Chapter 24 #2
Armed with another, Sophie flashes a clipping of us that my mother must have torn from a newspaper. Even the discolored cutout can’t hide the love in Sophie’s eyes as she gazed at me amid the chaos of the crowded streets.
The last one she reveals is us in my father’s penthouse.
It was my birthday. My father gave money, as usual.
A clear afterthought, although I didn’t blame him.
I knew he was up to his ears in shit, and getting me something I didn’t even want was low on the list of priorities.
Besides, he knew my mother would do the shopping for them both.
Using his black card, she bought a few suits.
These gifts were typical, even expected.
I’d celebrated countless birthdays with Sophie growing up, but never one where she had something for me.
She waited until my father left the room before slipping an envelope into my lap.
An itinerary. The camera captured my confused smile well, but Sophie’s face…
Cazzo .
She loved me. Even then, she loved me.
I just didn’t know it yet.
I pluck the image from her hand. “You took me through Central Park.”
“We retraced our first date, finished off the night at your hotel.” She bites down on her lip, stuck on that photo. “Since we had our first kiss there. Fighting like idiots.”
“If I remember correctly, I didn’t waste my time fighting that second time.”
Amber flames highlight her fairness as she shields a laugh with her hand. “I was a changed woman that night.”
“I had to replace that bedframe.”
She gapes. “You didn’t…”
“I had to tell Aida and everything.”
“Oh, that’s mortifying .”
I grin. “Wasn’t to me.”
She playfully swats my chest, snatches the photo from my hand, and tosses it aside before climbing onto my lap .
Tucking her hair behind her ears, she gazes down at me, her eyes sparkling with intoxication.
“I think we need a do-over.”
Music to my fucking ears.
My smile spreads as she greedily nuzzles her mouth against mine, her hands already slipping under my sweater, deliciously cool against my flushed skin. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.”
I nod, uncertain if I’m lightheaded from her emboldened fingers or the excessive amount of liquor in my system. While I usually initiate most of the affection between us, tonight, she is the one pushing the fabric of my sweater over my abdomen, leaving traces of her lips on my skin.
Years of deprivation. Years of wanting to tear my own skin off rather than confront that I’d never have this again.
Years of lying in an empty bed, finding fleeting pleasure in what memories I had left of her that weren’t bloody scars, my hand spurring a release that would reawaken the ache rather than dull it.
Her mouth sweeps across my chest with a blaze of passion while her hands ease the cashmere up until it’s over my head.
Basking in her unusual fierceness, I yield to her, just watching her work over me, anticipating her next decision.
Her lips glide down my body to the dark hair at the base of my stomach, her fingers unfastening the button of my slacks.
Sophie guides the material past my legs until I’m laid bare beside her, watching her eyes absorb every unconcealed inch, desire flushing her features.
I lay back, arm propping my head to watch her hand roam freely.
It takes every ounce of control I have to remain still, to give her time when I think I’ll go insane if I don’t get her underneath me.
Her fingers are delicate as they trace along my ribs, gliding over the contours of my stomach, reaching the dip of my hip.
They explore the strong curve of my throat, lingering on my chest hair.
She’s stretched time so beyond what I can handle that when her hand nudges my cock before gripping it, her thumb glides through thick moisture that’s seeped from the wide crown in my restraint.
I’m goddamn rigid when she slips to my side, draping her leg over mine as she establishes a steady rhythm over the stiffness before relaxing her grip, smiling when I suck in a breath, completely unwound.
She doesn’t flinch when my hand fists in her hair, holding her against my face, just within reach.
Her nod comes with a shiver, rough and desperate, as she watches me come apart right in front of her. She’s ready for it when my mouth bruises hers, unable to control myself.
“Sophie,” I groan, desperate for more.
“Not yet,” she breathes against me, catching me off guard.
That’s goddamn impossible.
It’s then that she retraces her path along my body, kissing, biting, and nuzzling until I realize where she’s going, but I still can't anticipate when her mouth closes over my cock.
My eyes squeeze shut, a brutal sound escaping my lips.
Every time she hollows her cheeks, I’m breathing out ravings that match a harsh rumble, too much pleasure rippling through my body to stay sane.
Cavolo, è da togliere il fiato.
Beautiful. Too damn beautiful.
Raking my hair back, I lean on my elbows to fully observe how she glides the tip of her tongue along the underside, so light I can only feel her breath against my skin as her hands grip the base, twisting just as her mouth draws in the swollen crown.
Her hair tumbles over my abdomen, brushing against my thighs. Refusing to miss a moment of this, my fingers push the tresses aside, wanting— needing —to see her lips divide.
Each time her eyes rise, intensely dilated, I'm so goddamn close, holding off to only keep this going. To keep my hands buried in her hair, guiding her onto me, hearing her moan when she feels the way my body responds to her love.
My legs shudder.
My chest constricts, struggling to find air.
My praises are strained, reminding her that this is all I have fucking dreamed of for four years— no —all of my goddamn life.
She wraps her fingers around my cock, encasing it in the warmth of her grip, her strokes smooth and deliberate.
She isn’t going to stop.
Her name bursts through my lips, a warning. “Sophie.”
She engulfs my cock as deeply as she can, far enough that we both haul in a breath, tensing.
Oh, fuck . Fuck. Fuck .
There’s no going back.
Any caution I had, it’s gone—thrown to the fucking wind as I pump my hips onto her, losing focus.
Everything blurs. I feel her. Just her.
Her fingertips digging into my skin, her sleek tongue dragging over the thick veins that formed when I was trying to be gentle. She’s pushed me past my limits, but I only want what she wants.
And the truth is that she may not be ready for this.
“Baby...”
My cock slips from her into her waiting palm. A punishment for holding off. Fuck. Me . I throw my head back in frustration, barely managing a laugh. “Don’t do this to me.”
Four years ago, she was never this bold. This is the liquor.
This is an unleashing of what’s inside her.
Her desires.
And it’s all for me.
“Beg me,” she whispers.
Four years ago, that would’ve been hard for me. Not now.
“Please, baby.” My chest is crashing. “Fuck, please. ”
“Tell me you want me.”
“You know I do.”
“Say it.”
“I want you.”
She’s pumping slow. Slow enough to drive me insane.
“Tell me you love me.”
“Ti amo da impazzire.” My languages are blurring.
Every word, spoken softly against my dick, makes me sure I’ll come without anything else. This is enough.
“Tell me to make you come.”
Our eyes meet. I’m sure she’s looking at a beast.
“Make me come,” I demand, sharpening every syllable.
“Dammelo.”
Give it to me.
She takes me in deep, this time with purpose.
I get half of her name out of my mouth before I’m there.
She flinches at the initial burst of release, yet her lips remain drawn, using every tool at her disposal to spur more out of me.
More pleasure, more come. She continues until I’m breathing her name repeatedly, trying and failing to soften my grip in her hair.
I’m wrecked.
The come down from that high is next to impossible.
My eyes roll to a close, wincing as she recovers her breath, pumping languidly. She holds my cock like she owns it, and she does. In sheer amazement, I shake my head, grinning down at her dazed smile and those flushed cheeks.
I dip my thumb onto her swollen lip. “You like hearing me beg?”
She hums, nipping the tip of my finger. “See for yourself.”
Stunning me, she pushes back, laying her palms flat on the blanket, sliding one leg open, then the other. Every muscle in my body locks up when she slides the dress over her hip slowly, exposing herself, touching the wet fabric clinging to her .
“Only you can make this happen.”
Those words alone, and I’m ready. Ready to take her on my terms.
She looks relieved to relinquish the reins, melting into my grasp as I move over her, giving her no choice but to lie flat on her back, caging her in.
Her skin is hot to the touch, as if a fever blazes underneath. As if her veins are flooding with molten lava. I kiss her, seared by the same desperate chaos.
I loosen the halter top of her dress, sliding the fabric along her curves, marveling at how the flickering light casts shadows on her skin.
Ice tumbles against the glass beside the blanket, gradually melting away, unable to compete with the flames.
When my fingers dig out a cube, her eyes widen with disbelief, then anticipation.
As she tormented me, I’ll slowly savor her.
I’ll talk her through it.
“I’ve had four years to dream of you. This body.” A shiver runs through her as I press the cube against her throat, gliding the ice down to the dip between her breasts. “These breasts.”
“There’s really been no one else?”
“No one. I was content with dreaming if it wasn’t you.”
I watch her chest rise high and fall low, tracing her nipples in excruciatingly slow circles, stiff again when I catch as they peak, goosebumps scattering across her skin, illuminated by the light of the fire.
“Every night, it was this body I’d close my eyes to see.”
The melting ice sweeps across her skin as I drag it over her taut stomach, transfixed by the way the water streams down her sides, clinging to her as I plan to.
She inhales sharply when I bend my head to drink, trailing my tongue over the refreshing blend of water and whiskey. I kiss, suck, and bite my way up to her breasts, enveloping them with my hands with a soft squeeze .
Her nipple chills my searing tongue, causing her to cry out whenever my teeth graze the tender bud. Her body, it instinctively gravitates to my mouth.
I can’t get enough. I want more.
I want to evoke such pleasure from her that the sounds of her ecstasy will be etched in my mind forever.
It isn’t enough to bury my face between her legs, to coax her to a peak with my tongue.
Even as she struggles to recover, her legs still trembling against my shoulders as I drink her in, feasting on the sweetness easing from her in the aftermath, I’m searching for another way to remind her of what this can be between us.
How goddamn different it is from anything else in the world.
Beside a roaring fire, I draw her to me, hitching her leg over my hip until our bodies are pressed together.
Her lips are moist against my chest as I support the back of her head, encircling her waist with my arm, guiding her down onto my cock slowly, wanting to savor every goddamn inch she gives me.
Her hands extended across my back, tracing its full width.
“Oh fuck. Oh fuck,” she says repeatedly as I stretch her.
Working my mouth over her shoulders to the base of her neck, pushing her hair off one of her shoulders, I grind against her, over and over, urged on by the small whimper she lets out every time I ease back in.
The vanilla that clings to her hair teases my nostrils. Her aroma. It makes the world spin until I'm fucking blind. Savage—making up for the years I was deprived.
“You’re close,” I say through gritted teeth.
She’s squeezing the hell out of me.
Sophie lets out a weak, tired sound, her fingers tracing the shape of my jaw, angling my face to hers. “You feel so right… so right.”
“Because I'm yours.”
I'm hers. I’ll always be hers .
There’s never been anyone else.
The only audible signs of life in this manor are the charged moans falling past our lips, the wet sleekness of her arousal coating my length every time I slip back home.
It’s so perfect that I'm momentarily convinced my dreams could be this graphic, but then my lips graze a scar under her eye and I'm right back in the present, holding onto her for dear life as she unravels in my clutches, shuddering as I draw out the sensitive nerves within her. I’ll never get tired of seeing her this way—panting, so overwhelmed until she isn’t.
Until she’s gone totally lax in my grasp.
We crumble as one, locked in a tight embrace.
The weight of the world becomes a dull roar in our aftermath. She grabs my hand, the solid wedding band digging into my finger as she laces them. I can’t catch my breath right away, unable to recover. When I find the strength, I wince, scooping her up, smiling at how limp she’s become in my grasp.
Leaving behind the scrapbooks, empty whiskey decanters, and unsettling picture frames turned to ash in the fireplace, I carry her through the shadowy halls.
“I’ve spent you, haven’t I?”
She nods into my throat, her eyes already closed as I reach the top of the stairs. The hallway is as dark as the rest of the house, but I know this place like the back of my hand.
For a moment, I contemplate bringing her to the bedroom I’ve slept in for the past year, unable to handle what’s inside the master. But tonight is different.
Pulling open the door to the largest room in the house, I pass all of our things and lay her down on the cold mattress, pulling back the covers to drape them over her.
Sophie extends a hand towards me, curling onto her side. “Don’t go.”
I'm already sliding in behind her, pulling her to me when I say, “I'm not going anywhere.”