Chapter 2

POV: Alisha

Cristiano’s fingers tightened on my hip, pulling me so close that my breasts flattened against his hard, soaked chest.

His large hands slid down the curve of my waist, warm and heavy through the silk of my robe. Every doubt I had carried for three years turned to dust. He was not looking at me with pity. He was looking at me like a drowning man who had finally reached the shore.

"Cristiano..." My voice broke into a soft, trembling whisper. "You can't say things like that to me."

"I mean every word," he growled against my lips.

Before I could find the strength to push him back, his mouth claimed mine.

The kiss was not gentle. It was rough, hungry, and heavy with years of silence. He tasted like rain, cedarwood, and pure, burning heat. A low groan tore from deep inside his chest as his fingers tangled in my thick curls, tilting my head back to drink me in completely.

My knees gave out right there.

Cristiano caught me effortlessly. He hooked his strong arms under my thighs, lifting my full body against his frame, and took two heavy steps toward the velvet sofa.

We sank onto the cushions together. The sheer weight of his muscular body pressed me deep into the fabric, pinning me beneath him.

I looked up at him, my chest heaving, my lips swollen and wet. His shirt was unbuttoned down the center, revealing the glistening, sculpted planes of his chest in the dim light.

"Look at you," he whispered, his dark eyes trailing over the dip of my collarbone down to the soft swell of my breasts. "You have no idea what you do to me, do you?"

"I thought I was invisible to you," I confessed, my eyes stinging with tears of pure relief and old hurt. "Every time you came over to see your sister, you barely looked at me. You acted like I was just background noise."

"Because if I looked at you for one second longer, I would have lost my mind," Cristiano said, leaning down to press a searing kiss right into the hollow of my throat. "I had to force myself to walk out the door every single time just to keep my hands off you."

A violent shudder ran through my entire body. My hands rose, my fingers digging into the hard, bunched muscles of his shoulders.

He trailed his lips up the side of my neck, kissing the sensitive spot beneath my ear with an aching tenderness that made my heart squeeze tight.

"I need you to know the truth about Catalina," he murmured, resting his forehead against mine as our breaths tangled together. "I need you to hear it all from me."

I swallowed the ache in my throat, looking straight into the dark depths of his eyes. "Tell me."

"My mother invited her to our village house last month," he said, his voice raw with bitter self-hatred. "She locked the front gates. She cried on her knees. She screamed that my money had made me arrogant, that I was forgetting my family, and that I owed our people a legacy."

"And you gave in?" I asked softly, understanding the crushing weight of traditional family guilt.

"I stayed in that room with Catalina for one night," Cristiano confessed, his jaw clenching hard enough to crack. "I tried to force myself to feel something just to make the screaming stop. But there was no spark, Alisha. There was no connection. It was cold, and I hated myself for giving my mother that win. I walked out before the sun came up, and I haven't looked at Catalina since."

He brought his large, calloused hand up, his thumb gently stroking the curve of my bottom lip.

"I didn't touch her because I wanted her," he whispered, his eyes filled with raw vulnerability. "I did it because I was weak against my mother's guilt. But being here with you... touching your skin... it's the only time my soul has ever felt at peace."

"Cristiano..."

"You are the only woman who makes my heart beat like this," he said, his voice dropping into a thick, possessive rasp. "Your softness. Your gorgeous, full body. The way your eyes see right through the fame and see me. I am done living a lie for my mother."

His hands slid beneath the edge of my silk robe, his warm palms settling flat against the bare skin of my waist.

The heat of his rough hands on my soft curves made my hips arch off the sofa toward him on pure instinct. Cristiano let out a ragged gasp, his mouth finding mine again in a desperate, bruising kiss that stole every bit of air from my lungs.

His hands didn't rush. He worshiped the soft fullness of my stomach, the heavy flare of my hips, and the sensitive dip of my waist with slow, deliberate reverence. He held me like I was made of gold, like my plush body was the only thing on earth worth having.

"You're perfection, Alisha," he breathed against my skin, his chest heaving hard against mine. "Every single curve of you belongs in my hands."

My heart hammered so fast it felt like it would tear through my ribs. The intoxicating heat between us consumed every ounce of fear, logic, and self-doubt I had carried for years. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling his heavy, powerful frame down completely over mine.

He buried his face in the crook of my neck, kissing my skin with a wild devotion that told me there was no turning back.

In that quiet living room, beneath the man I had loved in secret for three agonizing years, the outside world ceased to exist. There were no cameras. There was no village contract. There was only Cristiano, breathing his raw passion into my skin.

He propped himself up on his strong forearms, looking down at me with an intensity that pinned me to the sofa.

His dark eyes were dead serious. He slid one large hand down from my waist, pressing his warm palm flat against my lower belly.

"I will never let my mother force another woman into my life," he whispered, his voice shaking with fierce need. "Have a baby with me, Alisha. Help me stop my mother."