He smiles down at me, slow and a little wicked. “I’m in love with you,” he says, not for the first time. “Wildly. Irreversibly.”
I pretend to consider this. “On a scale from one to ‘won’t let me eat boxed mac and cheese,’ how irreversible are we talking?”
He groans. “You are never going to let that go.”
“Not in this lifetime.” I hook him closer. “Incidentally, if you loved me, you’d let me have a blue box day.”
“I’m literally about to order you a milkshake and a tart and a bucket of French fries,” he says, indignant. “And you’re going to make me boil orange dust in my kitchen, too?”
“You don’t boil the dust,” I whisper, kissing him, and he laughs into my mouth like I just said the filthiest thing imaginable. “You add it in after.”
“You’re a monster.”
“You’re in love with a monster.”
He bites my lower lip. “Irreversibly.”
A little zap of something shimmers through me. Warm and real. The light from the window paints a strip across the white sheet on my hip, and he follows it with his thumb.
He kisses me again, deeper now, until the promise of French fries becomes secondary. The lights of the city spin slowly below, and up here, in the quiet gold of the room, we are entirely, blessedly, alone.
We kiss in the quiet, mouth to mouth. A small, soft noise escapes me as his thumb strokes over the peak of my breast, a slow, deliberate circle.
He answers with his own sound against my mouth, rough and wanting. I am suddenly desperate to be closer, to feel more, and I roll onto my side, pulling him with me, hooking my leg over his hip. The sheet pools around us, a useless barrier.
My fingers find the line of his jaw, the roughness of his stubble, the soft space behind his ear. I trace his pulse with my thumb.
His hands move down my body and back up again, slow and thorough, as if he’s memorizing the new landscape of my changing shape. He doesn’t just touch—he appreciates. His palms span my ribs, my hips, the curve of my belly.
“You are…” he says, trailing off, his voice a low murmur against my neck.
“I’m what?”
“Breathtaking,” he finishes. His mouth follows his hands. A kiss on my shoulder. A kiss over my heart. A kiss to the curve of my stomach. He looks up at me from his position, his eyes dark and so full of something I can’t breathe for a moment.
Then he shifts again, settles between my legs, his elbows bracketing my head. He just looks at me. The intensity of it is a physical weight, and I lift my hand to touch his cheek. He turns his head and kisses my palm.
“I love you,” I say. He closes his eyes for a second, as if he’s absorbing the words.
“Elena,” he whispers, his voice breaking. He opens his eyes again. "I want to fuck you. I want to make you feel good."
"You always make me feel good," I whisper.
"Not like this." He moves his hips, a slow grind that is both a question and a promise. "Let me."
With his gentle guidance, I move to my hands and knees, this being the most comfortable position, I've discovered, with such a big belly. But he doesn't enter me.
Instead, he kisses his way down my spine, each touch like a brand. My hands fist in the sheets, my back arching. I can hear his breathing, rough and ragged, feel the warmth of his mouth on my skin.
“You taste like salt,” he murmurs against my lower back. “And me.”
And then his mouth is somewhere else entirely.
I make a choked sound, my entire body going taut as a bowstring. His hands grip my hips, holding me steady as he explores my aching pussy with his tongue. It’s slow and deliberate and utterly intoxicating.
“Luca,” I gasp, his name a plea. I don't even know what I'm pleading for. More. Less. For him to stop. For him to never stop.
He responds by tightening his grip, his tongue moving with more purpose now, circling my clit with an unerring pressure that has me seeing stars. He knows me. He knows my body better than I do. He knows just how much pressure to apply, just where to linger, just when to change his rhythm.
