And when he went to pull her away, she refused to move, only changing the angle of her head so she could look up at him.
“Diavolessa—” he growled. “I want—”
“This is what I want,” she whispered.
And when she bent close again, she sucked him in deep and felt herself shiver even more as she squeezed her own thighs together. Then was shocked to find herself joining him when he roared out his pleasure and then released himself deep into her throat.
He stayed where he was, panting. And Hannah kissed him, there on his thigh and wherever else she could reach without moving, over and over until he opened up his eyes.
This time with something fierce deep inside them.
“I hope you had fun,” he said in a voice so stern it made her smile. And melt. “Because I will.”
And it wasn’t until much, much later, when she wasn’t sure that there was a single part of her that wasn’t shredded into glorious bits, that she found herself drifting off toward sleep in his arms.
She was beginning to wonder, while all of this wild, impossible joy charged around through her system, if this wasn’tquitelove, after all. Maybe it was simply that she was addicted to him. To this, as anyone would be.
But if that was true, she didn’t think she’d ever get clean. She was pretty sure she would never even try. Maybe, in time, she would stop wondering if she should.
He pulled her closer, pressed a kiss to her temple, and held her to him. Hannah sighed and snuggled in closer.
And had to hope that somehow, she would survive this, as close to intact as possible. Whatever that looked like when he had her heart in his hands, could smash it so easily…and didn’t even seem to know it.
CHAPTER TEN
Antonluca might haveforgotten that it was Christmas Eve altogether if it weren’t for Dominic, who woke up squealing with glee and could not be contained all throughout his typical morning routine.
“He and Cinzia are going to track Santa Claus all day,” Hannah told Antonluca in that very solemn voice she liked to use, her green eyes sparkling with laughter, when she found Dominic particularly entertaining.
Antonluca could never decide if he was charmed by this or something more like saddened, because he knew full well that no one had ever been entertained byhisantics. Nothing close.
Every day, without even trying to, Hannah taught him something new about how people were meant to operate in the world.
Most of them, he had come to understand, started something like this. With a mother who doted on them and found them fascinating, and went out of her way to find new ways to make their children happy. Or at least safe and reasonably content.
He found it more and more dizzying each time.
Even when the subject at hand was Santa Claus. Or Babbo Natale, as Father Christmas was known in Italy. If he had ever been likely to believe in such a being, he would have gravitated more toward La Befana, the witchlike old woman who was said to dispense gifts or coal on the Epiphany. But Antonluca had not had that sort of childhood.
He had certainly never had cause to believe in benevolent, godlike creatures who dispensed cheer and gifts. Yet looking at his wife’s sparkling eyes and his child’s excited face, he found himself wishing that he was a different man. That he could be the sort of person who would react to a holiday others loved with pleasure instead of suspicion.
Instead, he had to make himself smile and hope that it looked natural. “I did not realize that Santa Claus could be tracked on his long journey,” he said.
Hannah nodded sagely. “But of course we can track Santa Claus. How else would you know if it’s time to go to bed and listen for reindeer?”
Then she showed him on her phone the so-called satellite updates of Santa’s sleigh, already hard at work in other parts of the world.
It all left Antonluca feeling something like…raw.
It made him wish he hadn’t given up his cold walks to the hotel, because he could have used a bit of head-clearing motion just then. But it was the darkest time of the year and the ground was near frozen every day. He didn’t like the idea of Hannah driving around, slithering up and down the ancient hills.
“You do know that I grew up in Nebraska, right?” she asked as he mentioned this again on their drive to the hotel that morning. “It’s not exactly a tropical island there in the winter. I’m not afraid of bad weather.”
“Nor is it an ancient village with slick, stone streets,” he replied, though something in him shook a bit, as if the real truth was that he liked her company and it had nothing to do with the state of the roads.
But if that was true, he did not wish to examine it.
He could not.
