Chapter 29 #2
I swallowed and pressed my forehead against his hip, my eyes stinging. Not from sadness. From the overwhelming fullness of finally being allowed to love him like this. No rejection. No walls. Just Rocco, undone and trusting and mine.
He pulled me up and stared into my eyes. The masks were gone—all of them. No bravado, no walls, no guilt. Just a man stripped down to his rawest self, looking at me like I’d given him something he didn’t know he was allowed to have.
My heart ached in the best possible way.
“You’ve completely unhinged me,” he panted. “Now, it’s my turn.”
My whole body was humming. Pleasuring him had lit a fire inside me that had nothing to do with generosity—every sound he’d made, every tug of his fingers in my hair, had wound me tighter and tighter until I was aching.
My underwear was soaked. My skin burned everywhere his hands had touched me.
I’d been so focused on him that I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed him until now.
I stepped back, my pulse quickening.
“Let me undress for you.” I pulled off my red T-shirt, and unclasped my lace bra, allowing my breasts to fall free. The cold air from the open window made my nipples tighten into hard peaks.
This wasn’t like before—the frantic, desperate tangle at the lodge where we’d torn at each other like we were afraid the moment would vanish.
This was deliberate. I was choosing to bare myself to him, piece by piece, letting him watch.
Letting him want. After two years of feeling invisible, there was something powerful about standing in front of Rocco Palazzo and watching his eyes devour me.
His eyes darkened, pupils dilating as his hungry gaze traveled over the curves of my body, lingering at my collarbone, my breasts, my navel.
I smiled, biting my lower lip as I hooked my thumbs into my jeans and pulled them down with deliberate slowness, revealing the black lace of my panties against my skin.
The denim dragged across my oversensitive thighs, and I shivered—not from the cold.
The way he was watching me, those dark eyes tracking every inch of exposed skin, made the ache between my legs pulse harder.
“You’d better get those off, or I’m going to rip them to pieces,” he growled, his voice rough with desire.
I slid them down my thighs inch by torturous inch, past my knees, letting them pool at my ankles. I was eager to feel his hands and mouth on my body.
He clasped my hand with urgent fingers and pulled me to the unmade bed. He wedged his hips between my inner thighs, the heat of him pressing me, as he kissed a slow trail from my collarbone to my stomach.
I slid my hands over his back, feeling each ridge of his spine. His muscles rippled underneath my palms like waves beneath moonlight. He was mine in this moment—his heartbeat against my chest, his breath warm on my skin. All mine. He deserved to be loved like this.
His hot mouth closed around my nipple, his tongue circling the sensitive peak.
I arched my back against the comforter, allowing him to draw more of my flesh between his lips, my fingers threading through his thick, dark hair.
Electric tingles radiated from my breast through my entire body, pooling like liquid fire between my thighs.
A primal hunger overtook me—dual cravings impossible to separate.
My fangs lengthened. I wanted him buried deep inside me.
Wanted the metallic sweetness of his blood on my tongue.
The words came out as a desperate plea. “I want you, Rocco. I want to taste you.” My voice was hoarse, strained with desire that had built for hours.
He lifted his head from my breast, his dark eyes meeting mine through the dim light. A bead of sweat traced the sharp line of his jaw. “Not yet,” he whispered.
His mouth moved lower, trailing heat across my stomach.
When his lips finally found my center, the wet warmth of his tongue against my most sensitive flesh sent electric currents racing through me.
My fingers twisted in his hair as he worked me relentlessly, each precise stroke bringing me closer until his name tore from my lips in a broken cry.
He lifted his head, pupils blown wide, and climbed up my writhing body, leaving a trail of heat across my skin.
He kissed me fiercely, his tongue insistent against mine as his hips slid between my trembling thighs.
He buried himself inside me to the hilt, the sensation both familiar and overwhelming.
The rhythm was hard and fierce, each movement sending pleasure spiraling through every nerve in my body, our bodies slick with sweat as we moved together in the half-light.
I turned my head and scraped my elongated fangs against the tender flesh where his neck met his shoulder, feeling his pulse quicken beneath my lips before I sank my teeth in deep. His blood coursed into my mouth—rich and intoxicating with notes of cinnamon and clove that danced across my tongue.
The bond between us blazed white-hot. His blood was more than taste—it was feeling.
His desire, his devotion, his fierce need to protect me—all of it flooding into me with every swallow.
I moaned against his throat, my eyes burning with tears I couldn’t explain.
This was what it meant to be truly bonded.
Not just bodies. Not just blood. Everything.
He moved with greater urgency now, his rhythm becoming desperate as he filled me completely.
When his own fangs found the curve of my shoulder, breaking the skin with surprising force, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan escaped me as waves of pleasure radiated outward from every point where our bodies connected.
White dots spread across my eyes like stars in a midnight sky as my orgasm radiated through me, electric and all-consuming. I clasped his massive shoulders, holding on tight, as he drove into me, every thrust sending tremors through my body that I couldn’t control.
Rocco’s rhythm faltered, his breath breaking apart against my neck as he shuddered and tensed, his warmth flooding into me with each powerful pulse.
I pressed my lips against his, tasting salt and copper. “I love you, Rocco Palazzo,” I whispered.
“I’ve always loved you. No matter what you’ve done. You’ll always have my heart—the whole broken, stubborn thing.”
He panted, his chest rising and falling beneath my palm, dark eyes searching mine in the half-light. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do,” I said, tracing the sharp edge of his jawline with my fingertip, feeling the slight stubble that had grown since morning.
He rested his forehead against mine, his skin warm and slightly damp with sweat. But I could see it in his eyes—those deep dark eyes—the doubt lingering there like a shadow.
He didn’t believe me. Somehow I would prove that he was everything I claimed, even if it took all night, all year, all of whatever time we had left.