“Tesoro,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep and something darker. “You’re thinking too loudly.”
“I’m not thinking at all,” I lie baldly, wondering why I’m bothering even as it happens. “Just checking out the cracks in the ceiling.”
His mouth curves against my skin.
“Bugia.” Liar. “There are no cracks in the ceiling,” he declares, then nips my lobe with his teeth. “But if you need it, allow metodistract you from your tedious inspection.”
My fingers curl in the sheets as the sharp, shiver-inducing nips continue.
Over my jaw, down my collarbone, lingering in the divot at my throat where my pulse races madly just for him.
Outside these walls, there are factions and timelines and men who would rather see me gone permanently, but here, for a suspended moment, there’s only my husband and the way he touches me with feveredintent, like I’m a treasure he seized that day in Queens and is determined never to give back.
His hand moves with unhurried intent, drawing away sheets, then stopping to brush over furled nipples, first with his fingers, then with his mouth.
Eyes on me, I watch him lick his fingers, then use them to pluck at my nipples, drawing feral growls from my throat. And when my fever is high, he bends his head and he licks, then sucks and pulls them in deep, his eyes fixed on me the whole time. Drinking in my gasps and my sighs. The silent pleas in my eyes that he answers with more here, less there.
Relentlessly coaxing the tension out of my body in the most physical way he knows.
And I let him. Because I can’t pretend I don’t need it.
His mouth finds mine, deepening into a kiss that is not gentle, exactly, but is careful in the way Giovanni is careful when he wants something badly enough to treat it like devotion.
Devotion I’ve come tocravelike air in these past months. Devotion that could come under threat if someone else decides they’re powerful enough to…
I make a small sound of distress before I can swallow it.
His breath hitches.
“Amante,” he drawls softly, lifting his head just enough to look at me. His eyes are dark, amused, possessed. “I feel I’m losing you, just when I am about to put in my best performance yet.”
Despite everything, my lips twitch. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you are not trembling as hard as you could be,” he replies, as if this is evidence in a case he has already won. “Let’s fix that.”
His hand tightens at my hip, and he flips us over so I’m on top, straddling him.
Then he goes to work, instructing me where to touch him, where to touch myself so he watches. When to lean so he can devour my mouth to his satisfaction. Then when to rise so he can slide his cock inside me, direct me to ride him hard.
Harder.
The heat between us builds slowly, deliberately, the way everything between Giovanni and me has always built, a constant edge of restraint and inevitability.
My thoughts scatter as I shatter to the four winds. Let him pull me down to wrap his arms around me as he roars his own release.
But as I feared, the aftermath lasts a fistful of heartbeats. Then words and the fears I’ve been wanting to blurt for weeks press at the back of my throat.
What if something happens? What if this is the last morning I have him like this? What if La Fratellanza Nera have an unforeseen trick up their sleeve?
My chest tightens as I’m tossed back to the night he was shot. To the dinner that never happened.
Should I say it now? Should I finally say the thing that has been haunting me with increasing frequency, the thing that feels like surrender and inescapable truth braided together?
Giovanni’s mouth brushes my jaw. “Lucia,” he murmurs, quieter now, and it’s not a tease anymore. It’s awareness. “Stay with me.”
I close my eyes and push the thoughts away. They can wait.
For now.
