My head was spinning as he turned me around and set me over some kind of barrel. The smell of citrus was even stronger, and paired with his delicious scent, I felt fucking delirious. He rubbed himself against my entrance, speaking Italian to me as he did.
“So fucking wet.” He hissed out a breath. “So fucking wet for me.”
“I need you inside of me!” Maybe I shouted. Maybe I didn’t. I was too delirious to even care. “Now.Please.” I tried to ram my ass against him, but he stilled me by putting his hands on my hips. The feel of his skin was like a brand. A scalding hot thing that left a mark on me deeper than flesh. I could feel it turning my bones into jelly.
He pulled me back by the little hair I had, and my eyes lifted to find his. They were burning up with intensity. “Yeah,” he barely got out, his voice raspy enough that I could’ve sworn I felt gravel against my skin. “I fucking feel it too. It’s overpowering me. Controlling me. Your heart and body are the master of mine.”
Our eyes pulled us closer even though neither of us had breathed, it felt like. I felt like I was moving into him, and he was moving into me. Like we were two ghosts about to pass through each other. I whimpered when the force of it became too much. Maybe his gravity and mine were combining, pulling at each other, demanding his heart and mine become one. Maybe it was responsible for the heat in this building. I was covered in sweat, and so was he. I wasn’t sure if the heat of the atmosphere was responsible for it or whatever was going on between our bodies.
I wasn’t sure of anything but one thing:
I didn’twanthim inside of me. Ineededhim inside of me.
“Hold on,” he said, nodding to the wooden thing I was bent over.
My hands held on to the barrel or whatever it was.
He entered me slowly, so slowly, stretching every inch of me with his twenty-pound cock. It was a delicious stretch that drove me out of my mind and into a place that belonged to only the two of us. I breathed through it. Moaned through the sweet torture. Then he slid out just as slowly, and my fingers gripped the wood, all my concentration on every inch of him inside of me. It was a blazing fire full of pleasure and cold-burning pain. When he came back in, it was with a stroke that made me breathless. He filled me up to the brim. No breathing room.
I thought as he pounded into me, sending me further and further into space, that the barrel would move, tip over, but his control, I was learning, was fucking legendary. He held me in place. Safe. And kept giving me more and more of what I needed. He’d slow down just to come back faster, harder, and my moans and his grunts seemed to be slapping as hard as our bodies. Like my thighs, my ass quivered when he pounded into me.
“I’m about to?—!”
We seemed to explode into each other at the same time. I could feel him jerking inside of me, spilling himself, and then warmth running down my legs. I smelled the scent of it in the air, and something about it made me feel feral. Like I wanted him to do it again and again and again.
His hand snaked around my waist, and he lifted my body against his, like I weighed nothing. My eyes were already closed, not able to open. He kissed the side of my face, big kisses that echoed inside of the room. His hand stilled on my lower stomach, his fingers splayed. “My home. The place I will always come back to. And one day, our children will be at home here. I live for this. I die for this. I’d kill for this. Cheat for it. I’d evenlie for this.” He seemed to pull me even closer, and I couldn’t imagine a more perfect sky for me. I was drawn to his darkness like he was drawn to my light.
And those words he’d spoken to me.I’d even lie for this.I knew how much that meant in his world. It meant more than living. More than dying. Even more than killing. His word was his honor, and without it, what good was a man? That was what he’d told me once.
I breathed out a ragged breath. My chest was tight. My lungs on fire. Every muscle and bone already sore, reminding me he was still there. “I love you, too, Matteo Fausti. So much. I’m not even sure if a lifetime will be enough to show you how much.”
“Only God can know.”
That gave me pause. I’d never thought about it that way. Those times I thought I couldn’t go another second with the Nemours and the Russians, I’d always cried for my mom. Maybe because we’d never been religious. My mom was never taught to be, I didn’t think. I liked that Matteo’s family had faith, though. And what he’d said,Only God can know, made total sense to me.
“Yes, Matteo Fausti,” I whispered. “I think so.”
He kissed the spot over my heart, cleaned me up, dressed me, then dressed himself. He lifted me off my feet and carried me back to the villa, his eyes on mine the entire time, refusing to let me walk.
Chapter 25
Stella
We had breakfast with Matteo’s family after he carried me back to his parents’ villa. Matteo loaded up my plate with food and even fed me a few bites as we talked about the wedding, or weddings, since we still planned on doing the one on New Year’s Eve. I thought everyone would freak out about the short time we had, but everyone seemed to be game for it. Scarlett and Mia especially. Matteo said he had a surprise for me, though, and the details of the wedding could be planned after we got back.
The one thing we had decided on before we left was, the wedding was going to take place at his mom and dad’s villa, or farmhouse. (Villa. Farmhouse. I used the two terms almost interchangeably. They both seemed to fit.) A deconsecrated church was on the property. The reception would follow outside. Family politics would be involved, since Matteo would be taking over after Rocco retired, but again, he said we could talk about it later.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about surprises yet, but I was starting to move toward…loving them! The way Matteo took my hand and squeezed every once in a while, when he must have felt the pep in my step, was making me fall more in love with the thoughtof them. He seemed to like that I was excited, because he kept grinning whenever I smiled and almost skipped.
We stopped walking, then he covered my eyes with one hand, his other hand on my hip, moving me toward …a big question mark. “I’ve decided,” I said, my voice breathless. “I love surprises!”
“Tell me,la mia stella, is that all you love.”
I shivered at the feel of his breath against my skin. “You,” I said, entwining my fingers with his, even though his were pressed against my hip. “I love you!”
He kissed my neck. “A miracle.”
I smiled. “You know how you make me feel, Matteo?”
