Chapter Fifteen #2
‘Look at me,’ Jasmine instructed and he obeyed. ‘Eyes on me, Emilio.’
As if he could look anywhere else.
She lowered herself onto him and it was far beyond heaven. Beyond anything he could think of.
‘Oh, Dio, si.’ He groaned. The feeling of her was incredible; watching their bodies connect, divine.
And, once she had taken all of him, he was completely overwhelmed.
The first time they had slept together, Emilio had changed because nothing had ever come close to that feeling.
But this? This made even that first time pale in comparison. ‘Give me a moment, amore .’
‘I thought I’m in control, Mr De Luca,’ she said with a cocked brow. She was, so he relinquished control. Gave in to the feelings she brought out of him as she began to move her hips. ‘I love making you desperate.’
‘Siren…’ he tried to say but it came out breathless and strangled, making her laugh some more.
It was a sound so joyous, it healed the broken parts of him like some sort of emotional urushi .
His soul turning into a piece of kintsugi art.
The gold did not hide his damage but showed the beauty of healing despite it.
He grabbed her face and pulled her down, kissing her hard.
His ardour was obvious. He hoped she could feel his love even though he couldn’t quite say it.
Not when those were the last words he had said to his mother.
He had only just put himself back together.
He couldn’t risk saying the words that could shatter him again.
Not when Jasmine hadn’t indicated an affection that had grown as strong as love for him.
Emilio couldn’t let go of her and so, when her rhythm started to fail, he took over.
His pistoning hips driving them both further and further towards their peak as he held her against his body.
Her moans mingling with his. Their breaths becoming one.
And, with cries in complete sync, they shattered through that pinnacle barrelling into the infinite Eden of their pleasure.
‘Sei la vita mia,’ he whispered in the aftermath of his release, his forehead against hers: you are my life .
She was. This was. What they’d created. What they were creating: the family life he had never had.
Jasmine kissed him sweetly. ‘Emilio, I’m not done with you. I want to taste you.’ Light fingers danced on his hip, teasing, demanding. Perfect. So close to where he wanted her touch, where he ached for it. An ache he had come to understand would never go away.
‘I can feel how much you want me,’ she said.
The sun was going down, casting a spotlight into the room and catching Jasmine’s back. Leaning on her elbow, hovering above him, she looked angelic, with a golden aura around her. ‘ Belleza , torment me.’
Jasmine grinned.
Her smile lit a lamp in the darkest parts of his soul.
Her happiness felt like his own. Seeing her here, happy, unguarded, was the greatest gift and he wondered what it would be like when they returned to New York.
Would he kiss her and send her off to SOP, as the in-charge woman he admired, only for her to return home as the laid back, uninhibited Jasmine he got to see in private? Because that was what he wanted.
A lifetime of this.
He watched with a held breath as Jasmine moved down his body.
She had briefly teased him with her mouth that night at the club and he’d never forgotten it.
He played that moment over in his head when he lay in his bed alone, when he showered.
The memory even popped into his head unbidden when he could do nothing about it. When he was at work. In a meeting.
This woman had got into his blood from the first moment.
‘Look how hard you are for me.’
‘Jasmine,’ he said in a strangled voice that made her chuckle. He closed his eyes and pushed his head back into the pillows. ‘You’re wicked.’
And, as if to prove him right, she licked him in a long stroke from base to tip.
Desire exploded in his body and, when she took him into her wet, warm mouth, pleasure coiled in the base of his spine and stole his breath.
He needed to look but was unprepared for the sight of his erection disappearing between her lips.
No fantasy compared to this sight. To this feeling.
Emilio grabbed onto the covers, curling his hands into fists, seeking some relief from this onslaught of wicked pleasure.
But then Jasmine took his hand and placed it on her head; he sunk his fingers into the soft curls, and was struck by the importance of this moment.
Of course Emilio had done this with other women—it had come with his hard-partying lifestyle—but there had never been emotion in it.
It had always been about the end. With Jasmine, he was willing to be vulnerable with her.
To let her lead, and she trusted him enough to be at the mercy of his lust.
‘I have little incentive to trust.’
He fought for control then. Fought to honour that trust.
‘Let go, Emilio.’ Jasmine looked up at him, hazel eyes shining. ‘Let go with me. You’re safe with me. I want this.’
‘I…’
‘Let go,’ she urged, and then her mouth was back on him, giving him no choice, so he gave in.
His hips bucked and she made a noise of approval that only made his passion burn brighter until his body was pulled taut for an eternal moment, before shattering into a release so powerful it robbed him of his vision.
A sound that was entirely guttural, animalistic, leaving his lips.
And, before he could even open his eyes, he was pulling Jasmine up and kissing her deeply.
He was irrevocably in love with her. He was immutably hers.
Even if all she ever did was trust him this much, the truth of it would never change.
Emilio had loved before without being loved back; he could do it again, because this time it was with the mother of his child, and simply being in her orbit was a privilege he couldn’t squander.
‘Non posso vivere senza di te,’ he said softly. He knew she didn’t understand Italian, but he had to say the words, even if they were just for him: I can’t live without you .
But you don’t deserve her either.
That was true. He didn’t. But he had to hold onto her because she would leave…
she would never choose him if she found out about Gia.
He knew Jasmine wouldn’t forgive him for keeping a secret, but she also wouldn’t forgive the secret he kept.
Not telling her was the lesser of the two evils.
It would allow this paradise between them to live on, so he would take the risk. He would take the secret to his grave.
‘I have a question for you,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Have you ever been to Venezia?’ Emilio was aware that they would have to return to New York soon, but he wasn’t ready to let go of this dream just yet.
‘I haven’t been to any other part of Italy,’ she replied.
He could rectify that. ‘How would you like to go to a gallery opening tomorrow?’
‘I’d love that.’