Then his mouth is on mine and the cold stops mattering.
His hands are on my hips. Waist. The hem of his shirt gets shoved up around my ribs. Then slower. Down my sides, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin above my hip bones, over my stomach, lower. When he cups me through soaked lace I'm so swollen the touch is almost painful. I grab his wrist. Not to stop him, but to hold on. To anchor myself while he strokes me through the fabric.
He follows with his mouth. Down my throat. Hollow of my collarbone. Teeth scraping my skin as his tongue traces the swell of my breast. When he closes over my nipple, the sensation is so sharp I arch off the bench, a loud, shameless sound ripping out of me, carrying over the hedges. I don't care. Let them hear. Let the whole estate know.
Elio drops to his knees as his palms slide up the insides of my thighs, pushing them apart. He rips my panties off, then his mouth closes over my pussy. First stroke of his tongue makes my grip on the bench edge go white-knuckled, grit digging into my palms. It's obscene in the best way, because there's no hesitation on his side, despite the fact that just a few minutes ago, he came inside me.
He takes his time, his licks driving me crazy, with their slow movements, circling my clit, then flattening his tongue and dragging it up the length of me until I'm shaking. When he sucks, gentle at first, then harder, I jerk, hips lifting off the stone, chasing his mouth. He pins my thighs down with one forearm, holds me open, and works me with single-minded focus until my brain leaves the building. All that's left is sensation and the sound of my own voice saying his name like it's the only word left in any language.
He pulls back. Stands. In the moonlight, he looks carved from the same stone as this bench.
He enters me slowly.
Every inch. The stretch is exquisite, burning, full, perfect. My eyes close, lips part, grip finds his shoulders. He stops when he's buried deep. Doesn't move. Just watches me in the half-dark. The collector studying something he's never letting go.
Then he moves.
Deep, controlled, rolling thrusts I feel in my spine, in my teeth, in the soles of my feet pressed against his hips. I hook my legs around his back, pull him deeper, and the sound he makes has my nipples tightening. As if they're beams signaling for his attention, his focus turns on them. He leans over to lick one nipple while his fingers pinch the other, never breaking his thrusts.
There are stars through the hedge gaps and stars behind my eyes. I'm finding it hard to tell one from the other when Elio isworking me like I was made for him. His mouth moves to my throat, stubble scraping the sensitive skin as I thread my fingers through his hair, pulling, guiding, holding on because I need an anchor and he's the only solid thing left.
The second orgasm builds slowly. Not like the first. That was a sprint. This one builds layer on layer as he moves inside me. Everything feels amplified. Every point where his skin meets mine electric. Every nerve screaming in a frequency I didn't know I could reach.
I come so hard I can't breathe, my body shaking apart as tears stream down my face,
Not sad tears.
These are the tears of a woman who just discovered her body can dothatand is furious she spent twenty-eight years not knowing. If my body was keeping this in reserve, we're going to have words.
Elio holds me through it all, continuing his steady thrust as I come apart in his arms. He holds me through the shaking and the aftershocks and the part where I lose time. When I come back, his forehead is pressed to mine, breathing ragged, arms trembling. He came too, I feel it, hot and deep inside me, but I was too busy having an out-of-body experience to notice.
Rude. I'll apologize later.
Probably not.
Sometime later we end up in the grass, our bodies still joined. Elio does that, stays inside me as long as he can, as if that connection is everything to him. I have to say I find that incredibly hot.
His fingers comb through my hair, picking out leaves and broken branches absently, as I listen to his steady heartbeat with my head on his chest.
I have never felt more like myself in my entire life.
I press my face into him and smile against his skin. I am so fucked. In every possible sense of the word.
I'm definitely that stupid.
16
ELIO
My phone lights up with Valente's name. I mutter a curse and pull my arm from under Violet's head, placing a small kiss on her temple and pulling the sheet up to cover her naked body.
It's not even six a.m and if he's calling at this time, things must be serious. I get out of bed, grabbing a shirt and slacks from the chair and pulling them on.
Valente is waiting outside the door already.
"What's going on?" I ask quietly, closing the door behind me.
He swallows, then meets my eyes. "It's one of the women we rescued."
