21. Luna
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUNA
As Benedetto's hand engulfed mine to help me from the carriage, a current of desire passed between us. I'd felt his touch countless times before, in passing or in passion, but there was a deliberateness to it now that sent a shiver through me. When I met his gaze, I found him staring at me with an intensity I'd never seen, his dark eyes twin flames that threatened to consume me whole.
We stood there, hands clasped, for a long moment that stretched like hot sugar. My pulse hammered in my throat as if my body already knew something momentous teetered on the horizon. When Benedetto finally spoke, his usually smooth voice held a slight rasp.
"I have something for you," he said, reaching into his coat with his free hand. His fingers trembled almost imperceptibly as he withdrew a small velvet pouch. "Just something I picked up. They made me think of you."
Curiosity overpowered the maelstrom of other emotions swirling inside me as I took the pouch. The velvet was buttery soft against my fingertips, clearly expensive. I loosened the gold drawstring and upended the contents into my palm.
A pair of opal earrings tumbled out, glinting in the late afternoon sun. Each opal was the size of my thumbnail, more vivid and fiery than any I'd seen before, set in intricately engraved silver. I felt my breath catch, my eyes widening as I picked one up to examine it closer. The stone came alive, flashing iridescent pinks, greens, and golds as it turned.
"Opals," I breathed. The word felt insufficient, too small to encompass the beautiful craftsmanship. "They're exquisite. I've never seen anything like them." I dragged my gaze from the rainbows in my hand to Benedetto's face. "I've never received anything like this before."
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and something flickered through his eyes too quick to catch. Regret, perhaps. Or guilt.
He took a step closer, bringing with him the scent of bergamot and the wild herbs that grew in the fields beyond the city walls. Strange that I'd never noticed how he smelled of home before.
"You deserve them," he said roughly. Then his eyes dropped to my hair, to the sheer red veil I often wore. "You wear that scarf often. Why is it so special to you?"
My fingers drifted up to brush the delicate fabric, as they often did when I needed comfort. The silk was light as a whisper against my skin, but it carried the weight of my history woven through its threads.
"It was my mother's," I said quietly. The words ached like an old wound as they left my throat. "Her bridal veil. After she died, before my father could destroy her belongings in his grief, my stepmother smuggled it out for me. It's all I have left of her."
Benedetto was silent for a long moment. He reached out slowly, carefully, as if gentling a wild creature, and tucked a stray curl behind my ear. His fingertips grazed my cheek, and I fought the urge to lean into his touch.
"It suits you," he said softly, his voice a warm caress. "You look even more beautiful with it. And with these." His hands moved to take the earrings from me. Gently, reverently, he fastened first one and then the other to my earlobes.
The air shifted, grew heavier, weighted with unsaid things that pressed on my lungs and pebbled my skin. Tears stung my eyes, though whether from his unexpected thoughtfulness or the vulnerability of sharing a piece of my closely guarded past, I couldn't say. Perhaps both.
"Thank you," I whispered, the words woefully insufficient. "This means more to me than you know."
His thumb swept beneath my eye, collecting the single tear that escaped. "You deserve so much more than I could ever give you, Luna."
My name on his lips kindled something deep in my belly, a spark that threatened to ignite into an inferno. Emboldened, I stepped closer, laying my palm against his chest. Even through the layers of fine cotton and brocade, I could feel the heavy hammer of his heartbeat. It matched my own.
"Benedetto," I breathed, my voice trembling with the force of my longing. "You don't have to pretend anymore. Not with me."
He stared down at me, his eyes black holes threatening to swallow me whole. And then his mouth was on mine, and I was falling, falling, falling.
The kiss was a wild thing, a desperate devouring. Rough and aching with pent-up need. But then it gentled, turning into something almost worshipful. His tongue slid against mine, stoking my hunger even as he soothed the jagged edges of it.
We stumbled through the villa, leaving a trail of discarded clothes in our wake. My blood sang in my veins like a barely contained wildfire as Benedetto lowered me to the bed. This time was different. More. As if a dam had finally broken, washing away all pretense and hesitation.
His hands were everywhere, mapping my skin as if committing every hollow and curve to memory. Each brush of his fingertips, each press of his lips, was an apology and a benediction. An unspoken plea for absolution spoken into the secret spaces of my body.
Benedetto laid me down on the bed with a gentleness I'd never known, not even in my most fevered imaginings. His hands cradled me like I was something infinitely precious, breakable, and it stole the breath from my lungs. I watched, enraptured, as he began to trace the lines of my body with whisper-soft touches, his eyes dark with want and an emotion I dared not name.
He took his time, lavishing attention on every curve and valley, caressing each new expanse of skin revealed as if memorizing me by touch. The wet heat of his mouth followed the path of his fingertips, pressing open-mouthed kisses to my collarbone, the tops of my breasts, the quivering plane of my belly.
Warm. I was so warm, my skin flushed and tingling, nerve endings sparking with each brush of his lips. When his tongue swirled around my nipple, I arched up with a gasp, my fingers tangling in his dark hair to hold him close. He suckled me tenderly, worshipfully, like he was paying homage to a goddess, and I was his altar.
"Benedetto," I breathed, my head tipping back into the pillows as he moved lower, trailing kisses down my ribs, my navel, the sensitive crease of my hip. "Please..."
I wasn't even sure what I was begging for, too lost in the exquisite torture of his touch. But he seemed to know, to read my body like a map only he could decipher.
His hands gripped my thighs, spreading me open before him, and then his mouth was on my center, and I saw stars. Fingers joined his tongue, stroking and delving and stoking the fire in my core to an inferno. I writhed against him, hips lifting to meet each thrust and swirl, chasing the release that hovered just out of reach.
"That's it, my love," he rasped against my slick flesh. "Let go. I have you."
It was the endearment, more than anything, that sent me hurtling over the edge into oblivion. I shattered with his name on my lips, my spine bowing as ecstasy rolled through me in waves. Dimly, I was aware of his fingers gentling me through the aftershocks, bringing me down slowly until I collapsed back onto the bed, boneless and trembling.
He crawled up my body and gathered me close, his skin damp with sweat and his arousal hard against my hip. But he made no move to seek his own pleasure, content, it seemed, to simply hold me as I floated in the warm haze of aftermath.
Overwhelmed by his selflessness, by the profound care in his every action, I tilted my head to capture his mouth in a searing kiss. I poured every ounce of my yearning, my adoration, my devotion into the press of my lips and slide of my tongue, willing him to feel the true depth of my heart.
Slowly, reverently, he shifted to settle between my thighs. One big hand gripped my knee, hitching my leg over his hip, opening me for his gentle invasion. When he finally pushed forward, sliding into my heat inch by careful inch, I thought I might die from the perfection of it.
He rocked against me in deep, rolling thrusts, stoking the embers of my desire back to a roaring blaze. There was no space between us, our limbs tangled, and our gazes locked, sharing each panting breath. I clutched at his shoulders, urging him closer, deeper, needing to feel every part of him against every part of me.
"Luna," he groaned into the crook of my neck as his movements grew more forceful, more urgent. "My heart. I can't...I need..."
"Yes," I gasped, understanding him perfectly even as pleasure stripped me of coherency. "Benedetto, please. I'm yours."
His control snapped at my breathless admission. He drove into me with near brutal intensity, hitting that secret spot inside me that made stars explode behind my eyelids. I cried out, my nails scoring his back as I spiraled higher and higher.
It only took a few more powerful thrusts before I was flying apart, my body clenching around him as rapture crashed over me in a tidal wave. He followed me over the edge with a wordless shout, his hips stuttering against mine as he spilled his heat deep inside me.
We clung to each other in the aftermath, sweat cooling on our skin as our racing hearts gradually slowed. He peppered my face with soft, sweet kisses, nuzzling into my hair with a contented sigh.
I'd never felt so cherished, so utterly safe and adored. Tears pricked my eyes once more, the intimacy of our joining leaving me raw and exposed in the very best way.
As he bent his head to capture my lips once more, sealing our declarations with a kiss, I thought my heart might burst from sheer joy and wonder. In his arms, in his heart, I'd finally found my home.