“I know,” he says with sympathy, and kisses my forehead. “So how about, right now, you letmemake you feel good?”
There’s one part of me at least that’stotallyon board with that idea.
* * *
The one thingI really appreciate about Luca is that I know he won’t hold back in bed. I don’t know if the man is actually capable of it. It’s not that he’s nottender, but there’s a ferocity to his sex that I think is part of his being, something he can’t turn off and on.
I like it, because at least it’ll mean he won’t treat myasslike it’s breakable. Or so I thought before he laid me out naked on the bed and stood there looking at me.
“What?” I ask, palming my cock.
“Nothing.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” He smiles, pulling off his shirt. I stripped the second we got in the room, my body buzzing for him. “I can’t look at my beloved husband?”
“Look all you want, as long as you touch, too.”
“Oh, there will definitely be touching.” He slinks onto the bed like a predator, and I’m reminded of the very first time we messed around, in the Donovan suite at the Grand. He was bruised and battered that night, and I was still high from our brush with Death.
But this time he takes his time teasing me, making me relax and open up for him, more than he usually does—more than I usually like—but right now, maybe it’s what I need. He kisses me while he does it, soft mouth a counterpoint to the demanding fingers plunging into me. He’s breaking down all my defenses, though, body and soul, and I’m not sure I likethat.
I know how to set my man on fire, though. All it takes is a spark, a trailing of my fingers down his neck, over his shoulder, and then circling around the telltale tattoo of a finch on his upper arm, feeling out the edges of the scar it sits on. The scar I stitched into him all those years ago.
His breath catches. Time to coax the spark into flame.
I slide my hand across to his chest to flick at his nipple. Luca’s forever sucking on mine, making them as pink and puffy as he can, but his own are just as sensitive.
Time to remind him. I flick the hard bud again, pinch at it, smirking as he shudders.
“I wanted to take ourtime,” he sighs.
“I think my meatloaf is probably best eaten ASAP,” I say. “Plus I’msoready for you. Please, baby.”
When he’s inside me, when we’re moving together towards one goal, I truly do feel at peace. The whole stupid world dies away, and I don’t have to think about anything. I don’t have to think about my Pops lying there in his eternal bed. I don’t have to think about my evil half-sister, or the nice one, or the unborn one. I don’t have to think about all the dangers that face us. I don’t have to think about anything at all.
I just have tofeel.
Feel him pressed up against me, feel his body making a promise to mine. I’m protected here. I’m loved here.
Ibelonghere.
Fuck.
I let out a weird sob and try to turn it into a sexy gasp instead, but Luca knows my game. He leans onto his elbows and cradles my face in his hands, not letting me look away.
“It’s okay,” he tells me.
And for now, it really is. I can let go with Luca. I don’t have to hang on to that mask I wear. So I let the tears come and I just breathe through my damn mouth and wind my legs around his waist and buck against him, to make him fuck me harder.
If I’m going to cry, I might as well enjoy it.
He lets me get away with it for a few minutes, watching the water working out of my eyes, and then he lowers his head to kiss all those tears away. He shifts up, his sweat-damp flesh peeling away from mine as he raises his body, and one of his tear-wet hands gets between us to close on my cock.
“You first,” I sniffle.
“No.Youfirst. Always. Understand me, baby bird?”
