Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
VIOLA
Shame hits me like ice water.
I was completely lost in him. His mouth was hot and demanding on my breast, sending sharp, electric jolts straight between my legs.
I’d arched into him with a broken moan, fingers tightening in his hair, desperate to have him closer.
The pleasure was thick and overwhelming, flooding my body until I could barely think. Then he stopped.
When my eyes find his face, his gaze is fixed on the bruise on my arm, and his whiskey gold is almost black with fury.
“He did this to you today?” His voice is so cold it feels like I’m talking to a different person entirely.
I swallow hard, my throat tight. “He just tried to get my attention… but I wouldn’t give it.”
I can feel the tension radiating off him, but he lifts his gaze to meet mine, those intense eyes searching my face.
“Does it hurt?”
I shake my head quickly. “No.”
He exhales through his nose, jaw tight. “I hate that you’re protecting him.”
“I’m not protecting him,” I say, the words coming out faster than I intend. My voice is still shaky with passion. “It’s just… I don’t—” I stop. The rest of the sentence feels too revealing. Too dangerous.
He waits, patient but unrelenting. His thumb brushes lightly over the bruise again, so gentle it almost breaks me. “You just don’t want what?”
My chest feels tight, like everything I’ve been holding back is pushing against my ribs. “I don’t want you to get hurt in the process. I know you can take care of yourself, but it only takes one second and… I just got into this arrangement with you, and I’m kinda liking it…”
“Ah…” he says softly and then he smiles.
The amusement softens the hard lines around his eyes. I’m so surprised I manage an unsure smile back, my lips trembling a little.
“You need me alive so you can taste my famous grilled cheese?” he teases.
“Yes,” I whisper. I’m amazed at how much of a sense of humor he has.
For someone I once thought was colder than ice.
At this moment, I realize I’m seeing a version of him that no one else ever gets to see.
The real Ricci. The one who tenderly dries my hair, who offers to make me grilled cheese and tomato soup, who laughs with me.
He chuckles suddenly — a low, genuine sound that vibrates through his chest and into mine.
The sound does something dangerous to my heart.
Then he pulls me closer, one big hand sliding to the back of my neck, and he kisses me so hard it leaves me dizzy.
His mouth claims mine, deep and possessive, tongue sliding against mine like he’s trying to taste every secret I’m still keeping.
I melt into it, fingers curling into his shirt, a soft whimper escaping me.
When he finally pulls back enough to speak against my lips, his voice is a warm growl. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I stay alive long enough to make sure you never have to go back to your father’s house.”
Then he resumes undressing me, sliding my jeans down my legs, peeling my panties off expertly. He spreads my thighs wide on the kitchen counter, the marble chilling my skin and making me shiver. His eyes are locked on mine.
The intensity of his gaze alone makes my breath catch. When his gaze drops down to my sex, I feel exposed most deliciously. I’ve never been so completely opened and exposed to anybody’s gaze before. Heat floods my cheeks, but I can’t look away. Not when he’s watching me like that.
He puts his lips between my legs. He starts slow. So slow it feels like torture.
His hot tongue drags a long, deliberate wet stripe up my center, parting my folds with unhurried precision.
The first full contact makes my hips jerk, and a sharp gasp tears from my throat.
My eyes flutter shut as pleasure sparks through me like electricity.
He doesn’t rush. He savors every bit of my flesh — licking lazily, exploring, learning exactly what makes me tremble.
When his tongue finally circles my clit, the pressure is perfect. Firm enough to make my toes curl, and soft enough to leave me aching for more. I moan his name, the sound broken and needy, as my fingers grip the edge of the counter.
Still, he sees no point in hurrying.
He sucks gently, lips closing around the sensitive bundle of nerves, and his tongue flicking in slow, devastating circles.
Then, when I am dying with impatience and begging for release, he relents and sucks harder, the wet heat of his mouth pulling me deeper into the pleasure until my thighs start to shake around his shoulders.
I feel his fingers at my entrance. Oh my, two thick fingers slide inside me.
He curls them just right, and strokes that sensitive spot inside me, while his tongue continues its relentless worship of my clit.
The pleasure builds fast and deep, coiling tighter and tighter in my belly like a spring being wound too far.
My breathing turns ragged, short little gasps that turn into moans I can’t hold back.
My hips rock against his mouth, chasing the sensation, but he punishes my eagerness by turning the pace down, controlling and drawing it out until I feel like I’m going to shatter.
“Ricci…” His name slips out again, desperate and pleading.
He gives in and sucks my whole sex into his mouth. My thighs tremble violently around his head, and my muscles tighten as my orgasm rushes toward me.
When it hits, it’s hard and shattering.
My back arches off the counter as waves of blinding pleasure crash through me.
My walls clench rhythmically around his fingers, pulsing hard as the orgasm rips through every nerve and cell in my body.
I can’t stop the sounds I’m making — raw, helpless moans that echo in the quiet kitchen.
The sheer overwhelming intensity of it makes me scream.
Even as I come apart, he keeps licking me through every pulse, every aftershock.
His tongue softens but never leaves me, gentle laps and slow circles that prolong the pleasure until I’m boneless and gasping, my body twitching with little shocks.
My fingers are still tangled in his hair, holding him between my thighs even as my strength drains away.
When the last tremor fades, I’m left raw. Exposed. Completely undone.
He rises from between my thighs, lips glistening with my arousal, eyes dark with hunger and something else. Something that looks a lot like obsession.
Our gazes lock. Mine, shocked. His, triumphant.
And I realize, with a quiet thrill that scares me, that I don’t want him to ever stop. Whatever he has in mind to do to me, I want it.
I want more.
I want all of him.