“Women don’t have an oath,” he said. “Nor do they have a code. Men do. If women did, they wouldn’t be so fucking catty to one another. They wouldn’t treat you the way they do because of jealousy and greed.”
“You know a lot about women, huh, Assanti?”
“Enough,” he said. “None more than mine.”
“Then you should know—”
“I know everything. And I don’t give a fuck what they think or do or say. You. You’ll think twice before you try to hide from me again.”
“For knowing so much, you seem to havenoclue! I wasn’t hiding from you! I was confirming my suspicions. You were tracking me!”
Somehow during the argument, we had moved closer to each other, and we were standing face to face in the middle of the room. My finger was pressed to his chest, but mine was the only one heaving. I could hardly catch my breath.
Being this close to him felt like being close to a force of nature that couldn’t be stopped.
He looked down at my finger and then back up to my eyes. A beat passed between us. A deep breath. Then his hand fisted in my dress, yanking me, slamming my body against his, our mouths clashing.
“You want to know something,” he said, his mouth moving down my face to my neck, “fucking ask me.”
“Anything?” I breathed out.
Even though his mouth still worked, there was that hesitation again.
“Be careful of what you wish for,” he said against the pulse in my neck before he started to suck my skin so hard my knees almost buckled. “Because I’ll give you anything you ask for. Even things you don’t.”
His hand moved underneath my dress, caressing over my bare skin, until he took a handful of my ass, squeezing so hard that I moaned. I cried out a second later when his hand followed the strip of silk between my cheeks and then popped it against me. It sent a jolt straight between my legs. My panties were so wet they felt cold against my heat.
My breath came out in trembling pants as he undressed me. He left me in only my silk bra and matching underwear.
“What are you doing to me?” I whispered, almost feeling drugged, as he studied my body.
His lids were lowered, hooded, almost closed, but his pupils were dilated, like he was high. “Tell me what I’m doing, Rosalia.” His voice was gruff.
“My skin is cold,” I said, showing him the goosebumps on my arm. “But inside—I’m burning up.”
He was on me again, this time, my hands making quick work of his clothes as he kissed me into dizziness. My head felt flighty, but my body was a live wire. My breasts ached, felt so heavy, and a wild pulse throbbed between my legs.
He picked me up while we kissed, my arms around his neck, my legs around him, his hands tight on my ass, until he set me down on the counter. He kissed down to my breasts, taking my nipple in his mouth, sucking, while his finger teased the other one. Then his finger slipped inside of me, pumping, and my hips moved with the motion, desperate for more.
I made a strangled noise, starting to move harder, faster, when the pressure started to build. I came around his finger, pulling his hair as I did. Before I could even take a breath and the stars could clear, he was licking down my body.
“Ah!” I cried out when his tongue came between my legs. All my nerves were on the surface, trying to recover from the last assault. One second. Two. It didn’t take me long to feel the rush that was about to send me into space again before he stopped right before my release and entered me to the hilt.
I cried out at the sudden hard, long, thick intrusion lodged between my legs. My palms strained against the marble to keep steady. My back arched, and my head tilted back from the sheer shock of it.
He ground out a curse word in Italian. Then he started to move. Slow at first. Long, deep strokes moving in and out of sensitive flesh. Pleasure and pain. Over and over as he moved in and out of me. He was bleeding me dry…of anything and everything that had ever belonged to me except for him.
“Aniello.” I sucked in a trembling breath. The feeling was almost indescribable. No words could ever do this—him—justice. He made me mindless. Wild. Disconnected from everything but him.
His mouth came against mine, the vibrations of the noises I made echoing against his tongue. When he pulled out of me completely and then came back with a blow that might have rearranged my uterus, the inhuman sound that left my mouth mirrored his.
He started speaking to me in Italian, the sound of it making me hotter and hotter, but I had no clue what the words meant because my mind couldn’t concentrate enough to translate. Every time his mouth would roll with a word, he’d fuck me harder or go slower. It was like he was timing his words to his strokes.
My body was starting to give into that one moment in time when I’d experience the little death. I felt it coming. The surge that was going to send me flying and then the gravity that would have me crashing back into reality.
He sensed it.
He started moving slower and a long whimper left my mouth. Tears spilled out of the sides of my eyes, running down my cheeks from the sheer intensity of it. “No, no, no,” I pleaded. “Please. You feel so good.”
