He goes very still. His eyes hold mine, heat banked, waiting. The restraint makes something in me break open.
“I said stop,” I murmur, and shift closer.
“I haven’t moved, Bellissima,” he says, his voice going dark with need.
I turn my hand, slide my little finger over his, then lace our fingers together. His breath hitches, and that’s all I need. I rise onto my knees on the cool stone and lean in until his shoulder brushes my chest, until his cologne threads through the jasmine.
His mouth is right there. I tilt his jaw with my free hand and kiss him.
Soft at first, testing. His lips answer, slow, patient, like he’s letting me set every pace.
I remember the way he took control before. Demanded, owned, controlled. Heat flashes between my legs.
The world starts and ends at the point where we’re connected.
I angle closer and taste him for real, a deeper press, a slide of lips that lights the spark. He’s careful—painfully so—holding still enough that I have to chase him, which only makes me want more. I do, opening to him, taking another kiss and then another, each one a little hungrier.
His free hand lifts, stops short, then settles feather-light at my waist. I want him to slide it into my hair and hold tight, look me in the eyes as he plays master to my body. I make a sound, long and low, and feel him answer it in the way his mouth firms, in the way his fingers curve just enough to keep me close without pulling.
The breeze rustles. The creek sings over rocks. I kiss him again, harder this time, wanting more. So much more. Then I finally draw back, but only far enough to feel his exhale on my lips.
His breath ghosts over my mouth, and I chase it, kissing him again, a little more desperately. A drag of tongue that unspools every careful rule I walked in with.
He doesn’t rush me; he lets me take, lets me decide how far, and somehow that only makes the hunger worse.
“Luca,” I murmur, warning and wanting tangled in that one word.
“Dimmi,” he answers, so low it thrums in my bones.Tell me.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper.
Something tightens in his face. Heat, relief, restraint snapping all at once. His hand at my waist firms, drawing me in. The kiss takes a turn. He tilts my chin and takes my mouth with a fierce promise. I go lightheaded, fingers fisting in his shirt.
The jasmine is dizzying. The bench feels too small. The whole garden does.
He breaks away to breathe, forehead against mine, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth like he can’t stand not touching me. “Elena,” he says, and the way he says my name—low, husky, reverent—makes my knees weak.
“This is insane,” I manage, even as I kiss him again.
“Yes,” he agrees into my mouth.
I press closer, reckless, until there’s no space left for the wind to blow. He groans low in my mouth and skims his knuckles along the line of my thigh, a question asked with touch. I answer with a shiver and a soft, helpless mewl.
“Inside,” he says roughly.
The word is like a match on that spark.
I look at the path back—the bright lawn, the blue slice of pool, the glass doors standing open to shade—and swallow. My pulse trips. I could say no. I could sit back down and smooth my hair, and he’ll let me. He’ll let me do just that.
And it seals the deal.
I slide my hand down his chest instead and feel the breath leave him.
“Okay,” I whisper.
For a second, he just looks at me, like he’s committing me to memory, and I wonder what I must look like right now. Flushed, swollen lips, desire and surrender warring in my eyes.
Then he rises and offers his hand again.
