Her thighs are still splayed across mine as I inch forward rubbing the head of my dick over her clit. "You come first. I will never push for more than you can give. Do you understand that?"
"Yes," she says the words breathlessly as I slide into her. "I understand."
I don't say another word as I lower my mouth to hers and fuck her with a tenderness that I've never felt before.
***
"You're full of secrets, aren't you?"
Her voice startles me. I'm sitting in my home office. Dawn hasn't broken yet and when she'd had her fill of ice cream and me, she'd finally fallen into a deep sleep. I'd kissed her softly before I pulled myself from the bed to make a call to our European head office in Rome. I'd spoken as quietly as I could so as not to wake her.
"You're not an undercover reporter doing a story on my family, are you?" I smooth my hands over the sweatpants I'm wearing again. "Come, sit here."
She walks over quickly, her body covered by the dress shirt I wore to dinner. I prefer it on her, even though her hands have disappeared beneath the fabric of the arms.
I adjust her into the perfect spot before I circle my hands around her waist. "What new secret have you uncovered, Ms. Lane?"
"Secrets," she corrects me with a soft kiss to the mouth. "As in more than one."
I claim her mouth again, this time tracing my tongue over her bottom lip. "Tell me about these secrets."
"The first is that you're reading that new detective novel that everyone is talking about on social media." She trails her index finger over my chin.
"You saw it on the nightstand. That's hardly a secret."
"That's not the actual secret." She slides her hand to the back of my neck so she can pull me into a long, lingering kiss. "The secret is that you read the last page before you'd even finished the third chapter because you were so anxious to know the ending."
"Parli Italiano?"
"Yes," she whispers into my cheek. "I speak Italian."
"How much of that conversation did you hear?" I try to sound stern but it's futile. "More importantly, where did you learn to speak Italian?"
"I heard the last few minutes of it." She nuzzles her face into the crux of my neck. "I wasn't eavesdropping. You weren't in bed so I wanted to find you."
"I'm glad you did."
"My grandmother spoke Italian." She runs her fingers over my chest. "She loved an Italian man desperately when she was my age."
"So your grandfather is Italian?" I ask, pulling her even closer to me.
"No, the Italian man loved an Italian woman. My grandmother married a man from Ireland."
I laugh loudly. "Did the Irish man make her happy?"
"He was Irish." She tilts her head up to look into my eyes. "What do you think?"
"I think she loved him enough to marry him so he made her very happy."
"He did." She nods faintly as she cups my cheek. "Until the day he died."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Isla
"That's only one secret, Isla." He brushes his cheek against my forehead as I rest my head on his chest. "What's the other secret?"
This one is harder. It's not playful and fun. It's also not my business but I don't do well with curiosity. It eats at me. It's only a question. The worst that can happen is that he'll tell me it's none of my business.