My pulse jumps. “And tomorrow?”
The fingers framing my hips tighten just a fraction. “Tomorrow, I go back to war,” he delivers with steel and venom. Then he softens again, thumb brushing my cheek. “But tonight,mia moglie… you are alive. I am alive. And I want to feel that.”
The words undo me more than any threat ever could. And I’m a bundle of goo in his hands when he walks me two steps closer and bends me over the side of the bed.
He proceeds to take his time to kiss his way down my spine. Linger on the two indents at the tops of my arse, groaning as his tongue flickers into the shallow divots. His hands cup and mould my bottom, then he roughly parts my legs.
Furnace heat blasts my face and my body when he blows softly on my slick flesh. Right before he parts me with his thumbs and tastes me in brazen eagerness that has us both groaning.
He feasts until I’m gasping and clutching the sheets in frantic need. Barely cognisant of the words falling out of my mouth, only the wild ride I have no desire to step off.
“God…Gio! I’m…I’m coming.”
“Yes. Show me,bellezza. Give it all to me,” he croons hoarsely.
I don’t fight the feeling when it hits me with force-five power. He surges to his feet, holding me through the delirium-filled convulsions. But only until I’ve caught half my breath.
And Giovanni presses me firmly back onto the bed, my bottom in the air, his steely length poised at the entrance of my sex.
Then with a harsh grunt, he penetrates me. The grunt turns into a shout. My fists clench the sheets once more as he sets a powerful rhythm through my quivering flesh.
“Fuck, I thought I needed a refresher of how sublime you feel, but…dragunnida…this…you…are fucking incredible,” he delivers thickly as he shuttles in and out of me. As his fingers dig deeper into my skin and my husband rides me like I’m his favourite mount.
He’s thick and powerful and he stretches me to breaking point, but I take every slam, every groan, every hiss and use it to power my own desire.
And all too soon, I’m back on the edge. Then throwing myself over it with his rough encouragement.
Revelling in how my clenches drive him to his own roaring climax.
We collapse in a heap of tangled flesh when it’s over. And I simply let him kiss me again, slow as a vow, as the night folds around us like shelter.
And for the first time since the gunfire, since the chase, since the trap closed?—
I let myself believe in the quiet.
Just for tonight.
Giovanni
The Dragoni Estatechanges after Red Hook, as is the prudent thing to do to ensure that that which I hold important doesn’t come to harm.
It doesn’t announce itself with alarms or shouting, because Dragoni territory does not panic. It adjusts. It closes ranks. It becomes something quieter and far more dangerous.
By morning, the house I built by daring to be different is no longer a mansion.
It’s a fortress.
Men rotate at the gates in shifts so seamless they look like shadows, the perimeter doubles, the cameras are recalibrated, the staff is reduced to only those whose loyalty has been tested in blood or time or both, and every road leading to this place becomes a road that belongs to me.
Lucia notices.
Of course she does.
My wife notices everything.
She stands at the window in one of my shirts, hair still damp from her shower, watching the slow choreography of armed men outside as if she’s trying to convince herself she isn’t seeing what she’s seeing.
“This is insane,” she says finally, voice tight. “Are we under lockdown now?”
