“You’re beautiful.”
A moment later, I gasp as I feel two fingers dip into my folds, then rub my clit. He pulls them away, and I hear him undo his belt, unzip his pants. His hands cup my ass, splay me open. His breathing is shorter, and so is mine as I anticipate what will happen. What he’ll do. And when he slides his thick cock into me, I bite my lip and take him, feel him stretch me.
“Do you want me because I look like her?” I force myself to ask only because I don’t have to look at his face when he answers.
He’s moving slowly, hands keeping me spread, my pussy wet for him, dripping for him. He pulls out, and I feel a sense of loss. When I move, he sets one hand on top of mine and the other on the back of my head, turning my forehead back into the wall, keeping my arms over my head.
“Stay.”
“Do you?” I ask again. He brushes his knuckles over my back, right down the center of it.
I gasp, it’s barely a touch. He’s being careful with me, and that featherlight touch is sending shudders along my spine.
His mouth is on me then, kissing the back of my neck. My eyes close, and I catch my breath. I hear how it quivers as he tenderly kisses what must be every ugly scar on my back.
“Do you want me because I remind you of her?” I don’t want to ask it. I don’t want to spoil this moment, this tenderness, but I have to. Because tenderness, it doesn’t belong to me.
My eyes are still closed, and I’m still just feeling him when he reaches my lower back, kisses me there.
“Is that it?” I ask.
He straightens. He’s naked behind me and pressing against me. He kisses my cheek. “No,” he says before sliding down, splaying me open again, licking the length of me, then coming back up to kiss my cheek.
“Is it because you couldn’t save her? Am I your second chance?”
He stops, and I feel his body go rigid, just for a minute, just long enough to tell me there’s some truth to my words.
“I was a boy then, Emilia. And she’s dead and buried. Let her lie. This isn’t about her. I’m here with you. You.” His fingers slide down over my back again. “I have no secrets. But you? These lines? They hide something. Something darker lies beneath them. Tell me. Tell me your secrets.”
But he’s kissing me again, my back, my neck. It’s not my secrets he wants. Not right now. I wonder if he’d want me at all if he knew. If he’d touch me like this.
A tear runs down my cheek, then another. I feel my hands slipping from the wall, and I’m cold, so cold. He’s naked behind me, taking my arms, hugging me to him from behind. He drags my arms upward, takes both wrists into one hand and holds them against the wall as he resumes kissing my neck, my back. He turns me around, and I know he isn’t surprised by my tears because he kisses them too. He kisses my face, then my mouth, and it’s the most sensual thing I’ve ever felt. The most erotic touch. The most gentle.
I don’t know gentle. I never have. All the men in my life have hurt me. All except my father. I thought Giovanni was just one more to add to that list.
My arms wrap around his shoulders, and I’m kissing him back. My eyes are closed, and I feel the urgency to be with him. It’s not the sex. It’s not getting off. It’s not those things, and it scares the fuck out of me what it is. I wonder if he feels it too. This need. This strange need to be close. Closer. Closest.
A moment later I’m lying beneath him, Giovanni’s still kissing me, and when he slides inside me, I catch my breath and barely stop the words that are about to tumble from my mouth because they make no sense. They can’t.
I know he feels the shift the moment it happens, the instant I stiffen, because his fist is in my hair and he’s forcing my head back, forcing my eyes to open.
“What happened to you?” he asks, but he’s still fucking me. Watching me intently as he thrusts.
I shake my head, feel a tear slide from the corner of my eye down over my temple. I hold onto him, hold him tight to me. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want his eyes on me. I don’t want him to see me. I just need him to hold me like this for a little bit. Just for a few minutes because I can’t ask for more. Forever doesn’t belong to someone like me. I just need to feel him inside me now, feel his weight on me, covering me, hiding me.