Their Dolcezza

00 || Prologue

Love is nothing but a damned curse. Its very vines will wrap around your heart and squeeze until there's nothing left. It will leave you completely and utterly alone, and had I known that earlier I wouldn't have fallen for its devious lies.

"Run away with me," Damien's voice trembles, the words escaping him in a rush, bearing the weight of an impossible plea.

His lips brush my neck with a delicate touch and a shiver creeps down my spine. A pause. I feel him pull away slightly, though he still keeps me in his arms just as I keep my eyes shut.

Time after time he asks me to run and time after time I tell him no. Why can't he see that his pleas were causing me pain? That every time he mentions that dream, my dream, my heart breaks. It'd be a betrayal and a death wish.

Hesitantly, I open my eyes, looking up to meet Damien's beautiful light blue-grey eyes. His gaze peers into mine, as if searching for an answer he already knows. There's a raw vulnerability—desperateness, a silent plea hidden amidst the depths of his gaze that I've never seen before today.

I take a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves before speaking. "I can't, Damien. You know I can't," The words come out so softly as if I'd been talking to a crying child–so softly that maybe he hadn't noticed the trembling of my voice as I pulled away from his embrace.

Damien's face falls, and the look he gives me shatters my heart. "I know it's risky," he pushes, "but—"

"If I ran they would kill you."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take. Besides they'd never find us, just as they haven't found out about our relationship."

I shake my head.

"That's different–"

"It isn't, Val. They wouldn't be able to find us if we ran," Damien insists, his voice pleading. "We could go somewhere far away, somewhere they would never think to look."

"Please, Damien. Stop," I beg, lest I might listen to his foolish words–might stay up all night fantasizing about how our life would look like together. How we'd spend every waking moment exploring the world, how his hand would slip seamlessly into mine and his eyes would crinkle as he smiled at me when we stopped to marvel at the world. Or how we'd dance together under the light hue of the moonlight, letting the birds be our music, until our legs tire. Or how I'd wait for him to fall asleep and stay up all night tracing the subtle details of his face—

My eyes water at the thought, knowing it's something we could never have.

"I love you, Valentina," he whispers. "I can't lose you."

I reach out and take his hand, holding it tightly in mine. "You won't," the promise burns as it spews out of my mouth.

"Mean it?" he murmurs, drawing me back into his embrace, and in that husky tone, my legs turn to jelly, rendered momentarily numb by the sheer resonance of his voice.

I didn't have the opportunity to respond to his question; his gaze held mine so intensely that my words seemed to evaporate. The moment our lips met, his touch tender yet insistent, it was as though time paused, and the world around us faded into a distant blur. The sensation of his soft lips meeting mine was a whirlwind of demand and dizziness, a magnetic pull that left me in a momentary trance. It was enough to make me forget this conversation, to forget who I was, if only for a moment.

I was just an ordinary girl in love with a boy.

His hands tug on my waist, anchoring me impossibly closer, as my fingers weave through the strands of his black hair. The fervent kiss mellows, the intensity giving way to a tender pace, a silent understanding passing between us as his tongue softly finds its way into my mouth. It feels like an ethereal dance, a soft caress that tastes of honeyed whispers and the fleeting touch of clouds. The sensation is both tender and exhilarating.