For the rest of his life, this was all he would ever need. That was the only coherent thought he had. This. Her.I need her.
“Oh, Rocco. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” She was close, but he was closer.
He knotted his fist into the blankets, vibrating with acute pleasure, concentrating on her so he could cling to his control.
Her noises were musical and anguished, her cheeks and breasts bright pink with arousal, her teeth cutting across her bottom lip.
“I need you to come for me, bella.” He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on, not when she was so hot and slick and alluring.
He shifted and got his hand between them, caressing where they were joined, nearly losing everything at the feel of her plump flesh. At the way she responded to his caress with a tight clasp of her inner muscles, redoubling his pleasure as he sank into her and retreated again. Harder. Faster.
“Come now. Now.” He circled his thumb, then pressed.
Her eyelashes fluttered and she began to sob and gasp and contract around him.
He moved his hand and thrust with more power, riding her through one orgasm, then another that caught them both by surprise. It was magnificent. She was.
But his bodydemandedrelease, screaming at him to bury himself deep and let go.
Somehow, he held back until she was melting and shivering and sighing with gratification.
His spine tingled, and his tongue pressed the roof of his mouth, and he pulled out, erupting against her still-quivering stomach.
Thoroughly depleted, it was all he could do not to collapse atop her.
As he rolled away, he managed to reach the box of tissues from the nightstand and handed them to her, but he couldn’t even keep his eyes open. His lungs were still clawing for air, his skin damp, his heart pounding. Dio, that had been magnificent.
He should tell her that, but he was too weak to lick his lips, let alone make them form words.
After a few minutes, she curled into his side with a purring sound, warm and soft.
He dragged his weighted arm around her, snugging her tighter into him without opening his eyes.
“Do you really want to keep doing this?” Her murmuring lips brushed his skin and her hair slid to tickle his shoulder. “Because I could go on the pill. The real one. Then we wouldn’t have to worry.”
I’m not worriedwas his nascent thought.
He snapped his eyes open. Maybe he stiffened in reaction because she whispered, “Were you sleeping? I’m sorry.”
“No.” He scooped her closer and kissed her hairline, inhaling the fading fragrance of her shampoo while he stared at the ceiling and saw a future for himself that was utterly foreign, one he’d never imagined.
“I might doze off,” she said with a lilt of humor, warm arm belting his waist. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Neither had he, but while she relaxed against him and her breaths evened out, his mind was tentatively walking onto the thin ice of potential parenthood. He’d never seen himself becoming a husband and father. Maybe it was a result of his upbringing and years in foster care, but he’d mentally labeled family life as something for other people, not for him. He had always existed within those spaces as an interloper.
He had just taken a risk with Mira, though. Not a big one, but the idea of having a child with her didn’t strike alarm bells in him. In fact, it held a strange appeal.
Did he have the capacity for the kind of love a child needed, though? The kind that a woman had every right to expect if she was having a family with him? Familieswerelove. That’s what he’d observed when he’d stood on the outskirts of them. It was the reason he’d fought so hard to get back to his aunt and felt so adrift when he lost her. Silvio had done his best to provide an approximation of family to Rocco, but he’d always held himself apart, not trusting that it was something he could have.
Mira had her own issues. Her father figure hadn’t loved her. How would she react when she learned shedidhave a father? Would Silvio ever tell her? How could Rocco consider a deeper relationship with her if he was keeping a secret that was so intrinsic to who she was?
How could he not when she deserved to have someone in her life who cared about her? When, together, they were pure magic?
The questions stayed with him over the next few days as they split their time between the hotel in Naples and the villa.
She saw a doctor and he brought in a crew to tidy up the trees and empty the villa of furniture. She was giving him free rein, and had said, “If I don’t like what you do, you said you’d buy it, so I know you’ll do a good job rather than stick yourself with a lemon.”
It was excellent logic, if circular. He intended to include her in all of the decisions, anyway, so it would be very much hers when all was said and done.
