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"Bella mia."

"Please—"

"Tell me."

"Don't stop."

"I won't."

I take my hand away.

The noise she makes is almost a sob. I put my hands on her, spread her open, and lean down.

"Valentino—"

My mouth finds her before she finishes my name.

She cries out, her whole body lifting. I hold her hips and keep her where I want her still, open, mine. I taste her the way I have wanted to since she laughed at me on the hotel steps in that pink dress.

Flat. Then a slow line. I find her clit and stay until she's shaking, then pull back until she whimpers, then return.

"Oh my God⁠—"

"Quiet, bella."

"I can't⁠—"

"Into the rug. Quiet. Elio or Luca are somewhere."

She pushes her body on my face and I laugh against her, then I go back to work.

Her thighs start shaking.

I slide two fingers into her. She's tight and hot and wet and she clenches around me the second I'm in her.

I nearly come in my fucking pants.

"I'm—"

"I know. Come for me."

Her whole body pulls tight and then breaks. I work her through all of it, slow, gentle, until she's shivering.

I kiss the inside of her thigh, then the other one.

I lean back, tracing my eyes over every inch.

She's face down on the rug, hair everywhere, breathing like she ran a marathon.

"Bella."

"Mm."

"Look at me."

She turns her head. Her cheek on the rug.

I am so far past the man who stood outside her bathroom door that I cannot find my way back to him.