Chapter 12 #2
‘And do you want me to be yours, angel?’
I don’t mean to say it. ‘Yes.’
He makes a sound that might be a prayer but is probably a grunt of satisfaction.
‘Then come for me, baby. Now.’ His finger plunges deeper.
His other arm locks around me and the whole world shrinks to heat and pressure and the exquisite ache of holding on.
Somewhere far away the sea keeps time; here, I set the beat and he urges me on with crude, rough, guttural words, guiding me until the language of it becomes simple as breath: again, more, please, there.
The crest builds faster and faster.
I feel it first as a brightening, then as a high wire strung through my body, humming with the promise that the only way forward is through. Fear flickers – I don’t know what waits on the other side. He feels the flinch and catches my face in his palm.
‘I’ve got you,’ he says. ‘Don’t run. Let it take you.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can. It’s as simple and as magic as falling and trusting I’ll catch you.’
Something in me trusts the promise. I let go.
The wire sings, snaps, turns to light.
I break with a sob I don’t recognise as mine. The world floods white, then gold. My fingers claw at his shoulders; he gathers me close, swears into my hair, holds me through every shiver as if he can keep me from scattering.
‘That’s it,’ he breathes. ‘That’s it. Beautiful girl. Stay with me.’
I fall back in pieces and he’s there for every piece. When I can breathe again I realise I’m crying, not with sorrow but with relief so sharp it feels like pain. He kisses the wet from my cheeks, his own breath ragged, his restraint trembling.
‘Tell me,’ he says, hoarse. ‘What did it feel like?’
‘Like… like a door I didn’t know was locked opening onto sunlight,’ I say, dazed. ‘Like the first note of a hymn when the choir gets it right.’
He laughs, broken and delighted. ‘Leave it to you to make it holy.’ His self-control frays; I feel it, the tremor, the plea in his body.
He looks at me, asks without words. I answer without words, shifting, welcoming, giving back what he gave me, permission, trust, the quiet certainty of Yes.
I suck in a breath and the air in the room is thick with the scent of sweat and something else I realise is sex, the sheets tangled beneath us.
He hisses as I resettle in his lap and I jerk back. ‘Are you okay?’
‘You think anything’s going to stop me from doing what comes next?’
My eyebrows rise when I see he’s braced his broken arm against two pillows, but he’s able to move his wrist and hand, while his good hand is more than enough to guide me. Direct this just how he wants it to go.
And as I watch, his fingers retrace slow circles on my thigh, sending shivers up my spine even though I’m still trembling from the orgasm he just wrung out of me with nothing but his fingers and tongue.
His eyes are dark, hungry, locked onto me like I’m the only thing in the world worth looking at. And heavens, the way he watches me, like he intends on devouring me, makes my pulse flutter madly.
I can feel the heat radiating off him, the hard length of his shaft pressing against my inner thigh, so thick and so demanding despite the lazy way he leans against the headboard.
‘Come on, baby,’ he murmurs, his voice rough, like gravel under slow footsteps. His hand slides higher up my thigh, his fingers brushing against the slick, swollen lips of my sex before guiding my own hand towards his cock. ‘Feel how hard you’ve made me.’
I hesitate, my breath catching. Even after everything we’ve done, there’s still a part of me that blushes at the idea of touching him like this…
of taking that final step. But the way he looks at me, the way his jaw tightens when my fingers finally wrap around his shaft, makes my hesitation melt away.
‘Holy fuck,’ he groans.
His shaft is hot, pulsing in my grip, the veins thick beneath my palm. I’m hesitant, hopelessly untutored, but he wraps his hand over mine.
The act feels wrong and right at the same time as together, we stroke him slowly, my thumb swiping over the slick tip, gathering the bead of liquid there. His breath hitches, his abs flexing beneath my touch.
‘That’s it,’ he growls, his voice dropping into that dirty, commanding tone that makes my stomach clench. ‘Stroke me. Make me feel how much you want this.’
I bite my lip, caught between watching what we’re doing and this alien need to see his face. To devour the effect of what I’m doing to him.
But he too is watching me with an intensity that makes my skin burn, his dark eyes tracking every movement of my hand. His free stronger hand slides up my back and his fingers tangle in my hair, just enough to tilt my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze.
‘Look at me as you pump my cock, baby,’ he orders in a low, barely coherent rumble. ‘Watch how good you make me feel when you take me.’
I obey, my breath shallow as he shifts beneath me, the thick head of his cock pressing against my entrance.
I’m reminded that I’ve climaxed once already, that I’m aching and swollen from his fingers, but when Renzo directs his shaft between my thighs, when he roughly instructs me to raise my hips, to situate him at where his fingers were only minutes ago…
and sweet heavens, when he gently urges me down over the broad head of his steel shaft, the stretch of him is still such a shock, so intense and overwhelming, I cry out.
My nails dig into his shoulders, shaking as I sink down and struggling to take every inch inside me.
He shudders when my muscles clench around him. ‘Fuck,’ he groans, his head tipping back against the headboard for just a second before his gaze snaps back to me. ‘You’re so fucking perfect, Giada.’
The sound of this name… my name on his lips is like a benediction on this act. My eyes prickle and I have to hold back a sob as his gaze devours me.
Then his hand tightens on my hip, his fingers pressing into my skin hard enough to leave marks. ‘Don’t stop. Ride me, baby. Show me how bad you’ve wanted this.’
I start slow, my hips rolling in cautious circles, testing the way he fills me, the way it drags against every sensitive inch inside me.
The shyness that clung to me moments ago is burning away, replaced by something urgent, something needier. I feel his eyes on me, feel the way his breath snags every time I sink down fully, taking him to the hilt.
‘Like this?’ I ask hesitantly.
‘That’s right, just like that,’ he encourages, voice rough with approval. His hand slides back up my body and his thumb brushes over my nipple before he pinches it just hard enough to make me gasp. ‘Deeper. Harder. Make me crazier for you.’
He begins to move with me, and it is all the things I feared and none of the things I feared. He tells me what he feels – in pieces, the honesty shocking both of us. ‘I’ve wanted this so long – God, you’re – look at me – stay with me – tell me—’
‘I’m here,’ I whisper, and then I’m not whispering, I’m speaking, giving him the map as he asked, giving him my hands, my eyes, the sounds I didn’t know I’d make.
I whimper as my nails rake down his chest, as I pick up the pace, my hips slamming down onto him with more force. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the room, wet and obscene, and I can feel myself getting closer, my walls fluttering around his girth.
‘You like that, don’t you?’ he taunts when my gasps turn guttural, his voice a dark purr as his hand slides between us, his fingers finding my swollen bud, rubbing in tight, relentless circles. ‘You like how my dick feels in your tight little hole? How it stretches you? Fills you up?’
‘Yes,’ I breathe, my head falling back as pleasure coils tight in my belly. My breasts bounce with each thrust, my nipples hard and aching. ‘Yes, Renzo—’
‘Fuck, Giada,’ he groans again, his grip turning bruise-harsh. ‘How are you making this feel like the first time again? You’re gonna make me come so hard for you. You’re gonna take every fucking inch of me and milk me dry.’
I feel him swelling inside me, his cock throbbing, and I sense he’s close to another shower of intense pleasure. Because I am too, my orgasm building like a storm, my breath coming in sharp, desperate gasps. ‘I think… Me too,’ I whisper, my voice trembling. ‘I’m – I’m—’
‘Come again for me,’ he cuts in, his voice a command, his fingers pressing harder against my clit. ‘Come on my cock, tesoro miu. Let me feel it.’
That’s all it takes this time.
My back arches on a broken cry that tears from my throat as my orgasm crashes hard over me, my channel clenching around him, milking him as wave after wave of pleasure wrings me out.
He follows with a primal roar, his cock pulsing deep inside me, his seed spilling into me in thick, hot bursts.
We collapse together, breathless, my forehead pressed to his as our chests heave.
Minutes later, he’s still buried inside me, twitching with the last of his release.
‘Fuck,’ he murmurs, hot and thick against my lips.
‘I fooled myself into thinking we’d go slow this first time.
But slow isn’t your speed, is it, angel?
You’re gonna be the fucking death of me. ’
I smile, my fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the stubble rough beneath my touch. ‘Then I will pray for your soul as it leaves your body,’ I whisper.
He laughs, low and thick and… sexy enough to send a shiver through me.
He kisses me then, slow and deep, his good hand tangling in my hair, holding me to him like he never wants to let go. When he finally pulls back, his eyes are dark with promise, a wicked glint returning to them.
‘You know,’ he says, his voice a dangerous purr, his fingers trailing down my spine, ‘I still have one good arm.’ His hand slides lower, his fingers teasing the curve of my ass. ‘And I’m not done with you yet. Not by a long shot.’
But despite his words, his lips brush my temple, my jaw, before he repositions us so I’m lying on the bed, my back to his front, his sore arm still somehow draped over my waist, caging me to his body.
A yawn catches me unawares and his voice rumbles in the semi-dark. ‘Sleep now, angel. And if you’re good, I’ll wake you with cock and kisses.’
* * *
I’m not good.
Because apparently, what barely feels like an hour later, my body wakes me, my hunger for Renzo urgent and unstoppable.
I sense the moment he wakes up. Tremble with anticipation when his hand frames my hips as if he’s afraid I’ll vanish between breaths, but his voice – God help me – his voice is pure sin brushed in velvet.
‘Come here,’ he murmurs against my throat, guiding one leg over him with aching care. Then he slides inside me and I see stars, dive through constellations.
Heady with bliss, I rock back into him, earning a grunt of approval.
‘Yes. Just like that… sweet girl. You wake me like this and think I won’t take you?
Think I won’t fill you slowly until you forget every prayer but my name?
’ The words curl through me, molten and tender, his kisses an oath down my neck, his palms stroking my breasts, strumming my nipples and trailing reverence into every inch of skin they find.
I gasp when he rocks harder into me, deeper, surer, and he groans like he’s the one being undone.
‘So good,’ he breathes, mouth brushing my ear.
‘Wanted you like this… soft, needy, climbing all over me in the dark. You feel that? That’s me losing my mind for you.
’ His fingers lace with mine, pinning our hands to my chest. ‘Take what you want, angel. I’ll give you all of it. Every time.’
The pace rises, coils, sweetens into unbearable, and somewhere in the rush something else happens – dark corners of my mind flash with image and sound: the scent of lilies; the choir at a Kyrie; the brush of a young man’s knuckles against mine in a pew where we should have been thinking of heaven and thought only of each other.
‘Giada?’ he asks, catching the change.
‘Memories,’ I manage. ‘Not all at once. Glimpses.’
He kisses me like he’s grateful to them and jealous of them in the same breath. The wave takes us a second time, harder and brighter, and I cry out, clinging to him, feeling him go with me, the two of us tipping over the edge together, undone by the same fire.
After, there is only breath. He rolls carefully, keeping me gathered, keeping us skin to skin as if any space would be too cold.
‘We crossed a line,’ I say into the quiet, because the truth deserves a place in the room.
‘We did.’ He presses his mouth to my hair. ‘But there’s no going back.’
I should feel fear at that. I feel peace, fragile and immense. It settles over us like the sea breeze when the heat finally breaks.
He holds me tight. Tighter.
And I turn and tuck my face into the warm place beneath his jaw and let the rhythm of his breathing rock me, slower, slower.
Sleep comes like mercy.
Just before it takes me, I think that if there is ruin ahead, I will meet it with my eyes open. And if there is redemption, it will look like this – his heartbeat under my hand, the night outside, and the knowledge that whatever we’ve started cannot be unwritten.