His hands slid along my waist, gripping me possessively, demanding more closeness. My heart hammered wildly as I parted my lips instinctively, letting him deepen the kiss. His tongue met mine in an electrifying dance that stole all my breath.
My fingers climbed into his hair, tugging with a need that bordered on madness. I wanted to feel him, taste him, absorb him.
I wanted to leave behind every grievance, every wound, every moment I’d forced myself to stay away from him.
It was as if that kiss freed me from a torture I hadn’t even realized I was still enduring.
Enrico’s hands slid down my back, pressing me hard against the counter, his solid body aligned with mine, making me feel every muscle, every inch of the man I hated to desire so intensely.
His grip was desperate, possessive — and I wanted nothing less in that moment.
He broke the kiss briefly, just long enough to catch my lower lip between his teeth, biting lightly. A hot, almost painful wave of pleasure shot down my spine, pulling a low, involuntary moan from my lips.
“My God, Valentina,” he groaned against my mouth, rough and intense, before kissing me again with even more force, as if starving, as if I were his only air.
My legs nearly gave out. I had to cling to him to stay upright. The intensity was intoxicating, overwhelming.
Every movement of his lips, every flick of his tongue, every firm grip burned into me, marking me in a way I knew I would never erase.
And in that moment, I knew — with brutal clarity — that I had never stopped being his.
No matter how much I tried to deny or resist it, my body, my soul, my heart belonged to Enrico Ferrara in a visceral, painful, inevitable way.
And that was exactly why I needed to stop this immediately.
Before it was too late.
Except… I couldn’t.
FIFTY-FOUR
ENRICO FERRARA
I knew this shouldn’t be happening.
I knew it with every shred of reason I still had left — but all reason vanished the instant my lips touched Valentina’s.
That kiss stole every ounce of control from me, tearing down every defense, every promise I had made to myself during the endless years without her, and during the months since we’d been thrown back into each other’s lives.
Valentina was pure fire.
My body burned with every touch, every muffled moan against my mouth, every small tug she gave my hair, demanding more — demanding everything I had locked away and suffocated for years.
“Enrico…” she whispered against my lips, her voice breathless and sweet, my name turning into an irresistible plea that made every muscle in my body tense with need. “We shouldn’t… but I don’t know how to fight this anymore.”
My heart pounded in my chest with a force that bordered on pain.
I wanted her like madness.
I was starving for her.
I needed her with an urgency that tasted like desperation.
Five years.
Five entire years living in torment — longing, desire, guilt. Five years without touching another woman, because none of them could even come close to the devastating effect Valentina had always had on me.
“You have no idea how much I missed you,” I murmured, pressing her harder against the kitchen counter, fitting my body to hers without leaving a single millimeter between us. “Tell me this is wrong… tell me you hate me… tell me I don’t belong between your legs anymore. Because if you don’t, Valentina… I’m going to fuck you until the past disappears.”
