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“Is fine.” His arms tighten around me.
As he carries me toward the bedroom, white powder drifts down around us like we’ve wandered into a snow globe.
The hallway is short, and the door is already open, so we make it to the mattress in no more than a few blinks. After he sets me down on the bed, his hands come up to frame my face, his palm rough against my cheek and warm through the powder still coating his skin. I lean into his caress without meaning to.
His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair. He kisses me again, slowly this time. His mouth grazes mine, almost like he’s memorizing the shape of my lips. I find the hem of his shirt and drag it up, needing his skin on mine.
He steps back long enough to pull it over his head, and the flour that was on the fabric sprinkles onto his chest, his shoulders, and the dark hair that trails down his stomach. I place my palm flat against his sternum.
His skin is hot, and his heart is pounding.
“You,” I gently squeeze his left pec, his pulse throbbing under my hand, “are very intimidating.”
One dark brow lifts. “Is that so?”
“Stunning. Unfairly devastating.”
A shadow crosses his expression, gone too quickly for me to identify.
“And you,” Marco leans in, “are the one who threw nearly a whole bag of flour at my head. I’m not the dangerous one.”
I laugh, and the tension between us becomes warm and safe.
He reaches for the buttons on my shirt with steady, deliberate fingers, unfastening each one like he has all the time in the world. When the shirt falls open, he pushes it from my shoulders and lets it drop to the floor.
His eyes travel down. Up. And down again.
“Lucia.”
Hearing him say my name in that rough, quiet tone floods heat across my skin.
He cocks his head. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
I open my mouth to argue that I probably look like a frantic miller who’s just lost a fight with a windmill. My hair tangles wildly, and I’m in nothing but my jeans and an ordinary bra, but Marco kisses me, eroding everything else but the taste and heat of him.
His mouth isn’t gentle but hungry, devouring me like he’s been starving for days. His hands slide up my back to undo the clasp of my bra, and when the fabric falls away, he draws back to admire his work. I can almost taste the way the air in the room thickens on the tip of my tongue. He stares at my breasts, and the way his breath hitches makes my stomach flip.
“You’re perfect.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Flour and all.”
Then his lips connect with my collarbone, and he kisses and laps lower until he takes one hard nipple into his mouth. My knees buckle instantly. His arm banding around my waist is the only thing that holds me upright. I clutch his shoulders, my nails digging in as I try to remember how to breathe. The heat of his tongue and the gentle scrape of teeth shoot straight through me as arousal pools low in my belly.
I gasp. “Marco.”
He hums against my skin, and the vibration nearly shatters my patience.
I can’t wait any longer. My jeans are soon gone, tossed to the floor, and his are half undone and hanging off his hips. He lays me back against the pillows and kneels beside me, gazing down at me like I’m sacred.
I’ve never desired anyone more.
“I want to taste all of you.” The smile that crosses his face is rare and unguarded. I file it away, feeling like I’ve earned a piece of his soul.
He trails kisses down my stomach and over my hip, until he settles between my thighs. His firm, relentless tongue presses against me and circles, and I stop thinking entirely.
Sensation drives the moment, and I rasp out his name like coarse gravel. He keeps my thighs open, and when he moans against my core, the vibration has me spiraling. I come apart on his lips with a cry dredged up from a place deep inside.
Only then does he rise up and over me, covering my body with his. As his hard cock presses against my thigh, my heart clenches.
“Marco?” His name is the sole word I can conjure, and it carries every admission I can’t yet voice.
