He growled low in his throat again, but it was different. Threatening. “No man sees you this way but me,” he said in Italian, wrapping his powerful hands around my wrists, directing them over his beating heart. “No man hears what is mine in this way. Or their hearts are mine.”
My breath left my mouth in a slow push, and when he pulled my head close, his mouth close to mine, I turned away. “I do not want to give you my allergies,” I said.
“Fuck the allergies. Your sickness is mine. Your enemies are mine. I take care of you. You. All. Of. You.Mine.” He punched his chest, then turned my head in a rush and pressed his mouth to mine, damn whatever I had.
His tongue searched my mouth, and when I moaned, he groaned, and the vibrations of our want came together to cause a wildfire between us—the gasoline and the lighter.
My hips started to move as my hand did, without thought, and I rode his cock through layers of clothes between us. It would have been embarrassing, the noises I made, if he had not been looking at me as if he had never seen someone, anything, as beautiful as me in this moment.
Ineededmore. Not wanted.Needed.My hips seemed to agree, as they started to move up and down, around, needing the friction to keep the addicting fire burning between us. I could not stop.
If anyone tried to invade on this moment, I would kill them.
“That’s it, my Annie,” he said, rolling his teeth over his bottom lip. He pulsed his hips up, and I sucked in a ragged breath when his cock pushed against my entrance.
Nothing.
Nothing had ever felt so good.
When he did that, it was as if my whole body gave in and…
“Ah!” I pulsed against him, chasing the high, riding it out, my entire body trembling from the orgasm tearing through me.
My body was covered in sweat. My lungs burned. My thighs and legs ached. However, the pulse that had started between my legs beat frantically, and it needed…more. I leaned in to kiss him, about to pull his sweater over my head, my skin refusing to be separate from his.
He stopped me with two words. “Still yourself.”
He did not miss the frustrated noise I made, but he did not go back on his order either. Instead, he hauled me up, as if I weighed nothing, and brought me into the bedroom. He closed the door with a slight nudge of his foot, then set me on the bed. He moved toward the door, placing his back against it, legs crossed.
I looked down at my hands, as if weeds had suddenly sprouted from my fingertips.
“Annie,” he said.
My eyes slowly moved to his.
He said nothing.
I sighed out a heavy breath. “Did I…did I do something wrong? Do you not want me?”
He made it to me in three strides. He used his pointer knuckle to lift my chin. He released a heavy breath, then grinned, but it was not funny. “I cannot resist you,” he said in Italian.
“You have been,” I whispered.
“I’ve never had anything special enough to fucking prove—to anyone. I’m proving to you that you can trust me. If I can resist you—I can resist breathing air.”
“Is that how you have been feeling? You cannot breathe without me?”
“Sì.” He cleared his throat. Spoke in Italian. “Wherever you are not, there is no air. There is no life. Holding back from you is the same as holding my breath. Since the day we met.”
I had been around Fausti men my entire life, but I did not understand it before then. How it was to be with one. One this…romantic. As romantic as he was ruthless.
He gave me a moment to compose myself, and when I looked at him, all I could do was open my arms. He made a strangled noise in his throat and came into them, kissing me. He kissed me so softly I lost myself entirely and could only sigh when he began to undress me.
He undressed me reverently, as if each inch of my skin was glass, and he could shatter it with his massive hands. Not my skin, but my heart.
Perhaps he was showing me that he would keep it safe.
I did the same for him.
