I gently pushed him onto his back, his body yielding against the floral comforter.
Mine. After two years of longing, after demons and stolen shards and running for our lives—he was mine. Not because of a blood bond or a fate decree. Because he’d chosen me. Finally, irrevocably chosen me.
I kissed his full lips, tasting mint, then traced a path down the warm column of his throat where I could feel his pulse quickening beneath my mouth.
I explored his chest with deliberate kisses, my tongue finding the salt of his skin, lingering over the hard plane of muscle. Every inch of him felt like a gift I hadn’t been allowed to unwrap until now. I wanted to memorize him—the way his breath hitched when my lips found the scar along his ribs, the way his stomach tensed under my mouth, the way his fingers threaded into my hair like he was afraid I’d stop.
“Selena,” he whispered.
His fingers threaded through my hair, strong yet tender against my scalp.
This time was different. Before, we’d been desperate—all hunger and need and two years of denial crashing down at once. This was slower. Deliberate. And terrifying, because slow meant I could feel everything. Including the fear that lived in the quiet spaces between heartbeats—the whisper that said he could still change his mind. That I could wake up tomorrow and find the walls back in place, the prince retreating behind his guilt, leaving me alone with a bond that only I honored.
I pushed that fear down and kept going.
His voice caught in his throat as I unbuttoned his jeans, the metal button cool against my fingertips.
I tugged down the worn denim and cotton beneath, revealing inch by inch until his cock sprang free—thick, veined, and flushed dark pink against the flat plane of his abdomen. The sight of him undid me. I’d imagined this more times than I’d ever admit—alone in my bed, aching for a man who didn’t want me.
But no fantasy had ever come close to the reality of Rocco Palazzo laid bare beneath me, his breath ragged, his body responding to my touch like I was the only woman in the world.
I traced the ridge with my tongue, tasting salt and musk. Rocco hissed between clenched teeth, his hips rising involuntarily off the mattress.
Power. That’s what this was. Not the kind that came from magic or bloodlines—the kind that came from knowing I could make this man, this stubborn, guarded, broken prince, come apart with nothing but my mouth. After two years of feeling invisible to him, that was intoxicating.
I took him deep into the wet heat of my mouth, hollowing my cheeks as I sucked, feeling him pulse against my tongue. My fingers found the tender weight of his balls, rolling them gently between my fingertips as his breathing grew ragged above me.
Every sound he made—every groan, every ragged breath, every whispered curse—fed something starving inside me. This was what I’d wanted for so long. Not just his body, but his surrender. The man who’d kept me at arm’s length for two years was trembling beneath me, vulnerable in a way he’d never allowed himself to be.
And I was the one he’d trusted enough to let in.
The muscles in his thighs tensed beneath my palms as I took him deeper, feeling him against my tongue. His breathing changed—short, desperate, as if any minute he’d shatter into a million pieces. I wanted him to feel how much he meant to me in this wordless confession. When he arched again, his fingerstangled in my hair, tugging just enough to make my scalp tingle as warmth flooded my mouth, salt-bitter and intimate.
I swallowed and pressed my forehead against his hip, my eyes stinging. Not from sadness. From the overwhelming fullness of finally being allowed to love him like this. No rejection. No walls. Just Rocco, undone and trusting and mine.
He pulled me up and stared into my eyes. The masks were gone—all of them. No bravado, no walls, no guilt. Just a man stripped down to his rawest self, looking at me like I’d given him something he didn’t know he was allowed to have.
My heart ached in the best possible way.
“You’ve completely unhinged me,” he panted. “Now, it’s my turn.”
My whole body was humming. Pleasuring him had lit a fire inside me that had nothing to do with generosity—every sound he’d made, every tug of his fingers in my hair, had wound me tighter and tighter until I was aching. My underwear was soaked. My skin burned everywhere his hands had touched me. I’d been so focused on him that I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed him until now.
I stepped back, my pulse quickening.
“Let me undress for you.” I pulled off my red T-shirt, and unclasped my lace bra, allowing my breasts to fall free. The cold air from the open window made my nipples tighten into hard peaks.
This wasn’t like before—the frantic, desperate tangle at the lodge where we’d torn at each other like we were afraid the moment would vanish. This was deliberate. I was choosing to bare myself to him, piece by piece, letting him watch. Letting him want. After two years of feeling invisible, there was something powerful about standing in front of Rocco Palazzo and watching his eyes devour me.
His eyes darkened, pupils dilating as his hungry gaze traveled over the curves of my body, lingering at my collarbone, my breasts, my navel.
I smiled, biting my lower lip as I hooked my thumbs into my jeans and pulled them down with deliberate slowness, revealing the black lace of my panties against my skin. The denim dragged across my oversensitive thighs, and I shivered—not from the cold. The way he was watching me, those dark eyes tracking every inch of exposed skin, made the ache between my legs pulse harder.
“You’d better get those off, or I’m going to rip them to pieces,” he growled, his voice rough with desire.
I slid them down my thighs inch by torturous inch, past my knees, letting them pool at my ankles. I was eager to feel his hands and mouth on my body.
He clasped my hand with urgent fingers and pulled me to the unmade bed. He wedged his hips between my inner thighs, the heat of him pressing me, as he kissed a slow trail from my collarbone to my stomach.
