18. Serena #2
He parts the fabric. My breasts are fuller now, heavier, nipples already tight from the cold and his mouth and the fact that pregnancy has turned my body into a traitor with excellent circulation.
Rocco’s breath leaves him.
“God, Serena.”
I look away. Not because I don’t want him to see me. Because I do. Too much.
His hand cups my jaw gently and turns me back.
“No hiding.”
I stiffen. He catches it. Immediately.
“If you want,” he says. “Only if you want.”
My chest aches.
“I want.”
Then he lowers his head and takes my nipple into his mouth.
I gasp. Loud. Too loud. His hand slides over my ribs, holding me still without trapping me. His tongue moves slow, then firmer when my fingers dig into his shoulder.
“Sensitive?” he murmurs.
“Obviously.”
His mouth curves against my skin.
“Do not sound proud. You didn’t cause pregnancy.”
“Well. You participated.”
The smile that touches his mouth should be illegal under current circumstances.
“I remember.”
The heat between us changes. Deepens. Old nights move through the room. The way he used to press his palm to my stomach even before there was a baby there because he said that was where he felt me breathe.
I go still. Rocco feels it. He stops.
“No,” I say quickly.
His hand freezes.
“No stop?”
“No stop.”
“Words, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
That hurts. That heals. No—nothing heals that fast. It touches a bruise and makes it remember being skin.
“Keep going,” I say.
He does.
He worships me. I’d make fun of the word if anyone else used it, but there it is.
His mouth on my breasts. His hand on my stomach.
His lips tracing the places I’ve been trying not to stare at in mirrors—the softness under my ribs, the faint stretch in my skin, the roundness that makes every dress fit wrong and every emotion twice as loud.
“I left you like this,” he says against my stomach.
My breath catches.
“Rocco.”
“I left you carrying my child.”
“Don’t make me cry during sex.”
He raises his head.
“I’m trying to make sure you know I see you.”
Well. That’s inconvenient.
My tears spill anyway. Only two. Maybe three.
He kisses them from my cheek before I can wipe them away.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“Do you want more?”
“Yes.”
His hand slides down my side, over my hip, to the hem of the gown bunched near my thighs.
“May I touch you?”
I nod. His brows lift.
Right. Words.
“Yes.”
His fingers move under the fabric. Slow. Careful. No guessing.
When he touches me, I almost arch off the bed.
“Rocco.”
“There?”
“Yes.”
He groans. Like he’s in pain. Like touching me and waiting is hurting him exactly as much as I need it to.
His fingers move, and the pleasure comes fast because my body’s already halfway gone. I’m wet for him. Aching. Angry about it. Relieved by it. All of it.
He watches my face. Me, not the machines or the door. It shouldn’t matter so much. It does.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says.
“That sounds like something men say when women are naked.”
“I say it when you’re fully dressed and furious too.”
“Not lately.”
His hand stills. I regret it for exactly one second. Then I don’t. Because that’s true too.
He leans in and presses his forehead to mine. His fingers stay where they are, but motionless. Waiting.
“I want you. I missed you. But if this is all you want tonight, I’ll stop.”
The room goes very quiet.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I whisper.
He moves again. Slow circles. Gentle pressure. Then firmer when I open my thighs under the sheet and breathe his name like it is the only word I remember.
He brings me close, then closer, then too close. I grip his wrist.
He stops instantly.
“Too much?”
I shake my head.
“I want you inside me.”
Rocco’s eyes go dark. His whole body tightens.
For a second, he looks like the man from our old bedroom. The one who wanted me like hunger had a legal claim.
Then he breathes once and comes back to me.
“We need to be careful of my side,” he says.
“And my stomach.”
“Always.”
Always.
I hate how much I like that.
He pulls back long enough to strip off the rest of his clothes with efficient, careful movements that make his bandage tug and his jaw clench.
I watch because I’m not dead. Also because he’s my husband and I miss looking.
His body is hard, scarred, wounded, and aroused. His cock is thick and heavy in his hand when he rolls on a condom from the wallet Lewis apparently brought with fresh clothes, which means Lewis knows too much and I can never make eye contact with him again.
“Lewis packed those?” I ask.
Rocco looks down, then at me.
“I’m going to pretend he didn’t.”
“Excellent plan.”
My laugh shakes. His smile fades into something hungry.
He climbs carefully onto the bed. Not over me. Beside me.
“Side-lying?” he asks.
The fact that he knows to ask that makes heat go through me.
“Yes.”
We shift together slowly. My back to his chest, his bandaged side angled away from pressure, his arm under my head, his other hand resting on my hip.
It’s intimate. Too intimate. Maybe that’s why I need it.
His mouth touches my shoulder. That shoulder. The one with the small pale mark from Positano.
He kisses it once. Then again.
I stop breathing. He freezes.
“Serena?”
I cover his hand on my hip.
“You know that mark.”
His breath catches.
“Yes.”
“You knew it then.”
“Yes.”
He presses his mouth to the mark again. Not sexual this time. Apology. Memory.
“I knew,” he says. “I’ll never forgive myself for knowing and failing you anyway.”
“I don’t want to talk about the video while you’re inside me.”
“Then tell me to shut up.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I laugh, and the laugh turns into a moan as he guides himself between my thighs.
He doesn’t push in. Not yet. He waits, his cock pressing against me, hot and heavy and there.
“Tell me,” he says against my ear.
“Yes.”
He enters me slowly. So slowly I almost curse at him.
Then I remember his side. My stomach. The hospital bed. The fact that I’m emotionally held together with tape and spite.
“Rocco.”
“I know.”
“If you say that one more time?—”
He laughs once against my neck, then slides deeper, and the rest of my sentence disappears.
He feels like home. That’s the worst part. Not perfect. Not safe yet. But home.
My body takes him in like it remembers a language my heart is afraid to speak. The stretch, the pressure, his breath going rough behind me, his hand spreading over my stomach like he’s holding both of us.
He stops when he’s fully inside. Just stops. Shaking.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Fast?”
I think about it.
Old me would say yes, push back and make him lose control. Rough. Possessive. Filthy in my ear.
I want that. God, I want that.
But tonight I want something else. I want him to stay inside me long enough for my body to stop shaking.
“Slow first,” I say.
“Slow first.”
He moves. Careful, deep strokes that make my toes curl under the sheet. His other arm holds me close without pinning me. Every few breaths, he asks with his body more than his mouth, slowing when I tense, pressing deeper when I push back.
I start crying again. Quiet. Annoyed at myself.
Rocco stops.
“No,” I say immediately.
“Don’t stop.”
“You’re crying.”
“I can multitask.”
His laugh breaks. So does mine. Then we’re both a mess, and somehow that’s what lets me breathe.
He moves again. This time a little harder. My hand reaches back, finding his hair, his neck, anything. He groans and turns his face into my palm.
“I missed this,” I whisper.