Sinful Legacy

My apartment is too quiet tonight. The kind of hush where every sound is thrown into sharp relief - the tap I never fixed still drips with a stubbornness I somehow admire, the elevator far down the hall sighs like something disappointed, and every empty space echoes with the ghost of his voice.

Luca.

I tell people I met him a week ago. That's not true. I saw him a week ago. "Met" sounds almost polite, sanitized by time, as if there were mutual introductions, perhaps a handshake. What happened was a collision. Messy. Off script. I don't like rehearsed stories anyway.

It was a gallery opening - the kind I usually sidestep. Too many sharp elbows, sharper looks. People studying the art with practiced squints for three seconds max, then turning to dissect the living for hours, running invisible calculators across painted faces, tallying net worth and secrets. I was only there for Chloe, my friend. Her photographs made her nervous, so I played dress-up in a little black dress that pinched at the ribs and called it loyalty.

And then something shifted.

Not a sound. More like the air tugged sideways - an almost-physical change, like the hush before thunder finds the city. Conversations dipped. Heads turned with studied carelessness. That's when I saw him: near a brutalist marble sculpture, holding a glass of something clear but untouched, looking directly at me as if everyone else were a smudge on the page.

Luca Conti. Even before Chloe breathed his name into my hair, I knew. That body's not shaped by a corporate gym's air conditioning or generic playlists. His strength had the kind of tension that can only be forged by holding the world at arm's length - violence buried by elegance, a lifetime of self-defense dressed up in custom tailoring. He was tall, broad in the shoulders with a kind of narrowness about the hips that didn't invite comfort. 

Pantherish, yes, but not a caged one - a predator in a five-thousand-dollar suit, and the suit barely keeping a secret. His hair was dark, almost insubordinate, sweeping back from a brow that looked born furrowed. His jaw looked carved for biting - maybe I'd dreamed of testing it. His eyes… God, those eyes. The color of cognac poured over years and years, still and impossible to guess. They stayed absolutely quiet, and the quiet was what terrified me most. Or maybe… what hooked me.

He didn't smile. There wasn't even a courtesy flicker. He just absorbed me - with this kind of measured hunger, the kind that makes you want to look away and dare him in the same breath. I felt his eyes running - no, crawling - over my bare shoulders, finding the dip of my spine. Heat pooled, sudden and electric, low behind my navel. I broke the stare first, heart a caged thing, wings battering my ribs.

"That's him," Chloe whispered, nails digging crescents into my arm, "The Conti heir. They say his family owns the city - the hidden parts, anyway."

A mafia prince. As if that wasn't the oldest, cheapest fantasy in the book. Dangerous, patently foolish to want, so naturally impossible to ignore. I took too much champagne in one panicked gulp, the bubbles burning my nose. Don't look back. For the love of God don't.

I looked back.

He'd moved, now propped against a wall just feet away. His scent reached me first - sandalwood, a trace of cold night, something expensive and almost medicinally clean. It cut through the gallery's perfume and nervy sweat.

His voice was velvet covered in gravel - lower than I expected, thick with intention. "That one," he said, jerking his chin at one of Chloe's photos: hands, almost touching, not quite brushing. "Best in show. All the tension. The almost."

He still didn't look at the photo. He watched the air between us, as if measuring how quickly he could close it.

Suddenly I had no words, witty or otherwise. "The almost is the point," I managed - my voice a faulty, breathless thing.

A ghost of a smile, more like muscle memory than warmth. "Isn't it just." Now his eyes pinned me, full and unswerving. "And you are?"

"A friend of the artist."

"Lucky artist." He peeled away from the wall, his presence radiating heat that pricked at my skin. He didn't touch me. Just occupied my space. For one lunatic moment, when his hand went inside his jacket, I thought: weapon. But it was only a business card, matte black, no name, just a number silvered onto it like a secret code.

"I don't like crowds." He dropped his voice, pitched it for me alone. Our fingers brushed as he handed me the card. A spike of electricity made me dizzy. "If you'd rather, I prefer… quieter conversation."

He vanished - just melted into the crowd, leaving his scent and that weighted rectangle pressed into my palm. My ears roared as the gallery's noise rushed back in.

I didn't call, not for three days.

I kept the card where I could see it, where I could pretend I'd forgotten about it but never really had. On the kitchen counter, propped against the pepper grinder. On my desk. In a drawer. Back out again. Forbidden thing. I wrote, glancing at it. I tried to sleep, haunted by those eyes.

On night three, after a single glass of wine - just enough to loosen something - I picked up my phone. Typed, deleted, typed again until the words found me.

The almost is killing me.

I hit send before I lost my nerve. Almost instantly he replied - not a text, but a call. His number set the screen aglow.

I hovered. My thumb trembled, breathing in, and then I answered.

"Hello." His voice, even deeper, dragged right through the bone.

"Hi." Stunning. Pulitzer-winning repartee.

"I wondered how long you'd make me wait." There was a hint of an accent - Italian, maybe, not thick, but smoothed out by expensive British schooling.

"I was… weighing the danger."

"And?"

"I think it's worth it."

A laugh, low and wicked. "Good. Are you home?"

"Yes."

"What are you wearing?" He didn't bother with pretext. The nakedness of it alone took my breath.

"My…my robe. Silk. Blue."

"Is it tied?"

My hand found the knot, self-conscious and thrilled all at once. "Yes."

"Untie it."

I was in the center of my living room, trembling - obeying a voice I'd only just met, a man whose hands might never be clean. My fingers fumbled at the knot. The fabric dropped away. The air hit my skin and my nipples pebbled, gooseflesh rising. Naked. Underneath, nothing.

"It's untied," I whispered.

"I know." I could practically feel him - his will stretching between city blocks, wrapping around me. "Now, tell me what you're thinking."

I shut my eyes. "Your hands. I'm thinking about your hands. The way you held your glass. Wondering… how they'd feel on my hips. My throat."

His breath caught, sharp and unscripted. "Keep talking."

So I did. I confessed everything. My midnight fantasies, the kinds I'd never share with friends, slid out like secrets I'd rehearsed for only him. How I pictured his mouth, rough and unrelenting. Whether his touch would be cruel or savoring. I was already aching, hand skimming my stomach, just shy of letting myself go too far. My own voice - strange, needy.

When I finally gasped, his voice was a growl, ragged. "Tomorrow. Nine PM. I'll send a car. Be ready."

He hung up.

I slid to the floor, body buzzing, heart battered and loud. What the hell was I doing?

The car arrived at nine sharp. A black sedan - silent, pristine. The driver: large, soft-faced, but with a coiled stillness that said, Don't test me. He nodded, wordless, opened the door. I'd spent hours preparing: blood-red dress, nothing underneath, shoes that made my legs look endless and made me feel both powerful and breakable.

We didn't drive to some penthouse cliché. We left the city, iron gates parting for us, winding down a long gravel avenue to a house - modern, brutal, glass and steel perched over water. Gorgeous, empty of neighbors. Unapologetically expensive. Almost lonely.

The driver led. The door swung open by itself.

He waited. Not in a suit, but in jeans and a black sweater so soft it was probably cashmere. Barefoot. Younger somehow, but more dangerous, which in itself seemed unfair.

"Leave us, Marco." His eyes never left me. The driver vanished.

Luca stepped backward, letting me enter. The door clicked behind me with a final, echoing certainty. The house was all white stone and black lines, but it wasn't cold. A fire snapped in a mammoth fireplace. A book face-down on the couch. A half-finished whiskey at the mantle.

"You came," he said.

"You knew I would."

He smiled then, real, and it carved a warmth into the room I recognized as rare. "I hoped."

He didn't reach for me yet. Just stood, watching, as though time itself had hit pause, and he had all night to decide. That gallery stare, minus the rush.

"This would be where you offer me a drink," I managed, steady somehow. "For nerves."

"I don't want you calm," he said, closing space until only intention separated us. His scent - familiar now - wrapped around me, heady as any opiate. "I want you right here. On edge. Every breath sharp. Every inch between us counted."

He stepped in, and I made myself stay, heart hammering against the threat and the invitation.

"Why me?" The words slipped out, unpolished.

He reached up, not grabbing but brushing knuckles down my cheek, so lightly I might have dreamed it. The touch shocked me. My eyelids fell. "Because when you look at me, you see a man. Not a legacy, not money, not threat. It's almost… an insult." He smiled softly at his own joke. "You're curious about me. And I can't remember the last time I was curious about anything."

His hand coiled around my neck, not tight, but enough. He pulled me close, not for a kiss, but a forehead against forehead - intimate, almost unbearable.

"I'm going to kiss you," he murmured, hot against my mouth, "and then I'm going to take you to bed and ruin you for anyone else."

It wasn't a threat, just gravity.

"Okay," I breathed.

He kissed me then. Not gently. Like he meant it to steal something from me - the taste of whiskey, the threat of mint. His tongue demanded, and I gave, clutching at his sweater, drawing him down until his chest pressed hard against mine. His kiss was hunger dressed as formality, and I was perfectly happy to be devoured.

He broke it off. We both gasped. His eyes - black with wanting now. Wordlessly, he scooped me up. I yelled, instinctively, clinging. My face pressed into his throat - sandalwood, skin, his. He carried me through shadowy halls to a bedroom done in all low light and deep promise.

He laid me on the bed, following me down, resting his weight so I could feel the outline of every muscle, every intention. His arms braced my face like I might vanish.

"What do you want?" he asked, rough-voiced.

"You. Only you."

He made a sound - a growl, almost - before sliding his hands down, finding my dress zipper, drawing it down slow, so indecently loud in the hush that I nearly laughed. He peeled the dress and let it fall, his eyes eating me alive. The cool air hit my skin. His gaze was a hand, heating me everywhere.

"Christ, you're perfect," he whispered, half-devout.

He lowered his head to my breast - hot tongue, clever mouth, teeth just sharp enough. I arched, my fingers in his hair, pulling. He lavished both breasts, hands kneading what he'd kissed, attention turning worship almost criminal, and I tangled under him, every inch alive.

His mouth slid down my ribs, kissing, biting. Fingers hooked into thong and stockings, stripping me in a single, practiced move. Clothes scattered. Nothing to hide, nothing left but bare skin and the hush between heartbeats.

He knelt between my thighs, just looking. His eyes pinned me more than hands ever could. I couldn't look away. Every flaw, every secret. He saw it and didn't flinch.

"So open," he said, tracing his finger up my thigh. I shuddered. "So ready."

He didn't wait. His mouth found me - slow, attentive, thorough. Not just eating, learning. He mapped me, tongue and lips, as if he'd never had a map that mattered before. I sobbed, hips rolling, wanting more, and he anchored me with a palm on my stomach: you're not going anywhere. He pressed fingers inside, curling just right. I was nothing but sound and want and shuddering heat.

"Luca, please - " barely words.

He growled, mouth moved harder. "Come for me." His voice, pitched low, undid me.

I broke apart, pulse a staccato mess, body arching. He kept going, wringing every last helpless tremor, and only when I slumped boneless did he move, sliding up, kissing my skin, my mouth, letting me taste how raw everything was.

He was still dressed - the contrast, wool rough on new skin. "My turn," I breathed, hand pulling at his sweater.

He grinned, but dark. Sat back, stripped sweater, jeans, everything. Naked, just for a moment, and I stared. A living sculpture - muscle, hair, hardness. His cock - thick, perfect.

He grabbed a condom, eyes fixed on mine. Rolled it on. Settled over me, so I was trapped, safe, both.

"Look at me," he's soft, commanding.

I did. I never looked away as he pushed inside - slow, slow, but relentless. I was still shaking, so sensitive it ached, and he filled me, forced me to feel every stretch, every line. He stopped, forehead on mine, shivering.

"Dio. You feel… like home."

His voice cracked something in me. I wrapped my legs around him, urging him. "Move, Luca. Please."

He obeyed. Slow at first, impossibly deep, each thrust spelling out vows I didn't believe in and desperately wanted anyway. Skin against skin, sweat and moans and a rhythm that felt ancient. I clawed his back. He didn't care. Kissed me, eating sound, stealing air.

A new orgasm built, huge and terrifying - intimacy layered under heat and need.

"I'm yours," I whispered, no idea where the words came from.

His pace jumped, harsher, wild. "Again."

"I'm yours."

He cried out, thrust, came hard, me locked around him, all edges gone. We shook together, him collapsing on me, weight pinning me safe.

We lay like that, tangled, heartbeat above heartbeat, time unspooling. When he rolled off, he held on tight, fingers tracing patterns on my shoulder.

We didn't talk. The fire muttered, wind bullied the glass. His breath deepened, sleep claiming him, arm heavy over my ribs. I stayed awake a long time - listening, breathing him in.

No fairy tale. I know what this is. His world's all shadow and violence, a legacy he wears like a bruise. This is reckless. Maybe idiotic. But I can't quite make myself care.