Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
ENZO
I’ve had sex before.
Plenty of times. Quick, rough, forgettable. Bodies in the dark. Faces I couldn’t name the next morning. The kind of fucking that scratches an itch and nothing more.
This is not that. This is Stevie looking up at me from her bed with eyes that see too much, hair spread across her pillow, lips swollen from kissing me.
This is her hands pulling at my shirt, tugging it over my head, and the sound she makes when she sees my chest, the scars, the tattoos, the evidence of a life she should run from.
She doesn’t run. She touches.
Fingertips tracing the scar under my ribs. The one across my shoulder. The tattoo on my chest that I got when I was nineteen and stupid and thought it made me look tough.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers.
No one’s ever called me beautiful. Dangerous. Scary. Useful. Never beautiful.
“Stevie.” Her name comes out broken. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” She pulls me down. Kisses my jaw. My throat. The place where my pulse is hammering. “I want you.”
I want you.
Three words and I’m gone.
My throat works around the sound she just put in it. My hands clench in the sheets because if I touch her now, I’ll ruin this. I’ll forget how to be careful.
I kiss her deep. Desperate. My hands find the hem of her shirt and I pull back just enough to look at her.
“Can I?”
She nods. Then says it out loud like she knows I need to hear it. “Yes.”
I lift it over her head. Slow. Watching her face for any sign of doubt.
There’s no doubt.
Just want. Just trust. Just her, laid out beneath me in nothing but a simple bra, breathing hard, looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world.
Fuck.
I’ve never felt like this. Every inch of me is strung tight between starvation and surrender. Touching her might break me. Not touching her definitely will.
I kiss her collarbone. The hollow of her throat. The swell of her breast above the fabric. She arches into me, gasping, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
I want to devour her. Want to mark her. Claim her. Make her scream my name until she forgets anyone else exists.
But I also want to be gentle.
The word feels foreign. I don’t know how to be gentle. I know how to take, how to demand, how to make bodies do what I want.
But this is Stevie. She deserves hands that have never broken anything. A mouth that only knows how to speak soft. A history that won’t bleed on her clean sheets.
All I have is me.
“Hey.” Her hand is on my face, pulling me back to her. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” I turn my head. Kiss her palm. “I’m here.”
“Then be here.” She pulls me down again. “With me. Just be here.”
I learn her body like a language I was never meant to speak but suddenly understand.
The spot behind her ear that makes her shiver.
The curve of her waist where she’s ticklish if I touch too light.
The sound she makes when I kiss down her stomach, a breathy little moan that I want to hear for the rest of my life.
I unhook her bra. Slide it off. And I have to stop.
Have to just look at her.
“Enzo?”
“You’re.” I don’t have words. I never have words. “I just need a second.”
She’s perfect. All smooth skin and soft curves, nipples tight from the air or maybe from my stare. The kind of beautiful that makes my chest ache.
She’s looking at me like I might be worth undressing for. And she trusts me not to ruin this.
I lower my mouth to her breast. Take her nipple between my lips. Gentle. Testing.
She gasps. Her back bows off the bed. Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “More,” she breathes. “Please.”
I give her more.
Suck and tongue and teeth, testing what makes her gasp and what makes her whimper. Switching sides. Letting my stubble scrape just enough to leave her squirming.
She’s so damn responsive, every little flick pulls a sound from her. Quiet moans. Shaky breath. My name, again and again.
I work my way down her body. Kissing. Tasting. Taking my time even though I’m so hard it hurts, even though every instinct screams at me to take, to claim, to bury myself inside her and lose myself completely.
I reach the waistband of her underwear. Look up at her. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Her eyes are glassy. Her chest rising fast. “God, yes.”
I slide them down slow. Watching her. Letting her feel me look.
Her thighs part and it’s all I can do not to drop my fucking soul right there.
She’s wet. Flushed pink and slick and mine.
I settle between her legs. Kiss her thigh. The inside of her knee. The soft skin high on her hip.
She says my name. Just Enzo. I’m not sure if it’s a command or a prayer.
And I give in to either.
One long lick, bottom to top, slow and greedy.
She cries out. Her hips buck. I pin them down with one hand, firm but not bruising, controlled, the way I’ve learned to control everything, and do it again.
She tastes fucking divine. Sweet and sharp and salt. I groan into her. Get drunk on it. Get addicted.
I eat like I fight: focused. Intentional. Every pass of my tongue is a question, and every moan she gives me is the answer.
She’s falling apart already. Writhing.
I suck her clit, slow and deep and mean, and her whole body locks up.
“Enzo, fuck, I’m going to.”
I don’t stop. I want this. Want her to come on my mouth, want to be the reason she loses it.
She screams. Thighs clamping around my head. One hand tangled in my hair like she doesn’t know whether to push me away or pull me closer.
I don’t let up until she’s shaking.
Then I go gentle. Kisses. Slow licks. Nothing demanding.
She’s stares at me like I just cracked her open and rearranged her insides.
“Come here,” she breathes. Her voice wrecked. “Need you. Please.”
I kiss her thigh. Her stomach. Her ribs. Climb her like a man returning to a home he forgot he had.
Kiss her. Let her taste herself on my tongue.
Her hands fumble at my jeans. I help her, too desperate now to be patient, kicking them off along with my boxers.
She looks down. Her eyes go wide. “Oh,” she breathes.
Something possessive and male surges through me. Pride. Want. The need to be inside her right fucking now.
“We can stop,” I manage, even though stopping might actually kill me. “If you’re not.”
“Don’t you dare stop.” She wraps her hand around me.
I groan. Like a teenager getting touched for the first time.
Her hand strokes. Learning me the way I learned her.
“Stevie.” Warning. “If you keep doing that, I’m not going to last.”
“Then don’t last.” She pulls me closer. Positions me at her entrance. “I want you inside me.”
I push in. Slow. So fucking slow it’s torture.
She’s tight. Hot. Perfect. Gripping me like she doesn’t want to let go. Every inch feels impossible. Like I might break her. Like she might break me.
I pause halfway. Breathing hard. Watching her face.
Her eyes flutter open. Meet mine. “More,’ she whispers. “All of you.’
I sink in the rest of the way. Bury myself completely.
We both make sounds. Broken. Desperate.
She’s so full of me there’s no space left. No room for doubt or fear or anything except this.
“Okay?” I manage.
“More than okay.” She wraps her legs around me. Pulls me deeper. “Move. Please.”
I move. And I’m lost.
This isn’t fucking. I’ve fucked plenty of times. Hard and fast and thinking about nothing but the finish. This is different.
This is her eyes locked on mine. Her hands on my face, my shoulders, my back. Her breath mingling with mine. The sounds she makes, soft and desperate and real.
I move slow at first. Fighting every instinct that screams harder, faster, more. Watching her. Making sure she feels good. Making sure I’m not too rough, too much, too…
“Enzo.” Her voice breaks. “You’re holding back. Fuck me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” She pulls me closer. Kisses me deep. “Let go.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” Her hips roll against mine. The angle shifts and we both gasp. “I trust you. Let go.”
I let go. Not all the way. Not the violent, punishing pace my body craves. But faster. Deeper. The headboard hitting the wall with each thrust.
She meets me. Every stroke. Her nails raking down my back, her moans swallowed by my mouth, her body pulling me in.
“Fuck, Stevie.” I’m shaking. Barely holding on. “You feel…”
“I know.” She’s close. I can feel it. The way she’s tightening around me, the pitch of her voice, the desperation in her movements. “I’m gonna.”
“Come for me.” I shift angle. Find that spot inside her that makes her scream. “Let me feel it.”
She comes. And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Her whole body arched. Head thrown back. My name torn from her throat like she doesn’t know any other word.
I follow.
Can’t help it. She’s clenching around me so tight, so perfect, and I bury myself as deep as I can go and lose myself completely.
I come so hard my vision goes white. Collapse against her, shaking, breathing her name into her neck.
We stay like that. Tangled together. Hearts pounding. The world shrunk down to just this bed, this room, this woman in my arms.
I’ve never felt anything like this. Not just the physical release, that was incredible, mind-erasing, better than anything I’ve ever experienced, but the after.
This. Holding her. Being held. Feeling like I’m somewhere I belong.
I don’t know how long we lie there. Long enough for our breathing to slow. For our bodies to cool. For her fingers to trace lazy patterns on my back that make me shiver.
“Hey,” she whispers.
“Hey.”
“That was...”
“Yeah.” I lift my head. Look at her. She’s glowing. Soft. Thoroughly fucked and happy about it. “You okay? I wasn’t too.”
“You were perfect.” She pulls me down. Kisses me soft. “Absolutely perfect.”
Perfect.
I roll to the side. Pull her against me. Her head on my chest, her leg thrown over mine, her body fitting against me.
“Stay,” she mumbles. Already half asleep.
“I’ll stay.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She’s out within minutes. Breathing slow and even against my skin.