I should fight and push him off. Demand he stop. I already have one secret I’m keeping from him.
But his thumb is circling my clit again, and his mouth is on my throat, and he’s whispering against my skin. “Let me. Let me give you this. Let me give you everything.”
Another orgasm is building, bigger than the first, coiling tighter with every thrust.
“I want to watch you swell with my child.” His rhythm is faltering now, his control slipping. “I want to see you grow round and know that I did that. That you’re carrying me inside you.”
“Cristiano—”
“I want everyone to know you’re mine.” He’s pounding into me now, chasing his release. “I want to fuck you when you’re heavy with my baby. I want to feel it kick while I’m buried inside you—”
I come again, clenching around him so hard he groans.
“Yes.” He buries himself to the hilt, and I feel the pulsing thrusts of him spilling inside me. “Yes, Mina. Take it. Take all of it.”
He keeps coming, keeps filling me, his whole body shuddering as he empties himself deep.
We stay like that for a long moment, his forehead resting against mine, both of us trembling with aftershocks.
He doesn’t pull out. He stays there, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his face buried in my neck.
“Mine,” he mumbles against my skin. “My Mina. Finally.”
I stare up at the ceiling of his penthouse, my body still humming, and I think about my son sleeping at Rosa’s apartment right now. Cristiano’s son with amber eyes.
The son Cristiano doesn’t know exists.
And now, possibly, another one beginning.
What have I done?
He rolls off me and gathers me into his arms, pulling my back against his chest, his face buried in my hair. His breathing slows. His heartbeat steadies against my spine.
I should get up, find my dress, call a cab, and get as far away from this man as possible.
But God, it feels good to be held.
I haven’t been held like this since the last time I had sex with Cristiano. I fantasize about what it would be like for him to wrap his big arms around me at the end of a hard day and tell me everything will be okay.
Tonight was stupid. I let Cristiano Montoni fuck me against a window and come inside me without protection, and tomorrow I’ll have to deal with the consequences of that decision.
But tonight isn’t about consequences. Tonight is about what I need.
Tomorrow I’ll take Plan B and go back to being a responsible, careful, protective single mother. I’ll make sure Leon never suffers for his mother’s foolish choices.
For now, I’m going to lie here in Cristiano’s arms and pretend, just for a moment, that this sexy, protective, wealthy man is all mine.
I turn my head to look at him. In the dim light of the penthouse, he looks younger. The hard lines of his jaw have relaxed, and his golden curls are tousled against the pillow. His eyes are half closed, sleepy and satisfied, and there’s a small smile playing at the corners of his lips.
He’s so handsome it hurts.
“Roll over,” I murmur.
He raises an eyebrow but complies, shifting onto his stomach, exposing the broad expanse of his back.
And there they are. The scratch marks.
The inked ones, permanently in his flesh, lines that trace the paths my nails carved five years ago. And layered over them, fresh and red, are the new marks I left tonight. I reach out and trace them with my fingertips. Old and new. Past and present. A permanent record of what we’ve done to each other.
