“I want to marry you again—this time with vows I mean, and rings I choose with care.”
His thumb brushed the underside of my breast, and heat spread through me in a way that felt almost unfair given everything we had just gone through.
Another breath.
“A ceremony where you walk toward me because you want to—not because you have to.”
My heart began to race.
Not from fear—
but from something dangerously close to hope.
“I can feel you want it too,” he murmured, his voice rough against my lips. “Let me show you how it should have been from the beginning.”
For a moment, I hesitated.
Then I slid my arms around his neck, drawing him closer.
“Then show me,” I breathed.
That was all it took.
He kissed me again.
Harder. Hungrier.
Like a man reclaiming something he thought he’d lost forever.
His hands moved over me with a strange combination of reverence and possession—like he was afraid and certain at the same time.
I arched into him, fingers threading into his hair, holding him there as if letting go might undo everything.
Vincenzo suddenly froze.
Not violently.
But with the kind of stillness that came from restraint—like a man pulling himself back from the edge of something he didn’t entirely trust himself with.
His lips hovered just a breath from mine.
Close enough that I could feel his breath.
Warm. Uneven.
His eyes—dark, heated—still held that intensity, but now something else slipped into them.
Control.
Caution.
And something quieter...
Concern.
“Elena,” he murmured, his voice rougher now, as if pulled from somewhere deeper.
“You gave birth just hours ago. As much as I want you... you need time. You need to heal. We have time. Plenty of time.”
