“Why?” she asks, her voice small, her face that of the frightened, lost, little girl again. “Why do you keep doing it?”

“Because…” Fuck. I can’t finish.

“Why do you keep bothering with me? I’m broken. There’s nothing left to break. You said it yourself. Why fucking bother? I’m damaged goods. How can you want that?”

It’s quiet for a second. Just the sound of a sniffle from her.

“Because as fucked-up as it is, maybe I want to fix you.” I let her go, feel her slip from my grasp. “Unbreak you.”

She lets out a choked sob. “You can’t unbreak something. It doesn’t work that way.” Her voice cracks. She wipes the back of her hand across her face. “But you’re wrong about one thing, you know that?” She collapses onto the bed like her knees can’t support her anymore.

I look down at her. She’s quieter. Tears slide down her cheeks and turn her eyes and the tip of her nose red and she’s licking them from her lips.

“You’re wrong,” she says again. “There is more to break. And I’m scared you’re going to be the one to do it. To shatter what’s left of me.”

I watch her, her pretty green eyes so sad now.

No, not just now. Always. Always sad.

She bows her head, and I see tears fall and land on the bed. Emilia, small and alone in my bed.21EmiliaI must look so pathetic to him. So weak. I half expect him to walk away, walk out the door. Leave me here, a sad, miserable mess.

But then he does something that surprises me. He crouches down and wraps one arm around me. I feel his warmth, his strength. Giovanni pulls me into him, and I let him. I let myself fall into him. My head is in the crook of his neck and my tears are wet on his skin and I feel myself tremble. Hear myself sob. And it’s different than before. Different than any other time. This time, I’m giving my pain. Letting someone else carry it for a little while.

He holds me like this for a long time, and when I quiet, he says my name, turns my face up to his. He kisses me, and I wonder if he tastes the salt of my tears on my lips when he does. I kiss him back. He lifts me in his arms and lays me on the bed, and I cling to him. I don’t want to be apart from him. I can’t get close enough to him

My hands slip from his neck because I want more. I need more. I undo his pants and push them down and he’s between my legs and then he’s filling me up. He’s inside me, and it’s all that matters. This. Right now. Us. Him and me. Him inside me.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Break you. I fucking love you,” he says. It’s a whisper, and the words sound so strange on his tongue.

I put my hands on his face. I want to see him, see his eyes, and I know in that instant, I can’t ever be without him. I don’t close my eyes when I kiss him, and he moves inside me, fucking me, his breath coming shorter as I cling to him, wrap my legs around him, want him deeper still. I know he feels me come. He was waiting for that because I feel him throb inside me then. I look at him, and his face is just inches from mine. We come together, and I think neither of us wants it to end.

He holds me afterward. I think about what he said. About fixing me. Unbreaking me.

It’s like he reads my mind. “I want to amend what I said,” he pauses. “I don’t want to fix you. I’ll take you exactly as you are. All the broken pieces of you.”

I smile a little. “I didn’t believe all that about you. I don’t even know why I asked you. I should have told you your father came to see me.”

He just gives a short nod, but his eyes harden at the mention of the old man.

“You aren’t going to follow through with your threat?” I suddenly remember it.

“That business is between me and my father.”

“Giovanni, don’t. It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.”

He doesn’t answer. I relax again, realizing I had tensed up when the conversation had taken that turn. I change the subject.

“Can I ask you something?”

“I don’t want to talk about my father.”

“It’s not about that.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“When we were at that safe house, where my father was. Did I…say it out loud?”

A smile spreads across his face. “You mean did you tell me you loved me?”

I open my mouth to speak, to tell him to wipe that grin off his face, but just then, there’s an urgent knock on the door and Vincent calls out. Giovanni’s smile vanishes in an instant.

Tags: Natasha Knight Benedetti Brothers Erotic
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