I feel precious when he touches me like this. I feel cared for. I feel like a treasure, a work of art. I relax into his touch and the warmth of his body, the heat of his mouth and when at last, he moves inside me, I reach up and cup his face between my hands. Looking into his eyes as he builds the pleasure inside us both, I see my own passion reflected back at me. We are one in this moment and it feels like being finally whole. As if I’ve been missing another part of myself and never knew it until now.
He leans forward to kiss me, but I shake my head. ‘No,’ I murmur. ‘I want to watch you come.’
His eyes gleam at that and so he holds my gaze, slowing his movements. But it’s not desperate the way it was downstairs in his office. It’s a journey we’re going on together, building wonder as we go, lingering in each second of pleasure and enjoying the anticipation.
But like every journey, there’s an end, I can feel it bearing down on me and I can see it bearing down on him too. But he’s a master at this, I already know, and he times it just right, so at the ending of the road we meet and step over the edge together.
The world expands around us, bathing us in light, the silver in his eyes becoming incandescent as he falls with me, his arms gripping me tight.
Chapter Sixteen
Vincenzo
IT’S ABEAUTIFULmorning as I step out onto the terrace, the little gift I’ve bought for my beautiful wife safely in my pocket. It was delivered to me late last night and I can’t wait to give it to her.
Maria has set a beautiful breakfast table for us with fresh brioche, coffee, jam and honey, fruit and all manner of other delicious breakfast things. There are mimosas also, so we have something to toast with, because I’ll certainly be wanting to toast.
The past two days have been… Well, when I told her she was a revelation, I meant it. From the moment I took her dress off in my office, before laying her across my desk, she was flawless. Utterly beautiful. Then how sweetly she fell apart in my arms, saying my name, and the taste of her…
Fucking exquisite.
Ihadto give her my vow not to end her father’s life just as she had to give me her vow to stay in my bed, because there simply wasn’t another option. Not when her body was made for mine and vice versa. Besides, it’s easy enough to make Salvatore disappear, and then I’ll crush his allies.
Still, spending the rest of that day in bed with her was the happiest I can ever recall being. Even when she asked me about the scars on my back. I wasn’t expecting her to say anything about them, but of course that was foolish of me. They’re extremely visible and while I have no hang-ups about them, no one has ever asked me about them before. I didn’t want to tell her, not when she was the indirect cause, but when mygattinaasks me a question, I have to answer.
I didn’t mean to make her cry, though, and I certainly didn’t want her to either, not for me. It seems that beneath her fiery anger and her sharp claws, my wife has a soft heart, something I should have thought about when she demanded I spare her father. It broke me a little to see her pain, especially when she told me she’d had no tenderness, no gentleness, not since her mother died.
All I’d wanted to do in that moment was to give her everything she wanted. My family was the reason she’d missed out on all the things a mother should have given her, the reason her father had been so awful to her, and she needed some recompense for that.
So, I did give it to her. I worshipped her like the goddess she is, with as much care and tenderness as I was capable of, and I surprised even myself. At the end, when she looked into my eyes as we both came together…
You can never let her go now.
No. Never. I wasn’t going to anyway, naturally, but now I’m certain. She’s a woman of great worth and she’s mine, and I’ll keep her at my side and in my bed. I’ll give her everything she’s ever wanted.
She thought you were a monster, though, remember? And you know she’s not wrong…
But I don’t want to think about that. Instead, I concentrate on my anticipation as I take the box out of my trouser pocket and place it in the middle of her plate. I left her sleeping this morning, so I could finish up making the necessary arrangements for her father’s disappearance. Giovanni’s new life will be an uncomfortable one, especially considering the identity I gave him has a record a mile long. They don’t like drug dealers in Thailand, but I’m sure he’ll agree that life in a Thai jail is better than death.
I go over to my chair and sit down, waiting for my wife to join me, but a couple of minutes pass and she doesn’t arrive, so I get up again. I’m strangely restless, so I pace over to the edge of the terrace, to the stone parapet, and pause there a moment, glancing out to sea. Then I turn and pace back to the table, once more checking that everything is in place.
Then I hear a light footstep and when I look up, there she is in the doorway to the terrace. She’s wearing a simple dressing gown of peacock-blue silk, with a silk belt loosely tying it closed. Her inky hair riots over her shoulders in the way I love so much, like thunder-clouds I can actually touch and caress.
She blinks at me sleepily, then comes over to where I’m standing and lifts her arms, winding them around my neck as she rises on her toes to press a delicious kiss against my mouth. I take the kiss and deepen it, my hands resting on her hips as I tug her more firmly against me. She feels so good, all hot and silken and female, and I can already feel myself getting hard once again. My hunger for her is relentless. It feels as if I can never get enough.
After a few moments, I lift my head, looking down into her beautiful eyes. ‘Breakfast first,gattina.You got a healthy workout last night.’
She flushes the colour of roses, the blue in her gown somehow turning her eyes a brilliant turquoise. ‘I did. And I blame that solidly on you.’
‘I didn’t hear any protests.’
Her mouth curves in a smile that makes my chest ache. ‘That’s fair. There were none.’
I gently untangle her arms from around my neck, pausing to hold her fingers in mine and then turning her palms up and laying a kiss in the centre of each one. ‘Sit, my wife. I’ll pour you coffee.’
Still flushed, her eyes sparkling like rare gems, she goes to her chair and I insist on pulling it out for her. She sits, her gaze dropping to the little box in the middle of her plate.
‘What’s this?’ she asks.
