“It’s really good,” I said, taking another bite. “I’ve never heard of grey mullet.”
He set his drink down. “Oppian, a Greek poet, said, ‘They harm nothing, themselves or other creatures, never staining their lips with blood, but in holy fashion, feeding always on the green seaweed or mere mud.’”
“Honorable fish,” I said, meeting his eyes over the flames wavering on the table.
“I suppose they are.” He grinned at me, but the intense look in his eyes made me breathless.
This man was far from honorable to the world. His hands were stained with blood, probably enough that no amount of water could wash them clean, but when I looked at him, when my heart felt him, all I undoubtedly knew was who he was to me.
The father of my child. My husband. My protector. My everything.
Each time he looked at me that way and I saw the craving in his eyes, it made me feel utter madness. How he wanted and needed me only increased the feeling.
When he fucked me. When he made love to me. I felt his release bone deep—the shackles and chains of this world were taken off, and he was as wild as I was when he looked at me with fire burning in the depths of his eyes.
Dinner satisfied some needs, but not all.
“Rosalia,” he said, his voice full of sleep. He looked down at me as I kissed my way down his chest.
“Call me something else,” I whispered, stopping, looking up at him. “I need to hear it, who I am to you.”
The lights from the many flames flickered in his eyes, and every part of me tensed from anticipation. I wasn’t waiting for him to move. I was waiting for his words.
“My wife,” he said, his voice gruff. As he said the words, the bulge underneath his sweatpants grew even bigger.
My mouth moved even faster down his body, my tongue licking and my teeth raking, undressing him as I went, uncovering every inch of skin that belonged to me.
His body was hard in all the right places, and I was determined to memorize every inch of him again.
The need for him only grew inside of me as I explored, my eyes upturned, meeting his, and I hoped that I’d always be this starved for him. I hoped that I would never go hungry, but never fully be satisfied either.
Crave was like fear in that a little went a long way.
So did the look in his eyes. I could hardly hold his stare. It was making me molten in all the right places. My breasts ached to be touched, and the pulse between my legs beat faster than my heart, racing toward the highest point two people could reach together.
He hissed out a breath when my lips wrapped around him. He was long and thick and hot and hard. The taste of him was pure male, and it drove me even higher, sending a surge of sexual ecstasy through my blood.
He was almost impatient to bring me closer, to have me underneath him.
I resisted for a second and he narrowed his eyes. I traced patterns with my tongue against his skin and had the pleasure of feeling the tremble in his bones when I did. And when I leaned forward and put my breasts on either side of his hardness, the molten in my veins reflected in his eyes.
They were lowered to almost closed, sensually hooded, that lazy indifference nothing but concentrated energy aimed at me, and as he started to pump his hips, moving slow but with hard strokes, sliding in between, his breath became labored and ragged. So did mine when he started speaking to me in Italian—using different dialects, it seemed.
Some of the words were known to me, others not, but meanings were clear enough.
He wanted me. Wanted more of this. Needed it. But he didn’t ask. He demanded, and I was more than willing to give him all of me.
Before I could react, he leaned down and pulled me up by the arms. A second after, he had me flipped over, his body devouring mine in size and in passion.
I never stood a chance against this man. Once I fell, there was no getting up, unless his hand was the one who pulled me to my feet.
“My wife,” he said, sliding his hand between my legs.
A crazed noise came from my mouth when he said the words, and my back arched when he inserted a thick finger inside of me, pumping in and out.
His mouth came down on mine, swallowing my cries, before he gave me a chance to catch my breath.
“This is the sweetest fucking insanity,” he said in Italian. “Being with you. Having you under my skin.”
