Love,Written In Ruins-Chapter 28: Exquisite Torture

The contract lay between them like a loaded gun—black ink on cream vellum paper, her name already scrawled in his jagged script.

Eloise Winters. Fiancée.

Luciano leaned back in the leather chair as though he owned gravity itself. His shirt, which he must have changed into the moment he left her, hung open to the sternum, revealing tanned skin and the hard line of muscle beneath. His eyes—icy blue-gray were fixed on her—cold, depthless, hungry for something she couldn’t name.

"Sign it," he said, voice a purr sharpened to a blade. "Or I hand you to the police. Arson. Thirty years. And I will cry—oh, so beautifully—about how my poor little traumatized heart was betrayed by the woman I sheltered, after she burned down my estate, and how she tried to run from the scene like a startled criminal." He placed a hand dramatically against his chest, feigning injury. "Trauma, cariño. They eat that up in court."

Eloise’s pulse hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She wondered—just briefly—if murder was still legal if the victim was asking for it so desperately.

Jayla’s clothes were gone, replaced by one of his shirts. Too big. Too soft. Too much like him. She hated it. Hated how it brushed mid-thigh. Hated that it carried his scent— sweet citrus, spice, and cold dominance.

Worse: she hated the way it made her feel claimed.

​If only she had known Luciano had known all along she would try to run. That he had let her. Encouraged it, even, by leaving her with Jayla. All so he could have the thrill of chasing her... catching her... returning with his prey draped over his shoulder like victory, just for this precise, moment.

She would have tried to incinerate him with the simple glare she was giving him. Since no such high-powered, clean-energy glare-killing machine had been invented, she settled for the most focused, burning glare she could muster, sending him her hatred.

It didn’t help.

Her thoughts raced back to the moment they arrived at the mansion, the ridiculous theatricality of his ’trauma.’

After Luciano got out of the car, he opened her side, leaned down to adjust Jayla’s baseball cap and hoodie over her head like she was precious contraband he was smuggling in, then unbuckled the seat belt. He lifted her easily in bridal style, tucking her face firmly into the cool, silk of his shoulder.

She hadn’t understood why he was hiding her face when almost all his men knew it, but she stayed silent, the exhaustion of the failed escape weighing her down.

The moment they reached the foyer, Listo, was the first to welcome Luciano, wagging its tail with pure happiness. But the moment its sliver eyes traced to Eloise in Luciano’s arms, it gave her a look of utter disdain, as if deeply offended by her insolence in attempting to run away from its master.

Then came the maids. Luciano pressed her head back onto his shoulder and pulled the hoodie further over her face. The maids bowed low to greet them, some curious, hoping for a proper look at the fiancée Ian had informed them was the reason for their permanent, stay, but they couldn’t see her clearly.

One particularly curious maid searched intently, hoping to confirm what she had been ordered to confirm but could not discern her features clearly through the fabric.

Luciano’s instruction was chillingly clear: "As you all already know, our bedroom is off-limits." Eloise’s heart hammered. Our bedroom? She thought she had a week! Why was he accelerating the timeline?

He pressed her head back down and continued, "Also, my study room is off-limits. And none of you are to come upstairs until I descend myself. Am I clear?"

He wanted no one—no witness, no ear—to the transaction about to take place.

He didn’t wait for the chorus of assents. He turned to Listo. "Go and find Marcos to play with, boy."

Listo gave him a sad, protesting look, but Luciano was already climbing the marble stairs, carrying Eloise as if she weighed nothing, a piece of precious, easily transported cargo.

The moment they got to the vast master bedroom, he gently put her down. Eloise was quick to question his command to the maids. "What did you mean by our bedroom? I have a week until we share a room, you said."

Luciano gave her a look of wounded sincerity. "Oh, Eloise, I told you, I’m traumatized. I can no longer tolerate the distance. So yes we share the room now. But first, get out of those clothes and wear this." He walked to the closet and brought out a fresh stark white shirt—his shirt—and handed it to her. "I don’t like how you smell of another man’s cologne. I will be waiting for you in the study room. It’s just around the right corner of the corridor."

She stared, outraged, clutching the clean, oversized fabric.

But he’d already left for the study.

---

Now, in the present, the contract glared back at her.

Her hands trembled over the over the vellum. "I’m not your plaything," she spat, finding her spine even if her voice shook.

"No," Luciano said, rising from his chair, something dark and dangerous sliding into his smile. "You’re my fiancée."

He circled her slowly, like smoke snaking through cracks. His presence wrapped around her—warm, overwhelming, inescapable. "And fiancées obey."

His hand wrapped around her wrist, grip firm enough to anchor her to the moment, his thumb pressing insistently against her frantic pulse point. He yanked her forward until her hips hit the desk with a sharp thud, the vellum contract crumpling slightly beneath her palms.

​"Read clause seven," he murmured against her ear, his breath hot, smelling of mint and dark chocolate tobacco. "Out loud."

Her glare was poison. But her voice came out unsteady, barely a breath.

"The fiancée shall submit to the fiancé in all matters—body, breath, and bed—until death do us part.’

Her stomach flipped, the blood roaring in her ears, her shame absolute. "You’re sick," she whispered, twisting her wrist in a desperate attempt to pull free.

"Undoubtedly." His free hand slid under the hem of the shirt she was wearing, his calloused fingers tracing the delicate lace edge of her barely-there panties. "But I’m also practical. You burned my villa. You ran from me. You let another man near you and shared a private space that should have been ours. Think, cariño. What did you imagine I’d do?"

Eloise jerked back in a desperate attempt to escape—but he was too fast. He pinned both her wrists to the mahogany desk with one hand, the other shoving the silk shirt up to her waist. Cool air hit her bare skin, raising immediate goosebumps.

"​You got on that train and played Katseye’s ’My Way,’" he taunted, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of her throat. "Cute. But wrong, paloma. You don’t get a ’way’ that doesn’t lead back to me. You are mine." He bit her earlobe, a sharp, possessive pain. "Say you are not mine, and I will stop." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

She should. She had to.

God, she should.

But the word lodged in her throat like smoke, suffocating her. Her body was already arching, a traitorous submission to the dominant weight of his hands.

​His fingers slipped beneath the lace—slow, deliberate, and entirely accurate. He found her already slick, wet with panic and an unwanted, terrifying need she couldn’t control.

​A low, ragged growl rumbled in his chest. "Mierda. Soaked for the man you hate. You are truly my kind of monster, Paloma."

​"Shut up," she gasped, hips bucking into his hand in spite of herself, the need for release a sudden, shocking betrayal of her will.

He laughed—dark, filthy, and profoundly triumphant. Then he stepped back, removing his hand entirely.

She swallowed. Hard. Breathing became the hardest thing in the world.

"Luciano—"

He didn’t touch her again. He didn’t raise his voice. Instead, he moved behind her—close enough she could feel the heat radiating from him, not close enough to make contact. The proximity was a more potent torture than his touch.

His voice dipped to a threat-soft whisper.

"Sign now, paloma, and I will give you what you’ve been trembling for. I will end this exquisite torture."

His admission—quiet, raw—stabbed like a needle under her skin. He knew exactly what he was doing to her.

​Her hand trembled as she reached for the pen.

Not because she agreed with the terms.

Not because she surrendered her spirit.

But because her whole world was already tilting toward him—against her will, against her logic, against every instinct that screamed run. Her body had already betrayed her.

She stared at the signature line.

Her vision blurred, the words Eloise Winters swimming in the darkness.

Luciano watched her like a man watching destiny approach.

Her pulse thundered.

Her breath fractured.

Her fingers closed around the pen.

She signed.

The moment the last stroke landed, Luciano exhaled—long, slow, almost painful.

He lifted the vellum sheet.

Her trembling hand had smudged the ink slightly.

A small smear of blood from a paper cut on her finger had dried beside her name.

"Beautiful," he whispered.

Then he set it aside.

And without a warning, he swept her off her feet—lifting her effortlessly, one arm under her legs, the other supporting her back against his hard chest.

​"Time for my promise for your release, paloma," he said, carrying her out of the study. "The bedroom is waiting."