Chapter 14
Fourteen
Elodie
Salvatore loops one brawny arm around my waist while his other hand rises to tease into my hair. He tugs me closer as he eagerly returns the kiss, but more like an invitation than a demand.
Still giving me space. Showing how much he wants me but avoiding confining me, no matter how much he’d like to keep me here with him.
Because that’s how much I matter to him already.
I don’t know if the other Salvatore could have demonstrated this much self-control. I never really felt like I could say no to him, or that it’d be fair to. I owed him so much…
This Salvatore has gone three more years being hardened by his family—and learning how to navigate the treacherous waters he’s immersed in. He’s more equipped to strike a careful balance, to chart his own path rather than being swept up in the current.
And he came to me rather than being dragged into the match.
I’m never going to have to worry that he’s disappointed in the mate fate gave him.
Riding on the joy of that thought, I kiss him harder.
A groan reverberates from Salvatore’s chest. He adjusts me against him, and suddenly the bulge in his pants is flush against my sex, so hard and ready the feel of it dizzies me.
The need for connection and the pulse of our bond thumps through my veins. As our lips collide again, I rock against him with a groan of my own.
Salvatore’s fingers curl into my hair with a perfect tug against my scalp. His tongue parts my mouth to delve inside and tangle with my own. I meet him thrust for thrust, drunk on the taste of him.
“That’s my girl,” the Salvatore in my head murmurs, with no trace of anything but satisfaction. “Look how much he wants to give you, a chroí. You can enjoy it all.”
And I can give just as good in return.
I trail my fingers down Salvatore’s chest to the hem of his shirt and yank it upward. He releases my mouth for long enough to help me strip the tee off him.
His eyes have darkened with lust, but he gives my jaw a playfully gentle nip before grasping the base of my own tee in obvious question.
My heart skips a beat. I want to—fuck, how much I want to—but I have no way to explain the scars that mottle my skin across both my chest and my back. I didn’t even bother putting an undershirt on this morning since I wasn’t expecting this get-together.
I still Salvatore’s hands with mine, a genuine blush warming my cheeks that may help to sell my story. “I… I’ve never gotten naked with anyone before. I think I’ll be able to relax more if I’m not totally exposed. But maybe…”
I tuck my arms inside the short sleeves and wriggle out of my bra. As I toss it onto the coffee table, a smirk crosses Salvatore’s lips that looks nothing but pleased. “Whatever makes you happiest, mia amata. We can work up to it.”
We won’t, but I can’t tell him that. Instead, I gaze down at him in his delectably semi-nude state.
Black tattoos I’ve only seen part of before wind up both his upper arms from elbow to shoulder—the coiling bodies of twin serpents.
I skim my fingertips over the dark lines. “Why snakes?”
Why not the barbed wire the other Salvatore chose?
Salvatore’s gaze follows my hand. “Being honest? Mostly I thought they looked intimidating. But there are a lot of stories about snakes. They can heal, or they can kill. I like to think no one knows what side of me they’re going to get.”
He winks at me and twists so I can make out part of his upper back. “The snakes are for my Italian side. The raven is for the Irish. Bringer of war. Anyone who messes with me will regret it.”
A black wing stretches across his shoulder blade almost to the snake’s head. I assume it’s mirrored on the opposite side. The inked lines pick up every detail of the scales and feathers.
“They’re stunning,” I tell him.
“Not as stunning as you.” He eases his hand beneath my shirt to cup one of my breasts.
The contact pulls a whimper to my throat. I rock against him again as he swivels his palm against the sensitive peak, pebbling my nipple.
Salvatore lets out a quiet, ragged laugh. “I’ve never wanted anyone this much in my whole life, Elodie. Never will again. You’re all I could need in a thousand lifetimes.”
A flutter that’s both love and guilt passes through my chest, but this time the guilt fades in a matter of seconds.
This is what we both want, need, are meant for, no matter where the many universes take us.
He traces his other hand down my side and around to the small of my back, and I lean back automatically to offer myself up.
Salvatore doesn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. With his arm braced behind me, he leans over and closes his mouth over the peak of my breast through the thin fabric of my tee.
The swipe of his tongue sparks a jolt of pleasure straight to my core. I hum encouragingly, gripping his thick hair with one hand and clutching his shoulder with the other.
Salvatore works me over with tongue and teeth until I’m gasping and grinding against him and then shifts his attention to my other breast. More bliss washes through my body. I find myself digging my fingernails into his taut muscles with increasing urgency.
The second he releases my breast, I yank his head up to slam my mouth into his. Salvatore’s hands take over where his mouth warmed me up, stroking and squeezing and rolling my nipples against his thumbs.
A moan tumbles out of me with the rising swell of need. I grasp the fly of his jeans, and Salvatore’s breath hitches.
He rests his palm against my cheek and meets my eyes. “If you’re ready for this, I’m not giving you your first time on a cheap-ass sofa. We’ll take it to the bed. If you’re ready.”
He gazes up at me, maybe searching for any hint of the other day’s tears.
“I am,” I say, the heady beat of my heart punctuating the words from the inside out. “I want you so much. Right now.”
With a desperate growl, Salvatore lifts me off the sofa and spins us toward the bedroom I only caught a glimpse of before. As he carries me inside, he doesn’t bother with the light switch. Bright mid-day sun shines through the thin curtains to give the simple bed a hazy glow.
Salvatore spreads me out on top of the covers with a pillow beneath my head. He reaches for the waist of my leggings.
“I’m going to make sure you’re ready,” he says in a low, intoxicating tone that’s full of promise.
“I’m going to worship this pussy until you can’t remember anything but how amazing I make you feel.
We’ll have so much time to fuck hard and gentle, fast and slow, but I’m never going to hurt you.
” His smile turns cheeky. “Not unless you want that too.”
He thinks I’m a virgin, of course. Other Elodie would have been, as far as I can tell. I don’t know how to tell him any different.
I suppose in this world, I might as well be.
It was Byron I had sex with first in my old reality. Byron who won my trust earliest, who made me feel safest. But these men aren’t exactly the same, and neither am I, not really.
My ephemeral impression of the other Salvatore chuckles. “I get to have you first this time. That’ll show the rest of them.”
I don’t think the Salvatore bent between my legs is thinking about my other matches right now. His expression as he tugs down my leggings and panties together is avidly focused on me.
He leans in and takes a sniff between my legs that brings a starker flush to my cheeks and a surge of slickness to my sex. “Now that’s a fucking feast.”
Then he laps his tongue over my folds, and I’m a goner.
Every movement of Salvatore’s mouth sends me spiraling higher. He sucks hard on my clit, and I’d swear every nerve in my body tingles.
Gasps and moans spill out of me. I rock against his mouth, with a choked whimper when he hooks a finger right inside me.
He flicks his tongue over my clit and then tests the edges of his teeth against it, all the while pumping deeper into me with that torturous finger.
I can’t hold back a needy whine. The pleasure builds and builds, expanding from my pussy to crackle through my body.
With one more stroke of his fingers and lips together, the wave crashes over me. I shudder with the bliss radiating from between my thighs and sag into the bedcovers.
The ache of desire doesn’t dissipate, though. I still need more.
I reach for Salvatore, and he surges over me like a wave himself. We fumble with his fly together. He kicks jeans and boxers off the end of the bed.
He slides his cock into his fist with a momentary frown of concentration I recognize—he’s conjuring a protective barrier of ephemera against consequences neither of us is ready for yet.
He doesn’t need to. Mom made sure I got an IUD right after I sparked with my original matches, not wanting me to add teen pregnancy to an already complicated situation. But I can’t tell him that either.
So many secrets. But the blare of desire resonates through me loud enough to drown out any lingering guilt.
I lift my hips, practically keening with impatience, and Salvatore drives right into me.
I’m so wet that he pushes nearly to the hilt in that first thrust, both of our breaths fragmenting with the movement.
Gods help me, he’s so big. But the stretch of accommodating him comes with the most delicious burn.
With my arms and legs twined around his massive frame, I sway to meet every measured thrust as Salvatore gathers momentum. He dapples kisses across my face, my neck, and my shoulders, murmuring every loving nickname he’s ever offered me and a few more besides.
We crash together again and again, until there’s nothing but the pleasure careening through my body and the heat of him around me and inside me, tossing me high, letting me soar, carrying me with him as the bliss and our bond meld us together.
Even after my earlier orgasm, my release isn’t long coming. Salvatore slams home, and the dam bursts.
Pleasure floods me from head to toe. As I cry out and press myself even closer against him, he plunges in once more with a jerk of his hips and a hotter spurt inside me.
We stay there while we pant for breath, Salvatore braced over me, our skin slick with sweat. He lowers his head to kiss me again, long and lingering.
When he rolls us onto our sides, he tucks his arm beneath my head so I can use his bicep as an extra pillow.
“That’s just the beginning,” he says in his promising voice. “I’m going to spend half my life figuring out every little thing you enjoy and delivering over and over.”
A ridiculous thrill races through my sated body.
The vow doesn’t surprise me. Salvatore was always the match who reveled the most in our physical connection.
Matches can share bits of memories through skin-to-skin contact. The other Salvatore used to ask me to share glimpses of how I’d felt during our intimate activities, just to reassure himself of how much pleasure I’d gotten out of it too.
Maybe this version of him has more faith in my obviously enthusiastic responses.
I tuck my head closer to him, swallowing against a pang of my heart that’s almost painful. “And the other half?”
“The other half I’ll dedicate to making anyone who hurts you pay ten times over, a shíorghrá.” His grin grazes my forehead.
I nestle against his chest, sheltered for now in the circle of his arms. Salvatore’s breaths slow with sleep. I start to drift into a doze of my own.
He had a long night investigating on my behalf. And still he rushed to let me know what he’d found as soon as he could.
What he found…
I try to push the anxious thoughts out of my head, to simply enjoy the feel of my match’s body against mine, but the unnerving sense of recognition that hit me when I watched the video niggles deeper.
Finally, I ease myself out of Salvatore’s embrace and pad out into the living room to find my purse.
He sent me the video like I asked. I bring up the clip, skip to the point where the woman comes up beside Kenneth, and zoom in as much as I can before their faces disintegrate into pixels.
It can’t be her. How would that make any sense? A coincidence that big between my two realities shouldn’t just happen.
And yet…
It’s awfully hard to forget the face of the first person you purposefully murdered.