"I understand that, but I need you to recover, and you can't do that if you're in pain all the time. Come on, just one night," she pleads. "Please, Adrian."
"I will take a half dose again," I compromise. "Later."
"Later?" she asks, confused. "Why later?"
"Because, if I recall correctly," I say, wrapping my hand around her wrist and pulling her back down to the bed, "we were in the middle of something."
Her eyes widen. "You cannot be serious."
"I am very serious," I say, and I pull her down for a kiss. "I haven't had a single piece of that pussy yet, Caterina. Not a touch, not a taste, not a fuck."
She looks at me with wide eyes, but I can feel the small tremors in her body, see the desire in her eyes. "You're insane."
"Would you really deny an injured man?" I whisper against her lips. "Especially one who's in a great deal of pain?"
She laughs, a low, husky sound. "You are without a doubt the most manipulative, stubborn, dangerous man I have ever met."
"And you are the most stubborn, beautiful, maddening woman I've ever had the pleasure of protecting," I say, and I kiss her again.
Chapter Twenty Four
Caterina
His lips are on mine, and my traitorous body responds instantly. The last of my resistance crumbles into dust.
He needs to rest. He is injured. And I am a terrible, selfish person.
But I also know that this connection, this thing that's happening between us, is as vital to my survival as the air I breathe. It's not just about the pleasure. It's about feeling alive. Feeling safe. Feeling... seen.
And I think, maybe, he feels it too.
His kiss is different this time. It's not about control or possession. It's about a shared need, a silent communication of all the things we can't say out loud.
My body melts against his, and I lose myself in the kiss, in the taste of him, in the feel of him.
My hands roam over his chest, my fingers tracing the lines of his muscles, the hard planes of his body.
His hands are on my back, stroking my skin, holding me close.
I can feel him, hard and ready against my thigh.
My own need rises to meet his, a hot, insistent ache between my legs.
I want him.
I want to feel him inside me, filling me, completing me.
I break the kiss, my breathing ragged.
"Adrian," I whisper. "I need you."
His eyes are dark with desire, but there's something else there, too. Something that looks a lot like relief.
"I need you too, Caterina," he says, his voice low and rough. "More than I've ever needed anyone."
He rolls us, careful of his side, until he is hovering over me, his arms braced on either side of my head.
I spread my legs, inviting him in.
