The breath stalled in her throat, but he wasn’t done.
“If you want me to share my secret emotions with you, that’s the first thing you should know.” He stroked a thumb over her cheek in a soft caress and repeated the words he’d spoken in Italian earlier that day—when she had been listening for sound, not to see if she could identify anything. Butamoremeant “love”, didn’t it? “My love for you is infinite,” he said, his tone a reverent whisper. Then his lips kicked up into a familiar grin. “You never asked.”
Reiko curled her fingers into the back of his neck as she struggled with her tears. He was never going to believe she wasn’t much of a crier. Or maybe she hadn’t been, because she’d worked so hard to numb herself to life before him. That was irrelevant. She licked her lips, searching for an adequate way to return his words and reassure him she returned his feelings.
That was when she remembered the seemingly silly, but endearing promise he’d made what felt like forever ago. A promise that required her to first write down the kanji of her name. And for that, she needed a type of pen or brush she didn’t have.I’ll ask him if we can stop somewhere when we go out.
Reiko exhaled carefully and lifted a hand to glide her fingers over his too handsome face. It was truly unnatural how gorgeous the man was, and she didn’t allow herself to appreciate that often enough. “Aishiteru,” she finally said.
Amusement danced in his eyes. “Cheater. You know I don’t know what that means.”
She laughed softly and bowed her head, taking another brief taste of his lips. “It means I love you,” she whispered. “It means I don’t just like you a lot, but I’ve fallen fully in love with you, Santino Guerra.”
He groaned and curved his arms around her, as if she weren’t already melded to him. “Then that’s my new favorite word.” He kissed her, slow and deep, his hips rocking up to grind his erection against her core. “Say it again,” he rumbled, lips parting from hers only enough to release the words.
Reiko whimpered as her fingers slid into his hair. “Aishiteru,” she murmured against his lips.
Santino groaned again before slipping one hand between them and reaching under the skirt of her dress. Of course, he found her wet. She couldn’t sit on him and kiss him and feel his cock hardening beneath her and hear his words of love for her, and not also become aroused. It didn’t matter that they’d made love twice before breakfast.
She made no effort to stop him as he pumped his fingers inside her, their tongues dancing and their hips rocking in a hungry rhythm, but she did whimper a soft protest when his hand disappeared. Until she realized he was working on undoing his pants. One-handed, because he hadn’t let go of her hair. So, she removed one hand from his hair in turn, blindly reached between them, and helped him out—then curled her fingers greedily around the length of his seeping cock.
Santino grunted and nipped at her lip. “Ride me, beautiful,” he panted into their kiss. “Take my cock deep into your hot little pussy and fucking ride me until we both come. Show me I’m not the only one who’s desperate.”
His words struck something inside her and Reiko hurried on an instinct she scarcely recognized to adjust herself until she wasable to sink down over his length. His free hand came to her hip, helping to anchor her, and hers lifted back to his shoulder.
Both of them groaned shamelessly as their hips ground together, his thick cock stretching her just to the right side of pain.
Reiko rolled her hips a couple of times, letting her mind linger on how good it felt to be so full that if he reached any deeper, he’d be poking places not meant to be poked. But it was only seconds before she succumbed to the fire in her blood and picked up a fast, grinding rhythm. She pulled her knees partially under her to better bounce, better twist her hips, both of them practically clawing at the other in a mounting frenzy.
He vibrated against her, his moans lost in her kiss as hers were swallowed in his, until she was no longer able to maintain their increasingly sloppy kiss at all. He really was just letting her use him, his movements purely responding to hers in a way that was sending her careening at lightspeed toward oblivion.
Then Santino nudged the straps of her dress down until he could pull her breasts free, and he leaned in, catching one nipple in his mouth and laving on it with teeth and tongue. The extra sensation rippled through her and Reiko twisted her fingers in his hair as the orgasm crested.
She screamed his name, clinging to him, her body trembling and her lungs burning.
Santino latched onto her hips and slammed deep as his cock kicked before emptying inside her for the third time that day. “Oh, fuck, baby,” he gasped on a drawn-out moan, his own body shuddering. “So good. So fucking good.” His lips returned to her skin and he peppered lighter kisses up her collar. “Think I need you to live on my cock.” He sucked a hickey into her neck. “You’re mine, beautiful. You’re it for me. You’ll be my wife, mother of all my beautiful brats, and the only one I bare my soulto. Can you agree to that? Tell me you’ll give me that, and I’ll give you anything.”
Something inside her fluttered so deep, Reiko feared she would have floated away if not for Santino’s unbreakable grip. She curled closer and nuzzled into his neck. “Lucky for you, I’m not a high-maintenance woman.”
He chuckled.
She pressed a kiss to the nearest patch of his skin as her breathing steadied. “Right now, all I want … is a calligraphy brush.”
“A what?” Santino straightened, prompting her to meet his eyes, and raised a brow.
She gave him her best flirtatious smile—which probably wasn’t much, considering how unpracticed it was. “You asked me to draw my kanji for you. I need the proper brush for that.”
He barked out a laugh and pressed a hard kiss to her forehead. “I did, didn’t I? Well, I guess we’ll be going shopping while we’re out, then.” Then he stood, hooked a hand beneath her butt, and aimed them for the bathroom.
Like all good plans, Santino’s began to go a little off the rails almost as soon as he set it into motion.Almost, because the unplanned third round of emotionally intense lovemaking on the hotel sofa was in no goddamn way a negative detour. Evenif it had ended up delaying them a few minutes. His men were smart enough not to comment, let alone complain, about the unexplained wait.
Or the literal detour to the shop he and Reiko had found online that seemed most likely to carry what she needed. It’d taken about twenty minutes in that artsy shop for her to decide on a multi-pen calligraphy set, a labeled Japanese kanji brush set complete with small ink and pad, and special paper. Santino overpaid so as to leave a good impression and they were back in the Rolls-Royce.
He had mixed feelings about bringing her with him to Zia Lorenza’s, where Adele was expected to be, but he had worse feelings about leaving her alone again. He was still pondering that when his phone went off.
The familiar, aged smile on the screen was enough to assure Santino he wasn’t going to enjoy taking the call.
Reiko reached over and slid her hand across his thigh with a comforting—mildly distracting—squeeze.
