solemn nods, wisely averting their eyes from the radiating anger radiating off the two of us.

When we stepped back into the main hotel lobby, the contrast was sickening. Everything looked disturbingly normal.

"Miss Santoro."

Antonio, another security detail, approached with quick, rigid strides.

"Is everyone accounted for?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am. The team contained the threat before they breached the perimeter. Three hostages in custody, local authorities are handling the cover story." Antonio kept his gaze level.

"Understood. What about Jean-Paul Mercier?"

"Secured and evacuated through the north exit fifteen minutes ago. He is already en route back to his residence under escort."

I remembered the look on Jean-Paul's face as he was escorted away, the eerie, calculating calm. "Good. Thank you, Antonio."

He nodded once and melted into the crowd, leaving Luca standing half a step behind my right shoulder like a ghost in a suit.

My phone vibrated in my coat pocket. I pulled it out, seeing my father's name flashing on the screen.

"Father," I said, stepping toward a quiet marble pillar.

"Mia figlia. Are you hurt?" His voice came through the speaker strained, stripped of its usual iron authority.

"I'm fine. Luca had me in the secure room before the perimeter was even breached. Your protocols held up."

"Thank God," he breathed, a rare, vulnerable exhale slipping through. "I shouldn't have sent you to Monaco today. There was chatter on the wire, whispers of movement, but I thought—"

"Father, stop," I cut in gently, but with firm absolute certainty. "You cannot lock me in a glass box every time someone makes a threat. You said you wanted me to lead this family. Was that real, or?"

A heavy pause echoed over the line. When he spoke again, a faint swell of pride edged out the panic. "Sei una leonessa, figlia mia."

"Luca did his job. I am fine." I took a steadying breath, making a sudden, firm decision. "But I need to tell you something."

Silence stretched over the line. I could hear him calculating, dissecting my tone. "What is that, Aria?"

"Not over the phone."

"Very well. I'll be waiting in my study…..I love you, mia figlia," he added, his voice thick with an emotion he almost never showed. "More than life itself."

The words stunned me into silence. I was frozen, I didn’t have words. Before I could process a response, the line went dead.

I lowered the phone, staring at the blank screen for a long second before turning back around. Luca was watching me, his eyes dark, and unreadable.

"We should go," he said softly.

"Yes."

The drive back to Provence was a special kind of hell.

Luca kept both hands locked onto the steering wheel at ten and two, his knuckles stark white against the leather.

His jaw was clamped so tight the muscle looked frozen. He didn't look at me once. Not when I shifted, not when the fabric of my suit rustled, not when I deliberately let my breath out in sharp, furious exhales.

He simply erased me.

It was infuriating.

Fuck men.

Fuck their emotional walls, f**k their stupid tactical restraint, and f**k their incredible ability to make a simple truth feel like an impossible puzzle.

"Are you going to ignore me for three hours?" I snapped, breaking the suffocating quiet.

"I am focusing on the road, Miss Santoro."

"Bullshit. You're punishing yourself because you accidentally acted like a human being back there."

His grip on the wheel tightened until I thought the cover would split. "That is not what I am doing."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how to stop myself from saying things that will get us both killed," he growled, his deep voice barely carrying over the hum of the engine. "Trying to stop wanting things I have no right to touch."

"What if I want you to take them anyway?"

"Then you aren't thinking about the consequences!"

"Or maybe you're too much of a coward to face them!" I spun in my seat, drawing my knees up to face him directly. "What are you actually afraid of, Luca? Give me the truth."

As usual, no response. He just kept driving, stone-faced and unreachable, holding the wheel like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

When the car finally rolled onto the long, gravel driveway of the Santoro estate, I didn't wait. The moment the tires halted, I popped the door and stepped out, my head held high and my heart in absolute ruins.

I didn't look back to see if he was following. I just marched straight toward the massive double doors of the house, my spine rigid, hiding the violent tempest inside me.

Back to the secret glances, the suffocating denial, the dangerous game of stepping up to the edge and pulling back.

Fuck men.

And f**k Luca Moretti in particular for ruining me for anyone else, while refusing to hold me himself.