“Command me, amore. You only have to breathe, to just be, and I would literally die for you.”
Before her mind could wrap around those earthshaking words, he rose over her, opened her wide around his hips and slid his hardness between the molten lips of her core. He nudged her nub and the world vanished in a burst of pleasure.
It came so quickly, a boil in her blood, a tightening in depths that now knew exactly how to unfurl and undo her. She opened herself for him, knowing he would only pleasure her this way, undulating faster against him until another orgasm, different yet still magnificent, tore through her.
He pinned her down as she came, gliding his shaft against her quivering flesh in the exact pressure and rhythm to drain her of every spark her body needed to discharge.
After she slumped in quivering fulfillment, he rose between her spread legs and pumped himself to a roaring climax.
Watching him take his pleasure over her trembling body, the body he now owned, was mesmerizing. It was the most flagrantly erotic sight she’d ever witnessed, and the most profoundly fulfilling emotion she’d ever felt.
Pulling her to his body, he mingled their sweat and pleasure and heartbeats, surrounding her in his love and cherishing, dragging her into a realm of safety and contentment.
* * *
When next she woke up, it was to Antonio’s caresses.
He was wiping her down with something wet and warm. Moaning, she opened her eyes to find him bent over her in dim, golden light, a being out of a fable, cosseting and worshipping her. Joy surged on a tremulous smile as she sought his eyes, only for it to be aborted at the sight of the disturbed expression in their depths.
That had her scrambling up, her heart shedding its languor, starting to drum painfully. “What’s wrong, Antonio?”
He exhaled, continued to rub her stomach. “I was watching you sleeping so trustingly in my arms...and I kept wondering how you feel the same for me. Or how you’d continue to.”
She stopped his hand. “Where is this coming from?”
Extricating his hand from her grip, he threw the hand towel aside squeezed his eyes shut briefly. “Apart from my...partners, I never had any relationship of any sort with anyone.”
This was all? She poked her elbow in his side, inviting him to grin back at her. “Same here.”
“You’re nowhere near the same, mi amore.”
“Of course I’m not. You’re unique.”
He shook his head. “It’s you who are. While having more money and power than almost anyone doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near your level.”
“I already told you I don’t factor your money and power in your uniqueness. The man you are beneath the trappings, the force of nature who achieved such success, who saves lives and puts bodies back together like no one else can, who turns everything he touches into the best it can be...that’s the man I love.”
“Dio mio, dea mia. You’re far more than I ever imagined anyone could be. You’re far better than I deserve.”
She scrambled up to her knees, caught his hot face in trembling hands. “Why, my love? Why do you feel that way? When you said you feared I’d be the one to lose interest, I thought you were being gallant. But you meant it, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “It scares me like nothing has before, that one day you’ll look inside me and hate what you see.”
This was more serious than she’d first imagined. And it needed to be resolved, at once.
She sat back on her heels, feeling it was the most natural thing to be naked with him in every sense of the word.
“When you told me you grew up without your father, too, I thought I saw scars beyond your perfect, placid facade and I hoped they’d been long healed. But now I feel this goes far deeper than growing up fatherless like me, that you suffered way more hardships and injustices and abuse than anything I can imagine. And it makes me even more proud of you and in awe of what you attained in spite of it all.”
“What if you’re right, and there’s way more to me that you can dream of in your worst nightmares? What if it’s so terrible that if you knew, it would send you away screaming?”
“You’re not hypothesizing, are you? You’re really afraid I can’t handle the truth.” His eyes went bleak, overwhelming her with the need to unburden him. She pressed her hands to his heart, needing to absorb his pain. “This damage I feel inside you...it goes beyond a physical or psychological ordeal. You’ve...done things. Ugly things.” His gaze faltered, and it felt as if his last reluctance gave way, letting her plunge deep. And she felt she was reading everything inside him, dragging out every festering darkness. Her voice shook as she put what she saw into words. “You were involved in...violence. You used your skills in cold-blooded and lethal ways. Even to...kill.”
She bated her breath as his eyes widened, stunned.
Then all the fire that had ever been there was extinguished and he only said, “Yes.”
* * *