Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Adriano fed the last piece of the cake to Nyra. A crumb danced on her lower lip, inviting him. Leaning down, he licked it off.
“It tastes even better on your lips, cara .”
Gripping his jaw to hold him, the minx caught his lips in a kiss that sent dizzying heat through every limb.
It was this very passion, this naked, artless hunger of hers, that had once lured him in and then bound her to him forever. Now it was underscored by something else, the rough tug of her teeth over his lower lip tinged with raw desperation.
The taste of which he had known all evening. And his harsh words to his mother—while there was no resolution and would never be—had purged something from deep inside him. Just like Nyra said she was trying to do. It made him feel lighter, to see this woman and everything she brought to his life with fresh appreciation.
With a harsh groan, he swept his tongue through her mouth, pulling her closer. All evening, he’d watch her flit from man to man like a colorful butterfly, and it had scraped him raw to see her bestow her smiles and wit on them.
And now to know that she was his in this abandon—only his, all her secrets, all her desires—soothed him.
She was soft and warm in his hands, and the rough slide of her curves against his body was both a thrill and a torment.
Lust beat at him in relentless waves, but something else, something softer pulsed beneath it.
A long overdue picture was emerging in his head of Nyra as a girl, as part of a twin bond, as a teenager, a survivor and the woman he knew now. Of how the world had let her down and he had been part of that very world too.
Of how she was finding her way to herself through this marriage, through their own strife and now through impending motherhood.
Of how bravely she had taken on the very same people at the party this evening who had, and would, mock and judge her behind her back for months to come.
All to carve a place in his world for herself.
The tightness in his chest, it seemed, was tenderness. Even affection.
He’d felt something similar for Fabi, Bruno, even Federico, but this was different in a way he couldn’t explain to himself. Neither was it something he’d ever wanted to express. At least until now.
Maybe because he’d spent the first half of his life craving it from his parents, and the other half teaching himself to not need it.
Until he’d met the now-trembling woman in his arms in Vegas, he’d written off passion and marriage, and this…sense of belonging to something bigger than him.
So much for his best-laid plans and his arrogance, believing that life would pan out exactly as he’d planned. Now he had a wife who could turn him upside down with one small act, and he was about to be the father of two innocents.
Every facet of himself that Nyra unlocked was as much a surprise as she continued to be herself.
And he still didn’t trust this…expansiveness he felt in his gut. Didn’t dare let it rule him. Because there were no equations he could calculate, no rules he could follow to minimize the risk, to even the odds.
No way for him to know when he might be left alone in the darkness again. It was all so out of his control and he wasn’t sure if he would ever give himself over to it completely. To her completely.
But he would let nothing touch it, ever again.
“Don’t move,” he whispered into the soft skin at the arch of her neck.
“If you leave me here for too long,” she said, reluctantly releasing him, “I might fall asleep standing.”
He studied her with a growing frown. Dark shadows cradled her overly bright eyes, but he was loath to let the evening end. He wanted to devour her. Leave her as knocked out as she’d made him feel with that cake. “Do you want to go to bed?”
“I know it’s your birthday but I was hoping to get a present out of it too,” she said cheekily.
Lust beat a tattoo through his body. “And what is it that you want?”
“There are only two things I want anymore. Food and sex. Either I’m hungry or I’m horny. While I have several sources for the first, the second—”
He pressed his finger to her lip, knowing the soft kitten was flexing her claws with him. “Which one do you want now?”
She licked his finger pad before sucking it into her mouth. His erection turned so painful that he cursed.
Releasing his finger, she pouted prettily. “The latter.”
“Keep talking,” he said, going through the cabinets around him.
“Apparently, some women can get extra horny during pregnancy and I’m clearly one of them,” Nyra said, tracking his movements like a laser pointer. “Also, I was thinking we should just like…front load a lot of it now, y’know. Who knows how much time and privacy we’ll even get once these two arrive?”
He chuckled, finally spotting the thing he wanted. “Front load a lot of sex?”
“Yep. Like really glut ourselves on it. So that I can live off of the memories.”
“Memories? I’m not going anywhere, Nyra,” he said, and then proceeded to cut the bodice of the dress with the scissors.
Eyes wide in her tired face, she watched him as he cut strips of the red fabric off. A gasp escaped her. “Adriano?”
“I hate this dress.”
“It cost thousands of pounds and it’s by that designer that everyone’s salivating over and—”
“Not a fan, bella ,” he said, continuing the snip-snip until it fell away from her body, leaving her in a nude-colored bra and matching panties. The latter was a flimsy piece of lace so high cut that he could see the shape of her through it. His mouth watered.
“Not a fan of the dress, the makeup, or the hair,” he said, discarding the scissors with a flick of his wrist.
Her look of helplessness turned into a glare. A sigh whistled through her lips, as if she was accepting defeat. “Is there anything you liked about tonight?”
He ran a finger over the lace of her bra and watched in fascination as her breasts rose and fell. “Your changing body fascinates me endlessly, cara .”
Her throat bobbed in a swallow, and the pulse at her neck invited his attention. “That’s not an answer.”
He pulled the strap of her bra with one hand while tracing the seam of her lace panties with the other. “Something tells me you picked these. For me.”
Her tongue swiped out. “Yes.”
“They’re perfect. They’re you, Nyra.”
“Is there so much of a difference, Adriano?”
“ Si. For me. I don’t want you to turn into one of them,” he said, going to his knees.
She trembled as he grabbed her thighs to steady her. Little beads of perspiration danced over her upper lip. And he knew she was as excited as he was for this.
“One of whom?” Her voice went deep and husky as he pressed a kiss to the swell of her belly and trailed down.
He pulled at the seam of her panties with his teeth and the flimsy thing tore apart.
Finally, her fingers sank into his hair and tugged hard. “It’s your birthday. I meant to do this for you.”
He grinned and laced his fingers over her ankle. There was so much of her he wanted to kiss, needed to brand.
Slowly, so as not to disturb her balance, he lifted her foot and placed it on the chair he had vacated. Opening the deepest, prettiest parts of her to his greedy gaze.
“Holy hell, Adriano,” she said, her breaths serrated pants now. “I must look…obscene.”
“You’re pretty, bella , everywhere.” He ran a finger over the strip. “As for a birthday present, how can I not taste you when you went to all this trouble?”
“I don’t know if I’ll do it again. Get waxed like this. It hurt. The technician kept saying it’s the perfect precursor to labor pains.”
He kissed the under curve of her belly even as he traced the intimate shape of her with his fingers. “Why did you do it this time?”
“I wanted you to find me irresistible.”
Burying his nose in the fold between her thigh and hip, he breathed in her scent. It was deeper here and as arousing as her mouth on his cock. “Did I tell you that I was supposed to be in Vegas for only one evening?”
Her gasp was music to his ears. “But…you stayed for three weeks. And the first evening, all we shared was a glance when I greeted you with overt familiarity at the end of the game.”
“Si.”
Her nostrils flared. “You stayed because of that?”
“Because I found you hot. And I found you intriguing and smart and irresistible. These,” he said, scraping his teeth down her upper thigh, “small things you do, they get me hot. But not the way you imagine. I’ve never found society’s idea of beauty or perfection attractive, Nyra.”
Her huffy breath told him how she much she liked him using his teeth on her. “How does this get you hot, then?”
“That you would go to this effort for me. That you openly ask me for sex gets me hot. That you want me and don’t play games about it gets me hot.”
She remained quiet for so long that he looked up. From his position at her feet, her face framed by her breasts, the lush curves of her body…everything about her was entrancing. Everything about her felt like a bounty he didn’t deserve.
“I…don’t know any other way to want you,” she said, looking both bemused and alarmed.
His heart gave a loud thump. “I know. Because I want you the same way.” He let go of her ankle slowly. “You’re steady?”
“Feels like a trick question.” Her accompanying laughter turned into a serrated gasp when he ran his thumb down her folds.
Her thigh muscles quaked under his hand and those panting breaths turned into shuddering gasps as he ducked low and tasted her. Her grip of his hair tightened mercilessly.
She tasted like tart honey and he wanted more. He wanted all of her confessions and all of her moans and all of her. And he had a feeling his hunger for her, for everything about her, was bottomless.
Cursing, he fed a finger into her sheath and then two, and when she started chanting his name, he laughed and caught her clit with his lips. He filled his other hand with her plump ass, steadying her, even as she swayed, her hips dancing, chasing his mouth.
His shaft turned rock-hard as her tight wetness clenched his fingers tight. A sob escaped her mouth and echoed out into the lake as she came.
Like a storm, leaving him drenched and still craving more. From that first moment.
* * *
Nyra couldn’t imagine she could feel any more turned on, after Adriano had sent her off the cliff with his mouth and fingers.
But as he lifted her leg and pushed into her from behind, his entire body cradling her like a warm, weighty blanket on the bed, she felt a butterfly whisper of need down there yet again.
His left hand, reaching under her head, clasped her cheek with a gentle reverence even as his hips drilled into her.
Every thrust pushed her own awareness deeper until all she knew and felt was him. The scent of his sweat filled her nostrils and she breathed deeply. Here she knew the man she had married. Here she knew herself too.
“Touch yourself, cara ,” he whispered, his rough exhales coating the shell of her ear.
“Can’t,” she said, feeling muscles she hadn’t known existed before.
“ Si , you can, Nyra.” Then lifting her hand from where she’d dug it into his thigh, he brought it to her folds. His strokes slowed as he strummed her popped clit, her fingers tangled in his. She moaned at the lack of friction and he painted her skin with his laughter.
“Please move,” she demanded, biting his forearm.
Fresh tingles sparked at her core as she glanced down at the eroticism of their laced fingers delving into her and coming away damp.
“See? Like that. Come for me, cara . I need to feel you clenching me before I can let go.”
Nyra continued stroking her clit, the sensation as new and addicting as anything else that Adriano made her experience.
And in counterpoint, his thrusts gathered speed and soon, she was toppling all over again and he followed.
He came with a roar that reverberated through her body, and Nyra blinked back tears. Here, in that moment, she knew that he cared for her, as much as he could.
* * *
Adriano jerked out of the mindless stupor his climax had left him in when he felt something flutter under his fingertips. Raising himself on his elbow, he realized it came from…Nyra’s belly. He quickly turned on the ceiling lights at the lowest setting.
His heart threatening to jump into his chest, he spread his palm softly, reverently. And then it came again.
That movement. The babies, one or both, was kicking.
“Nyra?” he said, to the softly dozing woman in his arms.
Her mouth was lax, her hair sticking to her temples with sweat. He had tired her out with his demands, after an already exhausting day. Although, she’d egged him on, saying they had to make up for the past and the future.
A flood of tenderness burst in his chest as she fluttered her eyes open and gave him a weak smile.
“Hmmm?”
“The babies…”
She placed her hand, palm down, next to his, the tips of their fingers touching. Wonder filled him, at this new sign of the life they’d created. In the blink of an eye and a shattered breath, it went from a vague pregnancy to two real people. “Yeah, they can get quite rowdy in there. In fact, I worry if they don’t make themselves known every couple of hours.”
“Does it hurt?”
She yawned and covered her mouth. Something that looked like sheer, indescribable joy shone in her damp eyes. “No. Sometimes it tickles, sometimes it’s so sudden that I’m awake and alert. It’s like they’re playing football in there. At night though, it’s a lot. So I just sit up and talk to them.”
“Talk to them?” he said, wonder in his throat.
She shrugged, trying to push up against the bed into a sitting position. He gave her a hand and gently pulled her upright.
“Yeah. I do it for me. Just telling them how much I love them. How eagerly I’m waiting to meet them. And how loved they are…” She wiped the lone tear tracking down her cheek. “Everything in the same vein pretty much.”
He bent down and kissed her belly. Her fingers in his hair felt like an extra benediction. And then he whispered everything that came to him on a wave of such pure, unconditional love as he’d never felt.
Nyra’s fingers drifted over his shoulders and she vibrated under him. With curiosity, he guessed. When he looked back at her, her smile was so broad that it should have illuminated the entire room and the dark surface of the lake beyond.
“What did you say to them?” she said, her voice a thready whisper.
“That they’re very lucky to have you as their mama. And that I would do my best to love them just as much.”
She sniffled and brought their laced fingers to her mouth. Slowly, she kissed his knuckles, more tears running down her cheeks. “I don’t think you have to try, Adriano. I think you already love them as much as I do.”
“Your confidence is very much appreciated, Nyra,” he said, putting an arm around her.
She ran one hand over his chest and wrapped one arm around his back. “You doubt yourself? Even though all your siblings adore you.”
He heard the hesitation in her voice. “I don’t want to simply do my duty by these two. I want to love them. I need them to know that they’re cherished and wanted.”
“And you think that’s not possible for you,” she stated far too matter-of-factly. But she couldn’t help how her dismay punctuated each word.
“I’m sure you have gathered by now that my parents aren’t exactly what you call nurturing, bella . If anything, they’re the opposite. And when you grow up, wishing your parents were different, wondering what you had done wrong to receive not the least bit of care, you create a shell around you. And the last thing I want is for my own children to feel that shell. To think I’m incapable of the emotion I never got to taste.”
Her arm tightened around him and she buried her face in his neck. “You won’t. Anyone who worries so much about getting it right will inevitably will,” she said throwing his own words back at him.
He smiled, and yet it felt as if there was viselike clamp around his chest. “There has been a revolving door of my parents’ lovers through my life. Some far kinder and more caring than they themselves have ever been to me. Like Bruno’s mother. She was my nanny.”
Her soft gasp against his neck urged him on. Even as he stiffened at what else he had to say. But he would say it. He had to. “I’ve even caught them at it a couple of times. Involving some foolish, innocent party just to take petty revenge on the other. And what I felt was beyond contempt. And when I saw those photos of Nadia…” His chest rose and fell and with it the woman draped over him.
He braced for her to jerk away or to shut him up or shrug it off. But her heart thundered against his, as if trying to reach out.
A cold shudder moved through him. “I reacted so badly. I…was not myself. I became that boy who was so hurt that I wanted to lash out and hurt in return. I lost the common sense I pride myself on. In that moment, I forgot everything I knew about you. I didn’t have to know about your past or your twin or any of that to know that you would never do that. That you would never…just as much as I would never do that to you.”
“Adriano—” she finally said, eyes red rimmed.
“Forgive me for that lapse, Nyra. For acting like a cruel bastard.”
“Please—”
“It wasn’t you that I didn’t trust. It was myself, my gut, my instinct that I didn’t listen to. I made you feel so unsafe and dispensable and…none of that is true.”
Her mouth touched the corner of his lips, her scent a cocktail of sweat and sex and her musk. It anchored him when guilt and shame would have carried him away from her. “You’re forgiven, Adriano. Completely.”
“That easily, bella ?”
“You regret what you did. And you have tried so hard to show me that you were wrong. Will you forgive me for lying to you?”
“ Si. Just…no more secrets.”
“Bene,” she said.
And then he was pulling her into his lap because he desperately needed to seal that promise with touch. It was less smooth than he’d have preferred, but they were laughing as she tried to maneuver herself into his lap and he thought laughing with her was even better than sex. Then he kissed her like he couldn’t stop. Like she was air itself.
Because she was.
They were panting and shaking when she pulled back. Her eyes searched his. “You truly don’t want me to become an accomplished society wife? You don’t care if I walk around in torn-up sweaters and with messy hair? If all I do is raise our children and paint things that no one wants to buy?”
The doubt in her words made his heart ache. He clasped her cheeks. “I don’t want you to change yourself in any way to please me. Or for this marriage. If you do want to change something for yourself, I’ll support you all the way.”
She pressed her cheek to his chest, and he ran his palms over her smooth thighs. “Thank you, Adriano. I have everything I could ever want in life.”
And then, like a kitten, she fell asleep on him within seconds.
Adriano didn’t know how long he sat like that, with Nyra’s body a warm weight in his lap, her face tucked into his neck, the sound of her soft snores the only sound in the room.
When he tried to adjust her so that she would be more comfortable, her arms tightened into steel bands around him.
He smiled and smoothed a sweaty curl from her temple.
He thought there had been an almost at the end of her sentence. No, he knew there was because she’d shied her gaze away, afraid of betraying herself.
And the fact that there was something she found missing from their lives was untenable.
He wanted Nyra to have everything she ever wished for. Because she was everything he’d never known he needed.