The anger crests into something meaner, wilder, older. Then it rips through me and takes my balance with it. I grab his sweatshirt with both hands and crash into him.
The first kiss is all teeth and rain and four years of starving. He stumbles back into the post, and I follow, climbing into the heat of his mouth like I forgot how to breathe. He tastes like seawater and regret and home. His hands hit my hips and hold, his fingers possessive, the kind of touch I’ve been pretending I don’t need.
We don’t come up for air. The rain soaks my hair, runs down his throat. I chase a drop with my mouth, and he groans like it hurts. My fingers fist in his hood and yank it back. The bruise I gave him blooms under the porch light and, God help me, I kiss it like an apology I don’t have words for.
Matteo answers with hunger. His palm slides to the small of my back, pulls me flush against the hard planes of his body like he remembers exactly how I fit. The old rhythm snaps on like it’s been waiting under my skin. His mouth shapes my name, and my body moves to meet his. His cock is hard against my belly and heat pools between my legs. I press a hand flat to my sweatshirt to the blossom and the small name beneath. It’s a brief, desperate prayer, then I shove the ache down where it can’t be seen.
“Cat,” he rasps against my lips, voice shredded. “Tell me to stop.”
“I can’t,” I breathe, and it’s the truest thing I’ve said all day. Because I don’t want him to stop. Ever. I pretend we’re teenagers again on that sun-soaked beach.
He kisses me like a promise he was born to break. The storm folds around us and the house disappears. The only map I trust is his hands learning me again. I bite his lower lip, and he swears into my mouth in Italian. That rough sound should be illegal, and it frays what’s left of my restraint.
The porch offers no cover. The wind drives the rain in sideways. We’re drenched, shivering, even laughing as a cold sheet of icy rain hits our skin. He cups my face, thumbs gentle where everything else is brutal, and the contrast unmoors me.
“Inside,” he whispers against my mouth, forehead against mine and breath hot in the cold. “Before you freeze.”
“Bossy,” I mutter, but I’m already moving.
He lifts me like it’s muscle memory, hands sure beneath my thighs, my arms locking around his neck. The knife clatters harmlessly to the doormat. He kicks the door wider, shoulders us through the opening, and the slam swallows the storm behind us.
We stand dripping on Noel’s tired rug and stare at each other like we’ve done something irreversible. Maybe we have. My pulse is a drum against his mouth and his is an earthquake under my palm. Water puddles under us in a ring, the world’s most damning halo.
“Cat,” he whispers again, softer now, like a question and a vow.
I answer the only way I can. I pull him down and kiss him, wrapping my hand around the back of his neck. Then we’re on each other again. There are no speeches, no strategy, just the kind of hunger that makes reason look insignificant.
He kisses me like a vow he can’t keep, and I answer in equal measure. My fingers find the hem of his soaked sweatshirt andshove. The thick material peels away as heavy as a second skin. The porch light through the blinds cuts his chest into strips of gold and shadow. I shouldn’t look. I do anyway. He’s as beautiful as he was all those years ago. His torso is carved perfection, tattoos inked across muscles honed for violence.
“Are you still cold?” His voice is as ruined as I feel.
“Yes, fix it.”
He carries me to the couch, laughing, stumbling and breathless, the sound breaking when his mouth catches mine again. He sinks into the cushions, and I climb into his lap, knees bracketing his hips. The heat of him is shocking, and desperately needed, after the rain.
“Merda, Cat…” he groans, and the rough sound slides straight through me.
Buttons, zippers, and wet fabric surrender under impatient hands, mine and his. Finally, his clothes thud to the floor, leaving him bare beneath me. His cock stands, thick and erect between my legs, and that heat rushes my veins.
I drag my wet sweatshirt over my head, then reach for my top before cursing and tugging it back down, keeping the neckline tight to block the place under my collarbone where an orange blossom and a small name live. In the dimness, he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Tell me to slow down,” he rasps against my jaw as his tongue drags across my skin.
“Don’t you dare.”
He lifts me up, just long enough to drag my panties off before claiming my mouth once again.
We’re clumsy and perfect as we reacquaint ourselves with one another. Each touch igniting the smoldering heat. His palms brand my waist, then sink lower, curving around my ass. I rub my clit against his hard length, the friction building deep in my core. My nails rake his shoulders, and he groans fromsomewhere deeper than his chest. Every kiss is a collision. Every touch saysmineandnot yoursin the same breath. The world narrows to heat and breath and the way our bodies remember the map without asking for directions.
“I want you,” I murmur against his lips. “Inside me.”
His eyes meet mine, that tempest alive in his gaze. “Are you sure?”
I reach for his cock and wrap my fingers around it, sliding up and down along the thick shaft.
He lets out a satisfying hiss. “Fuck, Cat.Dio, I’ve been dreaming about this moment for the last four years.”
I press a finger to his lips, silencing him. “No reminiscing. Just fuck me, Matteo.”
