Salvatore

35. Ivy

35

IVY

I flinch, caught off-guard despite the blindly obvious groundwork he’d laid for his rejection. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he grates.

Humiliation floods my cheeks as I lower my gaze, my attention skimming past the confusing bulge that remains rigid against his zipper before diverting to the bedcovers.

Leave.

Pack up what’s left of your beaten pride and skedaddle.

But despite the mortification and heartbreak, I can’t move. “What part of my messed up existence finally became too much?”

He releases my wrists. “That’s not what this is.”

Sure it’s not.

There’s always been a thesis-length list of reasons we shouldn’t be attracted to each other. Now a dead mother and a gestational entanglement have been added to the mix, and it’s no surprise I’m no longer a worthy conquest.

“Right… Thanks for the clarity.” I contemplate my dismount, trying to figure out how to achieve it gracefully without the use of my stomach muscles.

“Don’t turn on me, Ivy.” My name is sharpened with warning. “I’m doing this for your benefit—not mine.”

My benefit? “You can spare me the vague clichés.” I lean sideways, hoping to slide right off of him as I meet his gaze. “I’m a big girl.”

“Don’t give me attitude. I’m not in the mood.” He grabs for me, first at my hips, then my waist, both attempts vetoed a breath before contact. “Jesus Christ, there’s nowhere to grab without hurting you.”

“Commenting on my attitude is rich when you’re?—

“ Quiet .” His hand grasps the back of my neck, making me still. “I said I’m not in the mood.”

I glare through the hurt. “For a lot of things, apparently.”

His nostrils flare. “This isn’t a rejection. It’s a fucking intervention.”

“Intervention?”

“You heard me. You fucked me the day of Carlo’s funeral because you were drunk. Then I laid hands on you in the rec room and made you feel like that piece of shit who took your virginity just so you could have some clothes to?—”

“No. That’s?—”

“ Yes .” He releases my neck and throws his cell to the bedcovers. “And now you’re all over me due to pregnancy hormones because you made it clear last night you didn’t want this.”

I deadpan, my brain frazzling while my gaze treks to his phone screen and the bright pink maternity website with its What to Expect When She’s Expecting article headline.

“You’ve been researching my pregnancy?” I eye him with an exaggerated squint. “Is this you being a gentleman?”

“This isn’t a joke, mi bella reina. ”

“Oh, I can see that.” His endearment, paired with the caveman attitude, is enough to end me. “But if you want to succeed in this off-base chivalric plan, I suggest you tone down the aggression, because weirdly enough it’s a massive turn-on.”

He bites back a frustrated huff. “It’s the hormones.”

“It’s not hormones.” Well, not only hormones. “I may have been under the influence of alcohol the first time, but I knew what I was doing.”

He glares, and I hate it. I hate that my mistakes have ruined his playful side.

I lower my attention to the buttons of his shirt, the crisp white material, the outline of pure man beneath. “And in the rec room, you could’ve handed me a stale cracker instead of ninety thousand dollars’ worth of clothes and I still would’ve let you corrupt me against the pool table.”

“It’s the pregnancy,” he growls. “One in three women have a heightened libido.”

I press my lips tight, fighting a smile. “That’s awfully factual. How deep have you gone down the pregnancy rabbit hole, Mr. Costa?”

“Enough to be fucking petrified on your behalf.”

His tone is serious. Dead serious . And it’s so goddamn cute I can’t stop the laugh that escapes. I pay for it instantly, pain shredding through my abdomen, doubling me over for the stitches in my flank to stretch and pull as if made of barbed wire.

“ Fuck .” He grabs my arms, stabilizing me. “Are you okay?”

I nod through the subsiding discomfort, my cheek rubbing the deliciously rough stubble of his. I take a moment to breathe him in—to bask in the subtle scent of his aftershave, the heat of his proximity—just in case this retreat of his is planned as a permanent fixture.

“You’re still wrong.” I swallow against the harsh grit of vulnerability clogging my throat. “The pregnancy wasn’t part of the equation the first night we met at Smoke & Mirrors. And I’d still been mindlessly attracted to you.”

He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t loosen his hold. He remains an island. Closed off. Shut down. Impenetrable.

“I understand what you’re doing.” I drag in a slow breath. “And I appreciate it. I adore the way you protect me. But I don’t need to be protected from you.”

“Yes, you do.”

I pull back, mindful of my injuries as I meet his eyes. “I don’t, Salvatore… unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“You need to reevaluate the faith you have in your judgment skills.”

“I don’t have faith in my judgment.” Not really. Not after Adena. “My faith is in you .”

His chin raises, my admission seeming to catch him off-guard. “That faith is misplaced.”

“Why?”

“Because my intention to do right by you is slipping.”

I frown. “I don’t under?—”

“Let me make this clear,” he growls. “Every choice I make when it comes to you is getting clouded. That noble, self-sacrificing bullshit I’ve been clinging to is growing old, and I can’t tell if I’m protecting you anymore or simply keeping you where I can’t lose you.”

My pulse accelerates.

He’s not just waving a red flag. He’s leading a damn parade. And here I am, front row, popcorn in hand, like he’s the world’s greatest showman.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He grabs my chin. “Don’t you understand? I want to keep you. Claim you. That isn’t something those fucking eyes should be softening for.”

He’s right.

He’s undeniably, one hundred percent spitting facts.

But my body? It doesn’t give a damn. It’s all tingling nerve-endings and fluttering arrhythmia as if he’s Jack Dawson, holding me to the bow of the Titanic, making me come alive for the first time.

“Say something,” he demands.

Even that—the aggressive insistence—feels like he’s pushed me off a ledge, plunging me into a blessed free fall.

“You could be right.” My voice is a pitiful rasp. “Hormones might be the answer, because this—” this vibrancy, this urgency, “—it’s an unfamiliar rush.”

His fingers tighten on my chin, his eyes narrowing not with malice, but something darker—something that wars inside him. “Go back to your room, Ivy.”

I nod. Leaving is the right thing to do.

But I find myself gravitating toward him instead, leaning closer.

His hand descends with my approach, his palm moving to grip my throat with threatening caution as our noses brush. “Go back to your room. I can’t give you any more warnings.”

“Good. Because I’ve made my choice.” I bridge the space between us, my kiss tentative and meek.

I choose to be in this moment. With him. Consequences be damned.

“You’re making a mistake,” he grates against my mouth.

“Not this time.” I dare to brush my lips harder over his, earning a groan from him—a deep, throaty glimpse of acquiescence.

“ Ivy ,” he sneers, his fingertips closing around my jugular.

“Please.” I delicately whisper my tongue over his bottom lip, hoping, praying. “Kiss me.”

He’s a stone wall—harsh, unyielding, the tension radiating from him. It’s as if I’m torturing him, testing his limits with punishment instead of pleasure.

I pull back, my heart breaking as I stare into his eyes—his narrowed gaze vehement, his breathing labored. The sickening sense of humiliation returns while his jaw clenches, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

He’s going to physically remove me from his room. Shut me out. Turn me away.

“Goddamn you.” His hand careens around the back of my neck, possessive and rough as he lurches forward, smashing his mouth to mine.

I gasp from the relief of his deliciously violent contact, and he takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue ravaging me, his hold tight.

“Thank you.” I can’t explain the gratitude. It’s a sign of weakness. Desperation. But that’s the way he makes me feel. He fills me with uncertainty. Yet he’s also the only man to consume me with need—that heated, hungry sensation obliterating me as he kisses me harder.

“Don’t fucking thank me for this, mi reina. ” He groans into my mouth, the sound raw, almost pained. “I’ll be your damnation.”

“I won’t let you.” I cling to his jacket as a hand slides down my back, dragging me toward him, almost chest to chest, his exhales my inhales.

His teeth graze my bottom lip before he captures it between his own, a sharp tug that sends a bolt of heat straight through me. “You’re my fucking weakness.”

“I don’t want to be.” I hesitate a second, the vulnerability making my stomach somersault. “I want to be your strength, just like you are mine.”

“You’re that, too.” Tension wracks his body, his fingers digging into my uninjured hip like he’s barely holding himself back. “You’re everything, Ivy.”

His mouth works me like a roller coaster—forceful and unyielding one moment, soft and almost worshipful in the next.

He drags me through a gamut of sensations—heated urgency, tormented yearning, pitiful need—as he swallows my gasps and grips me tighter when I moan, as if every sound I make touches him more than my hands ever could.

And when the kiss breaks, it’s like a fever, only the heat spreads—his lips abandoning mine and trailing over my jaw, sinking down my neck.

“You smell fucking incredible.” He nuzzles my throat.

I groan, loving the way his breath teases my skin. “Respectfully, I taste even better.”

“And don’t I fucking know it.” His mouth latches onto my neck, sucking, biting. “I’ve never been more painfully hard in my life.”

I whimper, his want for me making me equally crazed. I scour my nails over heavenly defined pecs, our mouths fighting for dominance.

“All I can think about is you.” He slides his palms up my thigh, beneath the hem of my nightshirt, awakening every nerve ending until he stops at the apex of my thighs. “No panties?”

“They press against my bandages.”

“ God , you’re killing me.” He steals another kiss, feral, forceful, his thumbs a bare inch from where I need them.

If only my damn injuries didn’t restrict me from all the delicious things I want to do.

“Touch me,” I beg.

Yes , beg.

It’s a foreign concept in this type of setting. I’m usually in control. In command. But right now, I want to be ruled by him. Conquered.

“ Please , Salvatore.”

“Be patient . I’ll give you what you need. But I want to see you first.” He grabs the hem of my nightshirt, delicately raises it above my shoulders, then over my head to toss it to the covers.

He devours the sight of me, his gaze animalistic as a callused palm trails lazily from my shoulder down my sternum, the descent between my breasts painfully slow. “You’re fucking perfect.” He continues lower, over my ribs to my stomach, then stops at the bandages below my belly button.

Torment hardens his features, the thin press of his lips mirroring the way my body coils beneath his touch—too exposed, too fragile, too desperate for him to put me back together.

He raises his gaze to mine. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“These injuries aren’t your mistake. They’re mine. I rarely trust anyone. Adena shouldn’t have made the cut.”

“No, she shouldn’t.” He slides a possessive hand into my hair, bringing his forehead to mine. “Don’t trust anyone ever again.”

“Not even you?”

Something flashes in his eyes—something pained. “Especially not me.”

“Do you plan on hurting me?”

“No, but I’m sure I will. It’s an unwanted trait I can’t shake.”

“Well, then, you’re lucky I can look after myself.” I undo the next button on his shirt, then the next. “I’ll drag you into line if you dare to slip up.” I release the last button, devouring the unholy sight of his muscled chest as I grab his wrists and guide his hands back down to my thighs. “You’re a good man, Salvatore. A protective, trustworthy man who I currently want to do very, very bad things to me.”

He grumbles a frustrated laugh. “Fucking hormones.”

I beam, despite knowing hormones aren’t the issue. What drives me is something bigger. Something stronger. Something that feels awfully like a sensation people write stupid, sappy poetry about as his hands graze possessively up my inner thighs, those thumbs skimming dangerously close to my center before settling at the very edge of where I crave him.

“Is this where you need me?” He teases his touch a breath from my entrance. Up and down. Confident and smug.

“Sally, if the outside of my pussy is where you think the magic happens, it’s a miracle you got me pregnant in the first place.”

His smirk is subtle, his eye contact on point as he continues the tease, moving upward, making my skin tingle as he skirts the outside of my labia to my mons. “Yeah, a fucking miracle.” Then he drags the firm pressure downward, right to my throbbing clit.

I gasp. Jolt.

There’s a twinge of pain through my middle. A niggle at the wound on my hip. I ignore both, focusing on the insidiously greedy ache of my core.

“More,” I whisper.

He slides his thumbs lower, through the slickness, to my opening. “You want me here, mi reina ?”

It’s not a question. Not really. It’s more of a taunt. A sinful provocation.

“I want you everywhere,” I admit.

A throaty rumble grates from him as he slowly inches both thumbs inside me, stretching my muscles, sparking more of that delicious ache.

He devours the sight of me, visually adoring me.

It leaves me warm. No , it makes me burn.

“ Please ,” I beg with a rock of my hips that callously reminds me of my injuries.

I wince. Sigh. Try not to lose my high to frustration.

“Let me do the work.” His voice is guttural. “I just want you to sit there.”

“Like I’m riding the bus?”

“No, like you’re mi reina sobre su trono. ”

Like you’re my queen upon her throne.

My heart does a little pitta-pat. One that grows harder. Faster.

I love when he speaks Spanish. Like he’s trying to connect to a part of my heritage. To welcome me, despite our cultural differences. But I left my family for a reason.

“Say it in Italian,” I whisper.

He inches his thumbs a little deeper, gently coaxing them in and out. “ La mia regina sul suo trono .”

I moan—at his penetration, at his accent, at his intelligence.

“ La battaglia è persa. Mi hai conquistato .” His voice is dreamy and smooth. “ Signore, aiutaci ora .”

I struggle not to goddamn swoon, but then his thumbs are sliding out of me, slowly, confidently, as if he’s treasuring the feel of me wrapped around him right until the very last second when I’m left hollow and aching for more.

“I’ve been dying for another taste of you.” He raises a hand, painting my pleasure along the outer edge of my bottom lip, my scent filling my lungs as his gaze follows the slow, scorching trail. “You’re a delicacy I can’t quit craving.”

I whimper, my nipples beading painfully.

“I’m going to fucking enjoy this.” He leans in, his mouth dancing over mine, his tongue and lips whispering across the hedonistic moisture he’s painted, teasing and torturous as he licks at the taste of me with a groan. “ Divino. ”

Damn , he’s got game. Too much of it as he palms my breast, tweaking my nipple with the perfect amount of pressure while he kisses me into oblivion.

He’s a god among men.

No . The antichrist.

A devil. A demon. And dear Lord, hell makes ’em better than they should.

I close my eyes. Arch my back. Moan. “I want you inside me.”

“Not tonight.”

I straighten, reclaiming his gaze with confoundment.

“We can’t fuck with your injuries.” His jaw ticks. “But I can keep doing this until I make you come.”

“That’s quite the defeatist attitude.” I palm the hard length of his shaft through his pants. “Are you sure we can’t work out something more mutually beneficial?”

He stiffens, his nostrils flaring. “No.”

“I applaud the chivalry.” I unclasp his belt. “Really, I do. But you’ve done the research—you know I’m nothing but a ball of pesky pregnancy hormones. I’m afraid your talented fingers won’t be enough.”

“Ivy,” he growls.

“Just a little bit.” I smile coyly and slowly lower his zipper. “I only need the tip.”

His lips quirk. “You’re such a fucking minx.”

My pulse soars, the simple glimpse of his returned playfulness making me eager for more. “And you’re hung like the Empire State, so less is more in this equation.”

Smug pride gleams in his gaze. At least it does until I grasp his length. Then the heartbeat of playfulness vanishes with the tensing of his entire body. “You like to make comment on my size, Ivy. But you took me so fucking well last time.”

I drag my palm along his shaft, delighting in the silken hardness, basking in the memories. “Given my condition, I’d say I took it a little too well.” I work him with my fingers, soft touches, light squeezes, a coast of my thumb against his moistened slit. “Does that feel good?”

“Everything you do feels fucking phenomenal.” He tilts his hips, fucking my hand in a long, arduous stroke. “You undo me.”

It’s an incredible feeling, having a powerful man at my mercy—his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, the rigid length of him taut beneath my touch. But it’s those dark, desperate, utterly wrecked eyes that make me feel invincible.

I savor the way he shudders beneath my fingertips, how his control seems to fray and his throaty moans increase when I pay more attention to the tip of his cock.

It makes me so incredibly wet that I can’t wait a moment more.

“I want you inside me.” I nestle closer, slowly, carefully guided by his hands on my waist.

He doesn’t deny me, despite the conflict warring in his features.

Instead, he positions the head of his shaft against my slit. Gentle. Mindful.. He doesn’t thrust into me. Just lets me guide him inside, my muscles stretching around the generous length of him enough to make my breathing hitch.

He turns rigid. “Did I hurt you?”

I deadpan, batting Bambi eyes. “No? Why? Is it already in?”

He glares, his hand snapping up and tangling in my hair, his grip tugging my head backward as his teeth clamp down on my shoulder. “If you weren’t currently recovering from multiple stab wounds I’d make you regret that question.”

I suppress a chuckle for the sake of said wounds and find myself falling harder for him. “Don’t go soft on me now, ninito. ”

“Being soft isn’t something I’m capable of around you, mi reina .” He feasts on my neck, his teeth scraping my skin, his hands cupping my breasts as he groans.

I attempt to rise, to ride, but the stitches in my flank tug in warning. “I don’t think I can move much.”

“Trust me—you don’t fucking need to.” His palms skim my ribs, one cupping the uninjured side of my ass, the other resting higher on my hip. “Just take it easy. You said you were resourceful. Now prove it.”

Fine .

I rock instead. Tiny movements. Small, grinding increments supported with the strength of his hold.

It feels good. Slow. Teasing. Torturous.

He’s so big it’s hard not to be consumed by sensation. But the gradual movements seem to work a number on him too, his body adamantly tense, the tight coil of his muscles increasing.

I grin, savoring the thrill that comes with pleasuring a man so damn easy to please.

“What’s that sly look for?” He releases my waist and claims my throat in his sweat-slicked palm. “Do you think it’s belittling that I’m this wound up when you’re barely moving? Have you forgotten your power? Men obsess about your beauty, mi reina . They crave your attention. They’d follow you to the ends of the earth just for a taste of what it’s like to be yours.”

“Men?” I raise a brow.

He holds my stare. “ Me .”

Another piece of my heart becomes lost to him, no longer mine to command.

“I could come with just one look. From mere thoughts of you. Hell, the amount of times I’ve woken with my hand around my painfully hard dick just from a whisper of a dream of this gorgeous body is maddening.” He kisses my cheek. My jaw. The sensitive skin below my ear. “I’m a complicated man, but when it comes to this I’m simple.” He takes my mouth with his, his words a vow against my tongue. “All I want is you.”

I wilt. Wither. Wane.

My hold on reality slips from my fingers, leaving room for his intoxicating daydream to take me under its spell.

I’d bow at his desecrated altar. Bathe in the lake of his sins.

“Show me.” I palm his face, dragging my fingernails along the exquisite roughness of his jawline while I test the limits of my movement. “Come for me.”

“You first.” His hand slides from my hip and edges between us, his fingertips seeking and finding my clit. “I want to feel this pretty little cunt coming undone around me. I need to know I make you feel good.”

“You do.” My admission is a breathy rasp. “God, you make me feel so good, Salvatore.”

I roll my hips, the restricted movement frustrating and teasing in equal measure.

“You’re so fucking exquisite.” His gaze sears into mine, his reverence evident in the animalistic hunger of his stare.

I’ve heard those words a thousand times before—each one hollow, the praise empty and recycled—until now. Because he sees me.

The real me.

The exposure is terrifying, the things he brings to light leaving me stripped bare and raw. But his words— sweet mercy, his words —they make me whole.

They also don’t help ease the pace of my embarrassingly fast-approaching orgasm.

I whimper, clenching my core around him, pulsing my muscles to compensate for my limited movement.

“ God .” He groans, adding more pressure to my clit, rubbing with the most exquisite friction. “You feel so good, mi reina . Just like that. You’re so fucking tight.”

“You’re so fucking big.”

“But you own it. Even injured, you ride this cock as if it were made for you.” He tilts my face sideways and growls in my ear. “You wouldn’t believe how hard I’m trying not to fucking come.”

My body flushes as I grip the wrist at my throat for grounding, getting lost in him, never wanting to be found.

“Do you like knowing I’m close?” He kisses my cheek. My mouth. “That every clench of your pretty little cunt brings me one step closer to oblivion?”

I cling to him, rocking, pulsing, suffocating under the weight of approaching bliss.

“Tell me how it makes you feel, knowing I’m fucking mindless for you,” he snarls.

I struggle to breathe. To think. To remain conscious through all the dizzying pleasure.

“Tell me.” He grinds his hips harder, the thick length of him sinking so damn deep.

I crane my head back and moan. “It makes me feel pretty.”

“What you do to me is due to more than beauty.” He slides the hand at my neck to my chin, his fingers taking the place where his lips had just been. “Those eyes and this fucking mouth are heaven-sent.” He skates two fingertips to the back of my tongue, pressing down, making me wish they were his cock. “But you, Ivy—your wit, your fire, your rebellion—that’s what has me by the throat.”

Overwhelm consumes me. The bliss becomes too much.

I dig my nails into his wrist. Rock harder. Clench tighter.

“Fucking come for me, mi reina .”

I obey, falling apart, falling under his control, just falling, falling, falling for a man I don’t think I’ll ever want to let go.