I don’t know if she heard me or if she was so lost in her own head, nothing would break through. But a few second later, her fingers started moving faster on her clit and her hips rocked almost violently over mine right before she stiffened and cried out, throwing herself forward over me as her cunt pulsed around my cock.
“Sera!” My orgasm ripped through me so hard I cried out and dug my fingers into her soft flesh as my body jerked and curled in on itself. I hugged her to me as I came, my face buried in the crook of her neck to smother my own cries of release.
We lay like that for a long time, just trying to breathe as I rubbed my hands up and down her back, over her hips and ass and thighs and back again. “Are you okay?” I asked her when I could manage to speak.
And she burst into tears. Hard, heavy sobs that splayed my chest open and tore out my heart.
I didn’t try to stop her. She needed to get this shit out. And if she needed to take it out on me, I was perfectly okay with that. So I let her cry, letting her know I was there with my touch, until her sobs turned to a shuddering sigh and sniffles. “I’m sorry,” she told me, her voice still thick with tears.
“Shhh…you’re alright. I’ve got you.”
“I don’t know what the hell that was,” she admitted.
“It was you working through the stuff you’ve been through.”
“I’m not angry at you.”
“I know that, baby.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
Tangling my hand in her hair, I tugged her head back until she was looking up at me with confusion. “Stop fucking apologizing,” I told her. “You need someone to hit? You hit me. You need someone to curse and scream at? You scream at me. You need someone to fuck? You fuck me. I’m a big boy, Sera. I can take it.” And I understood. “You do what you need to do, baby girl. But what I won’t allow you to do is shut me out. I won’t let you run away.”
“You make it sound like you’re not giving me the choice.”
I met her stare. “Maybe I’m not.”
After a moment, she snuggled into me and I could hear the uncertainty in her voice when she said, “I wouldn’t know where to go right now anyway.”
For the first time since I’d met her, I felt the tension completely leave my body, like I was able to breathe again. With her.
The day after tomorrow, we would have to go to Luca’s. And that’s when the real battle to keep her would begin. But it was a battle I was going to win.
Never again would I be forced to choose between my family and a woman I couldn’t give up.
CHAPTER10
Serafina
After two full days of hanging out in Enzo’s hotel room, it was time for us to leave, and I was surprised to find I didn’t really want to go. I was getting comfortable here, and I could be myself with just Enzo around as I tried to adjust back to a normal life. He never made me feel like a victim or a freak. He held me when I woke up from a nightmare that paralyzed me with fear. He talked to me when I needed to be distracted. And he left me alone when I just wanted to zone out and watch some stupid crap on television and worry about someone else’s problems for a while.
The one thing he didn’t let me do was be without him.
Little by little, I was learning to deal with the things that happened to me. But I still had a long way to go. And sometimes I wondered if this freaked out woman with the roller coaster emotions was just who I was now.
But the thing that really got me? He left things lying around the room for me to steal when my anxiety got the best of me.
At first, I didn’t realize what he was doing. I thought he just decided not to put his watch on one day and left it on the nightstand. Or that he’d emptied his pockets in the bathroom, leaving money on the counter, and forgotten to put it in his wallet.
But the more I watched him, the more I began to understand that Enzo didn’t do anything carelessly. Everything in this hotel suite was neat and orderly. Nothing went without his notice. So it was safe to conclude that he knew exactly what it was doing by leaving this stuff lying around. And he never said anything when I returned the missing items to where I’d found them. He’d just pick the watch up and put it back on his wrist.
I asked him again about my money, and this time he showed me a safe where he’d locked it away, opening it so I could see the tote bag. Pulling it out, I peeked inside, relief flooding through me when I saw the money I’d worked so hard to save up. Enzo waited patiently until I placed it back inside the safe, and then he locked the door and straightened, leveling those intense brown eyes on me. “I have no need of your money, Sera.”
“I know that,” I told him. “That’s not what I was worried about.”
He cocked his head and waited for me to explain.
Fine. He wanted honesty? I’d give him honesty. “I wouldn’t put it past you to take it from me so I wouldn’t be able to leave.”
