I brace one hand beside her head, the other sliding down her side, tracing the soft curve of her hip. Her skin is warm, flushed, alive beneath my fingertips. She shivers at the touch, and the sound she makes nearly breaks my control in half.
“Elizabeth,” I breathe, my voice barely holding together. “You’re making this impossible.”
Her fingers thread into my hair, tugging gently, urging me back down to her. “Then stop trying to fight it.”
My jaw clenches. God, if she knew what she was asking. If she understood the line she’s pushing me past—the point after which I won’t be able to let her go.
Her eyes search mine, wide and open and devastating. “Lorenzo… come here.”
She says it like a plea. Like she already belongs to me.
Something inside me fractures.
I lower myself until my chest is pressed to hers, until I can feel her heartbeat pounding against mine, fast and frantic. My lips hover a breath above hers—close enough that I taste the sweetness of her exhale.
“Once I do this,” I whisper, every word rough with truth, “there’s no going back. You understand me?”
This is her last chance. Once I do this I will make sure she carries my heir. She will be mine forever.
Her hand cups my cheek.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I understand.”
My vision narrows. My pulse thunders. Every last thread of discipline threatens to snap.
“Say it again,” I rasp, needing to hear it, needing to believe it. “Tell me you want this.”
She lifts her chin, brushing her lips against mine in the softest, most dangerous touch I’ve ever felt.
“I want you,” she breathes. “All of you.”
And that’s it. The last lock breaks. The last barrier falls. A sound escapes me—low, guttural, nothing human—and I crush my mouth to hers, claiming the kiss I’ve been dying for.
In that moment, right before I give in completely, one truth slams into me with brutal clarity. After this, she’ll never walk out of my life. And I’ll destroy anything that tries to take her from me.
My pace becomes frantic, driven by something deeper than need. Something raw and territorial. The words spill out of me before I can stop them, low and rough against her ear. Not polite promises. Not fantasies.
Truths.
Dark, reckless truths about the future I want with her. The future I intend to take.
I tell her how one day she’ll carry my child, how I’ll watch her body soften and swell with something we created. How I’ll hold her through every breathless moment, every change, every part of her that becomes irrevocably mine.
Her fingers clutch at me, her head thrashing against the pillow as pleasure tears through her. She doesn’t push me away. She doesn’t protest. She takes every word like it’s gasoline on the fire already burning inside her.
Her voice breaks on my name, breathless and desperate, and it only fuels something deeper that’s been building in me since the moment I first saw her.
I can feel her unravel beneath me, trembling, surrendering, giving me everything without even realizing what she’s doing.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t hold anything back.
I tell her exactly what I plan to make real.
What Iwillmake real.
And she moans like she wants every single piece of it. Every. Last. One.
When it’s over, neither of us moves.
