I smile through them, watery and genuine. "I told you I'm not a fragile doll. I don't break easily." I hold his gaze. "If the kidnapping didn't do it, wanting you won't either."
The air between us shifts.
His eyes drop to my mouth and come back to my eyes and the room gets smaller and hotter and I watch him process what I just said, watch it land, watch him decide what to do with it.
"Isabella," he groans, and my name in his mouth sounds like a warning and a question at the same time.
"I want you," I say plainly, because I'm done not saying things to him. "I've wanted you for years. And I'm tired of pretending I don't."
His jaw tightens and his hands are still on my face and I can see him fighting something, , weighing things I can't see.
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"Yes I do and I’m also pretty tired of you saying that as well."
"You just told me?—"
"I know what I told you." I lean forward slightly, just enough that there's barely any air between us. "And I'm telling you now thatI trust you. That I want this. That if I'm going to do this with anyone it's going to be you."
His breathing changes, gets heavier, and I watch his control start to slip at the edges, watch the careful restraint he always carries begin to fray.
"We should stop talking," he says, rough and low.
"Then stop talking."
He looks at me for one more long moment, searching my face for something, finding whatever it is he was looking for, and his hands tighten just slightly on my jaw.
"I'm going to kiss you now, Princess."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Oh—
His mouth is on mine before I finish breathing.
And I’m not complaining, because I lean into him like I can’t get enough of him. And I can’t.
His kiss is not careful. His hand slides from my jaw into my hair, fisting it, tilting my head exactly where he wants it, and I make a sound against his lips that I've never made before, desperate, needy and completely beyond my control.
Oh lord. I’d die a happy woman right now.
He groans in response, low and rough, and the sound of it goes straight through me, pooling hot and urgent low in my stomach.
His hands find my waist, yanks me forward off the bed and the pressure is the spark that finally sets the dry timber of my restraint asunder. I gasp and go willingly, sliding off the bed until I’m on my knees on the floor between his thighs, a position that should feel submissive but feels like a reclamation.
My hands find their way to his chest, clutching at the fabric of his shirt, my palms burning from the sheer force of his heart hammering against them.
"Enzo—" I whimper, but the name is a prayer, a plea for him to stop, or to never stop, I honestly can't tell which.
"Yes." His mouth is on my jaw, dragging down the sensitive column of my throat. I tilt my head back, exposing myself to him completely, my breath hitching in a series of jagged, ruined sounds. "Fuck, Princess."
Princess.
The word is a detonator. It shreds the last of my composure.
My fingers hook into his shirt, twisting the material until my knuckles ache, pulling him into me until the friction of our bodies is the only thing keeping me upright. I want to crawl inside him. I want to peel back his skin and marrow and hide myself in the heat of him. For years, I have curated this hunger in the dark, feeding it only on scraps of glances and "what-ifs," and now that it’s finally out, it’s a monster. It’s a starving, frantic thing that doesn't just want him—it wants to consume him.
His hands slide under my shirt, and the sensation of his palms against my ribs makes my entire nervous system go white-hot. When his thumbs brush the undersides of my breasts, a high, thin sound escapes me, a sound of pure, unadulterated shock at how much I’ve missed a touch I’ve never even had until now. My body doesn't wait for my brain to catch up; it arches, seeking the weight of him, desperate to close the microscopic gaps between our skin.
