Chapter 42 #2
But the sight of her bound and pleading does it, and I up the tempo as she pushes back into me, chanting, “Yes, yes, yes,” as she comes on a breathy “Oh,” eyes closed and mouth open.
I lose all sense of my control then and fuck into her at a punishing rate, breathing heavy, grip tightening to the point I’m sure I’ll be imprinted on her skin as well as in her as I piston into her pussy clamped around me like a vice one final time before coming with a guttural moan and spilling my seed into her.
“So perfect, angel,” I praise as I loosen off the bind and untie her.
She falls to her tummy, boneless and dazed. I gently scoop her up and settle us back on the couch, her back against my chest, the musky perfume of sex swirling around us. I nuzzle into her and whisper, “If Eve was created for Adam, then God definitely created you for me, Little Devil.”
She giggles softly, tipping her head back to look me in the eyes.
“Tell me something good, Raf.”
“I’m tired of pretending I like to sleep alone,” I confess. “From now on, I want my wife in my bed every night.”
“Does this mean we’ve finally progressed to fake-husband-and-wife benefits?”
“Hmmm… No, it means you’ve progressed to my playmate,” I say with a smirk.
“Oh how your tune has changed, Hugh Hefner.”
“As I keep telling you, my playhouse, my rules.”
“You should come with a warning label—handle with care: soft and gooey on the inside but may bite,” she says, turning to straddle me, a mess of me and her coating my lap, but I couldn’t care less.
“Gotta keep you on your toes, sweetheart,” I say, placing a kiss on her lips. “Still don’t think you have what it takes to be a comedian…but if you play your cards right, you might just have what it takes to progress to the next level.”
She searches my face, and her expression turns tentative. Everything feels charged with big emotions neither of us is willing to confess to first. But then she speaks, and it highlights what I’ve known for a very long time; she is bravery personified.
“Raf…I don’t think…I’m not sure I want to play games anymore,” she says, because she might liken me to a wolf, but really, she’s the fearless one and I’m just a coward, leaving her to fill the space with words, because the ones I want to say feel too life-altering to admit.
“So I’m just going to put it all on the line.
I thought I knew what love was, how the perfect life looked for me, but then I met you and every nerve ending fired, reminding me what it was to feel alive.
To feel so attracted to someone that you sense his presence before you even see him.
Nothing that has led us to this point has been perfect, and that’s totally fine by me, because I want to wade in the messy with you, but I’m also scared senseless because I don’t want to be the reason bad things happen to you.
Everyone I have ever loved has been hurt by me, and… ”
“Hey, don’t cry, angel,” I say, swiping away a tear from her cheek like a thumb.
“I won’t lie to you. I have many faults.
I don’t trust easily. I can be cold and callous and grumpy as fuck, as you well know.
” I touch my forehead to hers and take a deep breath.
Here goes. “I’ve heard others describe this feeling as meeting their match, but that’s not exactly true for me.
The day I met you, I met my undoing. All of a sudden, I began to want things I swore I’d never need or want.
I craved to be near you, but mostly in a world where people have abused your kindness and your big heart, I want to protect you and show you what it means to be adored. ”
I take her hand and lift it to my lips, placing a kiss on her palm.
“I didn’t think I was capable of caring for someone so deeply that their wellbeing affects mine.
Your childlike wonder, the way you see the beauty in the ordinary, makes me believe that anything is possible.
If you can live through the sorrow you have, overcome the betrayal of those meant to have your best interests at heart then pick yourself up and move to a new country to chase the life and career you want despite it all, you deserved to be fucking worshipped, cherished, and adored.
I may not always get it right, but fuck if I don’t want to try for you, because when you smile at me, when you show me the soft and imperfect parts of you, I start to believe that maybe you’re the one sent to make me feel whole again. ”
She’s stifling her sobs now, and I can feel my own chest heaving up and down, cracking with every confession of my truth. I hold her tight, skin to skin, and I wish I could take every hurt and betrayal she’s ever felt and make it my own.
She places both hands on my cheeks and trains her emerald-green gaze on mine so intensely I feel it in my bones.
“You keep trying to make me believe you’re not the gold standard.
That your hurt, your flaws somehow tarnish you beyond redemption, making you unlovable, but Raf, you are everything I didn’t think I would find or have,” she says, looking at me with so much love and hope.
“You may want everyone else to believe you’re abrasive, but every time I’ve needed grace, you’ve given it to me, along with your patience, which is the balm for my panic.
I’ve survived a lot, but I can say with my whole chest that knowing what it’s like to have you only to lose you is not something I’ll be able to come back from.
” She pauses and takes a deep breath. I can feel the anguish in her words.
I know she’s telling the truth, but the fact she’s yet to tell me about her run in with Alessandro niggles.
Call me stupid, but I decide this is not the time to get answers and let her continue.
“So please, this is your chance. If you’re going to regret it in the morning, let me go now.
I surrendered my body to you and that’s one thing, but if I surrender my heart only for you to chew it up and spit it out, I’ll never recover. ”
I kiss her in lieu of words, hoping that she can feel the desperation, understand just how much she’s turned my life upside down and inside out in a way I never expected but needed.
“Chiara, you are my salvation and my damnation,” I admit.
“We both know it’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to figure out how we can make space for each other in the complicated lives we both have.
No one has been able to silence the buzzing in my brain the way you do.
” I gently wrap my hand around her throat and stroke her cheekbone with my thumb.
“My control may be the antidote to your chaos, but your unbridled joy is the light in my darkness, and all I want to do is bask in it for as long as you’ll let me. ”
“What if I say forever?” she whispers.
What I want to say is, I’d spend forever trying to become a better man for her.
The type that promises to be by her side for the good and the bad.
Better and worse. Except I can’t bring myself to admit it.
She deserves better than more lies and betrayal.
Until I can give her the commitment of forever with a clear conscience, I won’t make empty promises.
I swallow hard, because if only she knew how many times I’ve turned this scenario over in my head since AJ called me out over it.
His words filter through the heavy silence.
Until I have a ring on her finger or her belly is full of my baby, I have no claim over her—even if she completely owns me.
She looks up at me with her big green eyes filled with so much emotion, so much trust. For me. The man who has sworn love can’t be trusted. I wish I could flip a switch and automatically revert to the person I was before Victoria ruined my faith in love forever.
“I—I…know we’re legally married. And that’s not some sick joke to me.
I want nothing but for you to live your biggest, most audacious life, to be able to spread your wings, not have them clipped by a man who has no respect for you or your dreams.” I swallow hard.
“I can give you the marriage on paper and live by the boundaries and limitations it sets. It’s black and white when it’s legally binding.
I can clearly give you my body and pleasure.
It’s just my distrusting heart and tortured soul that are the problem.
I’m just not sure they’ll ever work the same. If they’re too dam— ”
“Shhh. Shhhh,” she says, placing her finger over my lips. “I’m not going anywhere, so let’s just make the here and now count. Besides, tomorrow is never promised. I of all people know that.”
I pause, taking a deep breath. “No, I need to tell you this. My trust issues run deep, Chiara. I wish I could say that time heals wounds, but I think for me, time allowed resentment to fester until I convinced myself that I wasn’t cut out to love or be loved. Let alone be good husband material.”
“Sophia mentioned things ended badly with your ex, but she insisted it wasn’t her story to tell, and I won’t push you to tell me if you don’t want to…
but if you do want to talk, I’ll listen.
” She runs her hands through my hair, and I close my eyes, relishing the way her nails scrape against my scalp.
I feel her face come closer until her lips are on mine. Soft and tender.
“If she was the one who made you believe that you are incapable of loving, then let me be the one to tell you that even in the moments when you were trying to fight what we felt for each other, you made me feel cared for in a way no one has before. Not one bit of you is unlovable—not even the grumpy bits,” she says with a smile against my lips.
“They just make it more fun when I have my way with you.”
From the moment she crashed into my life, she’s been the light to my shade, not because she’s trying to downplay my feelings but so she can create a space that feels safe enough for me to lay myself bare.