Chapter Twenty
Valentino
I stopped cutting the salad for the sandwich fillings to look at the woman who twisted my heart until it bled. It made my voice rough, hoarse. “They’re welcome to come for me, but if they go near you I won’t hesitate to destroy every member of Sean’s family.”
She blinked. “Why does it matter who kills me? It’s not like you aren’t planning my death anyway.”
I wanted to reassure her and express my feelings, but they were still too raw, too uncharted, and I didn’t yet trust her not to use my fledgling emotions against me. “Plans change,” I muttered.
Her eyes widened, her stare moving over my bare torso. She definitely liked what she saw, but then our attraction had been sizzling from the start.
“What do you mean by that, exactly?” she asked.
“I mean, I’m not yet ready to end your life.”
I winced. Way to fuck things up. I’d sounded about as romantic as a sledgehammer.
Her breath squeezed out of her compressed lips. “So you want sex on tap for a few more weeks?”
I wanted to slap the counter while I growled out my frustration. Patience was a skill I’d acquired over the years, but I was yet to sleep and my adrenaline from earlier was fading fast. That I didn’t want to stuff things up any more than I already had with Chantilly said a lot.
She was important to me.
I resumed cutting, my voice clipped. “You don’t want to have sex with me anymore?”
She gaped. “I-I just want you to let me go.”
I placed the ham, tomato, cheese, carrot, cucumber and lettuce onto the bread, then slapped another slice of bread on top before cutting the sandwiches in half. “Not going to happen,” I finally said before I placed the halves on plates then carried them to the table.
“Thank you,” she said grudgingly as she eyed her sandwich. Despite her hostility, she ate with gusto. I ate sparingly. I was never hungry after carrying out a deadly mission. I usually enjoyed some quality scotch followed by some desperate, hardcore fucking. Then I’d shower and sleep eight hours minimum.
My dick jerked and thickened, and I shifted uncomfortably on my seat, my gaze dropping to her gaping bathrobe. She might have lost weight but her tits were still full and firm, and I knew for a fact her pussy would be tight yet welcoming. Her flat stomach had me suddenly wondering what she’d look like with it bulging with our child.
My breath hissed and my knuckles whitened as I gripped the edge of the table. Had I slipped into another dimension? Because aside from that one brief moment of insanity when she’d questioned me about protection, I certainly hadn’t wanted children before, I hadn’t even had a fleeting thought about being a father.
She left the other half of her sandwich on the plate. “Is something wrong?”
I exhaled slowly. “I’m not entirely sure,” I muttered.
“You’re not hungry?”
“Not for food.” For fucks sake. I was turning into a walking, talking cliché. That I was becoming soft inside while my dick was harder than a steel spike wasn’t helping my frame of mind. I’d told myself I’d break her spirit, so why did I feel like bits of me were cracking apart instead, exposing weaknesses I didn’t even know I had?
I pushed back my chair and stood. “I’m going for a swim.”
She stared at me. Did she know I was losing my mind? That I might be losing something even more serious to her—a piece of my heart—wasn’t something I could contemplate any longer.
I might have a lot of knowledge about her thanks to investigating everything I could about her—I did with all my targets—but I still didn’t really know her, not like someone who’d been her lover for months, years even. So why did it feel as though I’d know her my whole life?
I stalked toward the stairs, then took every second rung as I descended to the ground floor. I needed to get away from her. If I didn’t use up some of my excess energy, I might end up taking her to bed and losing myself in her instead.
And that wasn’t something I could do, not in my profession.
While she’d been in danger from Sean, I had many enemies and walked a fine line between life and death on a daily basis. I’d never cared in the past, I’d risked my life and flaunted my existence, basking in the rush that came with it.
Caution was already seeping into my bones knowing I’d have Chantilly to return to after each mission, but I wasn’t yet sure if that would help or hinder my longevity.
I tugged off my shoes then dragged off my clothes, cool air caressing my bared skin. I’d never before questioned my solitary lifestyle, not when danger was my middle name, but now I couldn’t help but ask myself if there really was room in it for someone else.
I dove into the water, stretching my body out and lifting my head out to the side as one arm stroked through the water, then the other, my feet kicking hard to propel me fast to the other end. I flip-turned and made my way back down the pool, swimming fast and doing easily a dozen laps before I began to tire.
Splash.
I stopped swimming to tread water as Chantilly’s head broke through the water and she swam languidly toward me. It wasn’t until she came straight up to me and clasped my shoulders that I realized she was as naked as me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice a harsh croak. Had her feet healed enough to get into the water? She should be bathing them in the ocean, not in my pool.
She arched a brow. “You wanted to keep me around for sex, did you not?” At my silence she slipped one of her hands to my dick and fondled it. I groaned at the tingling sizzle that thickened my shaft until it bordered on painful. Her eyes glinted. “If doing so keeps me alive, I’m not going to deny you.”
My groan mutated into a growl as I bent my head and claimed her lips, then spun her around to push her backward through the water until my feet touched the bottom. She wrapped her legs around my waist and I slipped my hand down between her thighs, then pushed a finger deep inside her.
She thrust against it and I added another finger inside her, thrusting in and out while I continued kissing her soft, opened lips. I pushed my tongue into her mouth, tasting her honeyed sweetness.
I needed more.
Wading to the edge of the pool in shallow water, I lifted her so that she sat on the edge, her tits quivering. “Lean back and spread your legs,” I commanded hoarsely.
She did as I asked, opening her thighs to expose the luscious, inner pink of her petals. I growled as I leaned forward and licked her seam, savoring her. If her mouth tasted of honey then her pussy was a citrus and cream indulgence I couldn’t get enough of.
Grasping her spread thighs, I dragged her closer, feasting on her feminine flesh for long, leisurely minutes. Her moans as I pleasured her were music to my ears. I loved that she couldn’t fight me in this, loved that she was as invested in our chemistry as I was. She was all but vibrating with her coming release.
It wasn’t until I lashed her clit with my tongue then sucked her engorged little bud that she arched and writhed against me, then stiffened before she cried out at the sudden climax that gripped her and wouldn’t let her go.
The flood of her essence was an aphrodisiac that I lapped at greedily. Though I wanted to continue sucking and licking her clit until it was swollen and red-raw, and she orgasmed over and over, I needed desperately to sink deep inside her.
I needed to fill her like I needed my next breath.
Gripping her hips, I flipped her around so that her ass was sticking up into the air and her pussy was open and inviting. She’d have bruises on her limbs come morning, but I intended to make it worth the pain.
“I’m not going to be gentle,” I warned.
She looked behind at me, her eyes glinting. “I don’t want it gentle,” she conceded huskily.
Her words alone made my seed boil in my nuts, and I grunted as I aligned my length, then thrust deep, her expelled breath sounding somewhere between pleasure and pain. I didn’t hold back. I slammed into her harder, deeper and faster, my fingers digging into her skin as I held onto her.
Water splashed and sloshed as our skin slapped together, the friction as I drilled into her becoming hotter and hotter. Her inner muscles tightened and I knew she was close. I was closer. I dropped one hand from her hip to pinch her clit. She shrieked as she came, her inner muscles clenching so hard my seed exploded out of me in great long spurts.
My guttural growl was as primitive as the act itself, stars filling my vision until all I could see for a few seconds was blinding white.
Heaven help me.
Sex with Tilly took me to another world even as it completed me, made me whole. Little wonder I was addicted to it…addicted to her.
I withdrew from her carefully, reluctantly, bending over then to kiss her on the nape, where a little black rose had been inked in her skin. Did it have meaning? Or did she get it done on a whim?
Right then didn’t seem the right time to ask questions or even have a conversation. Silence thrummed between us as we left the pool behind and climbed the internal stairs to use the bathroom, where we allowed hot water to pelt over us as we scrubbed shampoo into each other’s hair before we soaped each other’s body.
Only once we’d stepped out of the shower and dried each other off did I mutter, “Let’s go to bed.”
I didn’t miss her wry look as she glanced out the window to the sunny day outside.
“We’ll have dinner out on the balcony later,” I reassured.
She didn’t argue, and for that I was grateful. I needed to lock my arms around her before I blacked out.
I did exactly that.