I don’t think. I’m too close, too full of him, too wrecked to do anything but obey.
“Luca,” I breathe.
His whole body shudders. A tremor that starts in his shoulders and rolls through him everywhere we’re connected. The sound that leaves his mouth is raw. Guttural. Like something cracked open.
“Again.” One word.
“Luca.” I pull his face to me, stubble rough against my palm. “Luca, please.”
His hand fists in the sheets. His mouth finds my neck. The rhythm he gives me after that is no longer careful, but it still isn’t careless. It’s need. It’s desperation. Like something locked inside him has broken open and now he doesn’t know how to stop it.
The pressure inside me snaps.
Pleasure tears through me so suddenly I almost can’t recognize it at first. My back arches. A cry breaks out of me. My whole body clamps around him, shaking with it, and the name on my lips is the one he gave me.
“Luca—”
“Fuck, Nat.” His rhythm fractures. His breath goes ragged against my throat. He pulls out fast, cock dragging against my swollen flesh, and then the hot pulse of him spills across my stomach, my ribs, warm streaks landing on my skin while he groans something unintelligible against my neck.
He stays there. Face buried against my throat, breath heavy and slowing against my skin. Then he lifts his head and looks downbetween us, at the mess he made on my stomach, and a darkly satisfied look crosses his face.
His thumb drags through it. Smears it across my hip, over the curve of my waist, possessive enough to send a fresh wave of heat through me.
His gaze flicks up to mine and stays there, hot and unapologetic.
I shiver under the weight of it.
The ceiling fan turns overhead with its soft, uneven click. The ocean outside is a distant hush through the cracked window. Cool air brushes my damp skin. He’s half over me, half beside me, one arm still under my back like he doesn’t know how to let go yet.
I run my fingers into his wet hair and feel his heartbeat slowly begin to steady.
Mine does not.
Because now the haze is lifting.
Now I can hear the word again, clear as if he just said it into my ear.
Luca.
The way his body reacted to it. The way he needed me to say it back. The look on his face, like the sound had reached someplace buried.
I go still under him.
“Johnny?”
He lifts his head.
There’s something shaken in his expression, something unsteady enough to make my stomach tighten.
I wet my lips. “Who’s Luca?”
He stares at me for one long second.
Then he exhales, slow and rough, and his thumb brushes once over my cheek.
“I am.”
20
