Chapter 15 #2
His hand comes up and grips my jaw and he kisses me like he's angry about it, like he's been waiting four years and he's furious at himself for wanting it this badly, his mouth hard and certain and devastating, and I make a sound against his lips that I've never made before and his other arm pulls me flush against him in the water.
I kiss him back with everything I have, with four years of fury and want and grief all tangled up together, my hands in his hair, and he makes a sound against my mouth that undoes me completely.
His hands move.
One stays at my jaw, tilting my head exactly where he wants it, and the other slides down my stomach under the water and I break the kiss to gasp and he watches my face with dark focused eyes as his fingers find the edge of my swimsuit.
"I'm not sure I can stop this time, Isabella." he says, low against my mouth.
"Please, d-don't stop."
His fingers slide under the fabric.
"Christ," he breathes when he feels how wet I am, how much of it has nothing to do with the water around us, and the reverence in his voice makes me press my face into his neck.
"Enzo—"
"I've got you." The words come out low and sure against my ear, travelling down my spine like electricity. "Let me have you. Just like this."
His fingers move slowly at first, learning me, deliberate and patient, and I grip his shoulders to stay upright in the water because my legs have stopped working.
"Look at me," he murmurs.
I look at him. His eyes are dark and intent and fixed on my face, watching every flicker of sensation cross it, and being seen like that, by him, after everything, is almost as overwhelming as what his hand is doing.
"You're so—" He stops himself, jaw tightening, and his fingers curl and I cry out softly at the sensation. "Fucking… beautiful…"
"Yes… please," My voice comes out barely a whisper, "Please don't stop."
"I'm not stopping." Low and rough. A promise.
He works me open slowly, thoroughly, his thumb moving in circles while his fingers curl with devastating precision, and I'm shaking in the water, gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave marks, my mouth against his jaw and his name breaking apart in my throat.
He tilts my chin up and kisses me again while his fingers move faster, swallowing every sound I make, and when I come apart it's with his name and his mouth and the warm water all around me and his arm the only thing keeping me from sliding under.
I come back to myself slowly.
His forehead against mine. Both of us breathing too hard. His hand still gentle where it was devastating a moment ago, slow and careful now, bringing me back down.
I reach for him again.
He catches my wrist.
I look up at him.
"This is a mistake. I should have known better."
And then my heart breaks all over again.
This hurts.
That's the only thought in my head as I climb out of the jacuzzi and reach for my towel, my hands moving on autopilot while the rest of me stays stuck somewhere in the water with his forehead pressed against mine and his breathing ragged and the word mistake hanging in the air between us like smoke that won't clear.
A mistake.
A mistake. That's what I am to him. That's what all of it was. The touching, the kissing, his hands, his mouth on my neck, all of it just a mistake he made and immediately regretted.
Four years of distance, four years of careful nothing, and the moment he finally stops fighting it, the moment he finally lets himself have one single thing he wants, he decides it's a mistake before I've even caught my breath.
I wrap the towel around myself and don't look at him because if I look at him right now I don't know what he'll see on my face and I've given him enough.
I've given him everything and he handed it back like it cost him nothing, like I cost him nothing, like the last minutes in that water was something that happened to him rather than something he chose.
Don't cry. You will absolutely not cry over this. You are Isabella Romano and you do not cry over men who don't deserve your tears.
I walk inside without saying a word.
The cabin is dim, late afternoon starting to bleed into early evening while we were outside, shadows collecting in the corners of the living room and the kitchen beyond.
I'm dripping on the hardwood floors, my hair soaking into the towel, and all I want is to get upstairs and close a door and sit alone with this feeling somewhere no one can see it.
I'm halfway across the living room when I stop.
Something in the air.
What is that.
I don't know what triggers it exactly, some shift in the quality of the silence, the way the shadows in the room feel occupied rather than empty.
My body registers it before my brain catches up, every hair on my arms rising, a cold alertness moving through me that has nothing to do with the evening temperature.
Someone is here. Someone is in this room or was just in this room and we were outside and the door was unlocked and oh God oh God oh God—
"Enzo."