Heat spills through me so fast my fingers fist in his shirt to keep from falling. He folds me in, one hand sliding to the small of my back, the other cupping the nape of my neck like a promise. We’ve kissed a hundred ways—angry, greedy, drowning—but this one is a map: here we were, here we are, and here we could be.
I break just long enough to look at him. His pupils are blown, his mouth a little broken, his breath a prayer. “Matteo…”
“Say my name again,” he murmurs against my lips, like it’s the only thing he’s ever asked for.
“Matteo.” It comes out on a tremor that turns his jaw to stone.
He kisses me harder, urging me back until the back of my knees hit the bed. I sit, drag him with me, and he follows, bracing a hand by my hip, the other splayed under my shirt where the skin is hot and unforgiving. He’s careful around the place I protect, like he’s learned the boundaries of a secret he hasn’t earned yet.
“Look at me,” he says against my mouth, rough with need and something gentler. “I need you to look at me. To know it’sme. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
I do. I let him see the fear, the fury and the want and the part of me that already picked him, years ago, without knowing the cost. Tears slick my lashes before I can stop them. He kisses one, then another, then the corner of my smile like he can salt the ache and make it sweet.
The words I swore I’d never give him again rise anyway, small and shaking. “I love you,” I whisper into his mouth. It’s a secret and a surrender in the same breath.
He stills, breath catching, and when I don’t take it back, his forehead rests against mine. “ThankDio,” he murmurs, a smile curling the corner of his lips and lighting up his eyes. “I thought you were going to make me wait forever.”
I swat at him, but he catches my wrist and drops kisses on my palm.
Then his eyes find mine, a swell of emotions brewing beneath the emerald surface. “Say it again.”
Emotion tightens my throat, but I force it out all the same. It’s been trapped for far too long. “I love you, Matteo Rossi.”
He smiles again, and God, it’s beautiful.
Clothes become obstacles we solve together. Urgently. His jacket goes first, then my boots, then his shirt is shoved up so I can taste the heat of his skin, the line of the new bruises over old ones. My hands glide up the sharp ridges and valleys of his torso. God, he still feels the same as he did four years ago. He groans when my teeth find his shoulder, a sound that lives somewhere between relief and ruin.
He slows when his fingers find the hem of my shirt, asking with his eyes. I nod, my throat tight. He pushes it up just enough to bare my stomach and I arch into his palm, into the way his touch saysyou’re here, you’re real, andyou’re mine if you want to be.
And damn it, I want to be.
“Tomorrow,” he breathes, mouth at my jaw. “We face your father together. Tonight?—”
“Tonight,” I echo, pulling him closer until there’s no space left to doubt.
We move like we’re both trying to memorize the other before the sun can change its mind. Urgent, yes, but threaded withthe kind of tenderness that terrifies me more than bullets. His hands learn me again, and my hands relearn him without the fear of Tiernan’s blade hovered over us. Each kiss writes over something old that hurt and leaves the truth softer underneath.
When his cock finally sinks into me, I bite back a cry and catch it in his mouth. He shudders like he’s been lit, forehead dropping to mine, breath broken. “Jesus, Cat. You feel so fucking good.”
“Don’t you dare ask me if I want you to stop,” I whisper, nails digging crescents into his shoulders. “Not tonight. Never again. I’m tired of stopping.”
So, he doesn’t. He gives me slow at first, like he’s afraid I’ll break, then harder when I beg. “Matteo, please…”
A feral grin teases at his lips as he thrusts deeper.
Then he slows again, his eyes fixed to mine because he knows I’m close and he wants to watch me come apart. He murmurs my name like it’s the safest word he knows, and for a moment, it is.
Before long, the building fire reaches a burning crescendo. “I’m going to come,” I breathe against his mouth.
“Good girl, Kitty Cat.” He drives faster, teasing me as I teeter on the edge. “Come for me, baby. Only for me.” His hand slides between our bodies, thumb finding the pulsing bundle of nerves.
And I do, with his name on my lips.
He follows me over the edge moments later, my name followed by a sexy string of Italian curses. His cock twitches inside me, spilling warmth that reaches all the way to the hollow of my bones.
The rain keeps time on the window. The world contracts to heat and breath and the way this man knows how to break me without leaving me ruined.
Once our ragged breaths have settled, we lie tangled in cheap sheets and expensive silence. My ear is pressed to his heart, hispalm smoothing slow circles at my spine as if he can erase the part that always stays braced for impact.
