33. Anastasia
ANASTASIA
Nero’s still asleep when I wake the next morning. His body is pressed against my back, an arm slung around my hip, the weight pulling me deeper into the soft mattress.
So much for an innocent sleep.
I should wiggle out from beneath him and escape before the others wake and notice I hadn’t slept in my bed. Knowing Vanessa, she’ll make assumptions, and they’d be wrong.
I inch forward, using my hips to help propel me across the bed when I feel him—it.
His morning erection presses against my back.
I’m frozen like an inexperienced teenager, trying to work through how to get free without drawing more attention to his hard length.
He groans and tightens his arm around my hip.
“You keep moving,” he rumbles in my ear, sounding very much awake to my sheer despair, “and we’ll have a bigger problem.”
“Doesn’t feel that big to me,” I can’t help but remark, grinning into the darkness because it’s an utter lie.
His chest vibrates against my back with laughter. “Fuck, I’ve missed you, Petrov. Glad you’re back.”
I roll into his arm, testing his strength and how easy getting away will be, when his fingers curl and dig into the space between my ribs and my hips, and he makes another noise. “Don’t go. Not yet. You’re so warm and pleasant to wake up with.”
“Nero.” It’s a little desperate, a little gasp. “The others—”
“Fuck them. All I’m asking is to stay and rest a bit longer. And to be good and stop fuckin’ moving or every promise I made myself last night won’t last.”
“Maybe I don’t know how to be good.”
He thinks about it, though, as the room falls silent for a few beats. An almost-offer—a tease at the very least.
“What were your promises?” I ask, moving off the topic that could veer us into a dangerous direction.
“To not touch you at all while you’re here. Which”—his arm clamps tighter, his point made but also something he isn’t ending either—“I’m already breaking. As I said last night, I want to prove I’m not like whoever’s in your past you sometimes confuse me with.”
I stare straight out the window at the rising sun. All the possibilities of the day glow into the room, offering countless directions. So many ways to construct the moment—and the future from this moment forward.
Nero included.
“Making that promise tells me everything I need to know.” I move my arm so it’s cupping his to keep him in place, while my head buries back into the pillow.
An incessant nagging to return to my room remains, though. Vanessa might assume. I won’t hear the end of it from Lev. Even Zeno will probably harass Nero about what isn’t. The weight of those concerns makes my body restless, hips and legs continuously moving.
“Maybe I should kick you out. You certainly can drive a man wild.”
“Prove it.” What?
All caution gets thrown to the wind when he abruptly rolls me onto my back, remaining on his side while hovering over me. The position gives me enough room to get away should I wish to, confirming it’s purposeful on his part.
But I don’t want to. Trapped not by the memories this time, but my desire for him. Curiosity regarding what his next move will be.
Nero pinches my chin, keeping my focus trained onto him as his eyes search my face, desire so blatant on his. “No.”
Then he rolls from the bed.
I reach before I really think it through. I should agree with him and let him go. After last night, emotions are high and escaping this shitshow of a trip to Italy should be my entire focus.
As I tug on his shirt, I push up on my hands to meet him halfway, fusing his mouth to mine. Sparks and heat and fireworks reminiscent of New Year’s Eve burst from us. And like that night, I’m ready to properly try with him.
He pulls away almost immediately, panting. “Don’t make me do this. I’m trying really fuckin’ hard here.”
“Show me how you’re different from them.”
Nero crashes against me, no longer tender, no longer hesitant. His fingers slide through my hair as he grips the back of my head to keep me in position. He kisses me hard and deep while stroking down the side of my body, coming to rest where the base of his shirt meets my thighs.
“You’re nothing like I expected,” he murmurs, breaking from my mouth to angle my head upwards and nip fire down my jaw and neck.
“I feel the same about you.”
He bites my pulse, reminiscent of that night in a club. Back then, it was games between us, but this no longer feels like a game. This is the official end, neither of us a winner nor a loser.
He grips the material by my hip. “Can I?”
I rest my hand over his and guide it up. Consent is lodged in my throat because no one’s ever asked. Definitely not from before, and any casual fuck within the past couple years were controlled by me.
I move to help him pull the shirt overhead, until I’m completely bared and in nothing but panties.
Blue flames are the hottest kind, and I believe it, given his eyes.
The inferno that ignites dries up the ocean they used to remind me of and instead becomes the flames found in the underworld.
We’ll go there together, where rules don’t matter and trauma is forgotten. There, everything can be normal.
He murmurs a string of Italian, ending with the semi-familiar words he’s used before. “Cara mia.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I’ve never seen something so beautiful.”
“No, the thing at the end. You’ve said it before. Cara…”
“Mia,” he finishes. “Term of affection.”
A term of affection he’s used for a little while now.
He strokes a finger between my bare breasts but doesn’t touch either of them. My nipples harden, begging for his attention, but he’s entirely focused on the hand gliding to the waistband of my panties.
“You want me to show you how I’m different from the men you knew, which means this stops here.”
Ice dumps on me. I blink up at him, trying to decipher if I heard correctly. “What?”
“Don’t mistake it as not wanting to. I need you to realize I’m here for you and you alone.”
Desire and ice mix. I’m confused, so confused. His hand remains on my stomach, slowly caressing as his lips trail across my skin. Over my shoulder and down to my collarbone. His tongue swipes a line down to my breast and over the curve until his words fade in a cloud of lust, and I arch my back.
“Nero,” I whimper. Whimper. I’ve never whimpered for a man. “Please.”
He smiles into my skin, swiping a tongue in a circle around my nipple. His hand slides between my thighs, pressing a thumb to the damp place between them. He pushes harder, rotating his thumb over my clit and above the material.
“You’re not allowed to beg. How the fuck am I supposed to deny you if you do?”
“You’re not supposed to.”
His tongue swipes down between my breasts, arching my back. “I can’t fuck you, cara mia. Not here. Not after last night.”
Another man would take advantage of my open offer.
I catch his chin, poking a nail in the underside to force him to look up. “I’ve never begged a man. You’re different, I swear.”
He hooks a finger beneath my panties, collectively groaning when he finds me wet. His tongue slides over my breasts again, this time straight over my hardened nipple. A jolt electrocutes me at the same time a fingertip breaches the opening of my pussy.
“You push me away if you don’t want this. Say the word and I’ll get off you.”
“Don’t.”
His eyes flash up. “I’m breaking so many fuckin’ rules already. I’m gonna touch you, and nothing else, no matter how much you beg and plead.” Then, a wicked grin encompasses his expression before he bites down on a nipple, sending me off to another world.
His finger slides inside me, and I bite down on the side of my hand to keep from alerting the rest of the house.
Maybe he’s right about not taking this further while the others are around.
Hell, it’s half the reason I tried to sneak out earlier—so they didn’t assume we’re doing exactly what we currently are.
“We do this, and there’s no going back for either of us,” he mumbles as his finger curls inside me. His thumb returns to my clit, rotating circles that rob me of breath. “I won’t be able to stay away from you.”
My legs drop open wider, hips pushing into his. I find a gentle rocking motion that works, practically fucking myself on his fingers while his mouth goes back and forth between my breasts, nipping and sucking.
Lingering concerns and trauma eviscerate beneath his touch. The barriers built around my heart wobble with the possibilities that could exist between us if moments like last night stay away.
He whispers a slew of Italian as his tongue doesn’t stop lashing my chest. While the translation is lost on me, the emotion they evoke is enough.
“Focus on me,” he mumbles, his low croon a near beg. “Focus on us.”
He thrusts his fingers in time with my rocks, whispering more Italian against my skin. None of it’s understood, but he’s praising me. Praising me in ways I already know the disgusting rapists never did. That wasn’t praise, but validation for their own crimes.
I didn’t know a man’s compliment could do so much for me until my legs stiffen, my core tightens, my head digs into his pillow.
His hands are relentless. He moves from my chest, grips my neck to angle me back down, and takes my open mouth in a heated kiss at the precise second I scream through my orgasm.
He swallows my moan while he mercilessly thrusts his finger inside me, and as my pants slowly subside, so does his finger until he slips from me and only lazily strokes my clit.
“You come so prettily, Petrov. Already, I’m addicted to this view.”
“Nero—” I choke. Tears dab the corner of my eye as he moves to take my chin.
Bang! Bang!
“Are you two serious?” Serafina’s screech reverberates through the door, sending us both freezing as the world returns to a shade that isn’t Nero-coloured. The sun becomes bright again, his room apparent—and the crowd somewhere in the house. “We can hear you! Ana, we’re leaving soon.”
Despite knowing the likely questions about to bombard me beyond the room, I can’t help but laugh. Nero lifts himself off me and offers his hand. Fingers that are still damp brush my skin as he yanks me up and off the bed, and right into his chest.
Wordlessly, he kisses me. Closed-mouth but full of passion. He kisses me until I can no longer breathe, and then drops his forehead against mine.
“Cara mia…grazie.”