Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
She murmured the words against his neck, just above his pulse, so quiet he might have missed it if every part of him hadn’t been tuned to her frequency.
I love you, Angelo.
He stood there for one suspended second while those four words rearranged everything he knew about himself.
He pulled back just enough to look at her face. Really look, the way he hadn’t let himself do in a room full of people. What he found there wrecked him.
No guard up. No careful distance. Just Ellory, her eyes dark and steady, looking at him like she’d already decided to give her heart to him and wasn’t afraid of it.
He kissed her once. Slow and deliberate.
Then he walked her backward until they stood beside the bed. He reached for the lamp on the nightstand.
“I want to see you.”
He wasn’t disappointed. The glow highlighted her beautiful face and turned her skin to gold. Her eyes were a dark blue sea, and her chest rose and fell in quick breaths.
He reached for her again but there was no urgency. He wanted to unravel her slowly.
She reached for the hem of his shirt, and he caught her wrists.
“Not yet.”
Her breath hitched.
He unclasped her bra and let it fall. Standing back, he took one moment just to drink her in, and all the things he’d been carrying for years—the guilt and pain…it loosened all at once. Like a knot giving way. Like a door he’d been leaning against finally opening.
Or one closing behind him as he stepped into a new chapter with the woman he loved.
He reached out and ran his thumb along her collarbone just to watch her shiver.
They sank to the bed in each other’s arms, hands exploring and lips fused in a never-ending kiss. When he cupped her breasts, she made a sound low in her throat that settled into him like a brand.
“I’m going to spend a considerable amount of time drawing that sound out of you again,” he gritted out.
“Angelo.” Her murmur was as soft as her hands on his spine.
He traced her collarbone with his lips, moving to the curve of her shoulder and back up to the silky skin below her ear. She shivered under every point of contact and she cradled his face. Her fingers dug into him when he found a spot that made her breath catch.
He filed that away for future knowledge and worked his way down, skimming her sides until he reached the waistband of her pants. With a pause, he glanced up at her.
She was watching him with an expression he’d never seen on her before—open and undone and completely, entirely his.
Holding her stare, he pulled her pants down and off, and then he took his time coming back up, tasting the hollow of her hipbone, the smooth skin of her stomach, the curve of her ribs—until he was moving over her again with his hands braced on either side of her head.
She was panting.
Good.
As he kissed her deep and slow, she went to work on his shirt, fingers trembling with impatience and want. When she pushed his jeans down and looked at him, the hunger on her face hit him like a fist.
He claimed her mouth until his name was breaking apart in syllables.
“I know.” He shed his clothes and gripped her hips, tugging her underneath him in one smooth motion. Staring into her eyes, he rumbled, “I know exactly what you need.”
As he buried himself to the root, he drank in the image of her just like this, her hair loose around her face, her eyes burning, her lips swollen from his mouth, her skin flushed.
And felt the full impact of those four words cemented themselves in his soul.
I love you, Angelo.
“Tell me again,” he said against her mouth.
She did.
And he showed her exactly what it did to him.
* * * * *
In one solid thrust, he filled her completely. She stopped breathing, suspended in the moment. She clung to his shoulders and her forehead tipped against his while her body adjusted to the stretch of his cock.
His breath came in ragged spurts against her mouth.
“Angelo,” she moaned.
“Fuck, Trouble. I know. You’re…so…damn…tight.”
She rolled her hips and felt him tense all over, every muscle going rigid as if he battled to hold still. Her inner walls flexed around his thickness.
“Ellory.” He said her name like a warning.
“Then move.”
He issued a sound low in his chest and slowly withdrew. So slowly she felt every inch of him. As he drove into her again, she arched with a sharp cry.
Locking her legs around him, she met every deep plunge into her core. He set a pace that made the world fade, and she only focused on his eyes.
She dug her heels in and pulled him in closer, needing the release hovering just out of reach. But he caught her hip with one hand and held her exactly where he wanted her.
He skated his lips down her throat to her collarbone and the curve of her shoulder while still setting the same devastating pace.
She opened her mouth to let all her emotions pour out, but he shifted the angle and she lost the words entirely. She found his hair instead, raking through the short strands that Opal had told her curled when he let it grow too long. She wanted to see it, to know every part of him.
“Look at me.”
She did.
His jaw was locked tight, eyes dark as sin, a faint ruddiness climbing his neck that she’d never seen before. He looked undone in a way that matched how she felt, and something about that—about being the one who did that to him—made everything inside her pull taut.
He drove deeper and she gasped, raking her nails down his back. He hissed through his teeth and stopped teasing.
He slid a hand between their bodies and found her aching nubbin. She cried out at the contact, overstimulated and frantic and climbing fast.
“Angelo—” She gasped for air. “I’m—”
His lips pressed to her ear. “I’ve got you, love. Let go.”
She did.
It hit her in waves, each one deeper than the last, and she held on to him through all of it with her face pressed against his neck. Then his own control finally snapped, and she felt him follow her over the edge.
She held on tight, loving how his muscles went rock-hard and his kiss turned so passionate that it brought tears to her eyes.
For a long moment neither of them moved. The room was quiet. His weight warm and solid over her. His heart throbbed against her chest, fast and gradually slowing.
Her own was doing the same. She stared at the ceiling and felt…
Still. In a way she hadn’t in a long time.
He rolled to the side and pulled her with him, tucking her against his chest. She listened to their breathing sync up.
Though he hadn’t said the words back…they were worth waiting for. For now, it was enough that they were together and he cared about her.