“Buongiorno,” I murmur, brushing a strand of hair from her face. My voice is low, thick with sleep, but something heavierclings to it. Something I can’t shake. I kiss her forehead. Then the tip of her nose. Her smile is small, hesitant, but it’s real.
She lifts her hand to sign something, but I catch it gently and lower it back to the sheets.
“No,” I say loudly so she hears, holding her gaze. “Not this time. Try. Just try to say it.”
She stills. I see the discomfort. The fear that tightens her shoulders, the way her throat bobs with the weight of it. She wants to hide behind the safety of her hands. It’s where she’s strongest. But I want more. I want her voice. Even if it trembles. Even if her words are slurred and often break. But just like our wedding day, I want her to speak her words.
My palm cups her cheek. Warm. Steady. I nod, coaxing. “Just try.”
She takes a breath. Then another. Her brows knit together, and I feel her fingers twitch against my chest. But she keeps her eyes on mine.
Her lips part.
“I… vvv… veel…” Her voice cracks, barely audible. She swallows hard. “A…pp…y.”
The word lands with a force I can’t describe. I close my eyes, exhaling like I’ve been holding that breath for years. When Iopen them, she’s still watching me, uncertain, waiting to see if she said the wrong thing.
I kiss her. Not out of impulse. Not out of lust. I kiss her like it means something. Like her voice just stitched up something inside me I didn’t even know was torn. Her arms wrap around my neck, pulling me down. There’s no hesitation in her mouth, only heat. Only need.
She kisses me like she trusts me. Like she’s choosing me again, in the daylight.
Her hands skim up my back, nails dragging across my skin, slow and light and lethal. My body tightens. Blood rushes south, and I shift above her, already hard, already aching. She tilts her head, deepening the kiss, and a low sound builds in my chest. I press her into the mattress, my mouth moving to her jaw, then her neck, breathing her in like I’ll never get enough.
She’s breathless beneath me, flushed and beautiful. Her lips are red, her hair a wild mess across the pillow. I lower my head until our foreheads touch, and I look into her eyes.
“Say it again,” I say, my voice barely more than a breath, but she reads my lips. “For me.”
Her lips part. I wait. “A..a..ppy,” she whispers, quieter this time. But it’s there. The word. Her voice. Hers.
I kiss her again. Fiercer now. Deeper. My hand slides down her waist, over the curve of her hip, anchoring at the back of herthigh. Her breath hitches. Her fingers clutch at my shoulders, and I know if I don’t slow down, I’ll lose myself in her again.
“Do you want me?” I murmur against her throat.
She doesn’t sign. She doesn’t speak. She nods. Slow. Shy. Sure. Her hands fist in my hair and pull me closer.
I shift above her, pressing her deeper into the mattress as my mouth trails down her neck. Her skin is warm, flushed, and soft as silk beneath my lips. I drag my tongue along the curve of her throat, tasting her, breathing her in, and when my teeth graze just below her ear, her breath catches—a fragile, desperate sound that lights something molten in my chest.
My hand slides over the smooth line of her waist, then lower, tracing the outer curve of her thigh. She shivers beneath me, her leg shifting instinctively, and I hook it higher around my hip, anchoring her to me.
The thin sheet is the only barrier left, and it clings to her damp skin, clinging like it doesn’t want to let her go. I want to tear it away, want nothing between us, want to feel the heat of her against every inch of me.
Her fingers clutch at my shoulders, nails digging in, her body arching into mine like she’s ready to be taken. And I am seconds—seconds—from giving in. From losing every shred of restraint and dragging her under with me.
My blood roars in my ears, my cock hard and straining, every part of me aching for her. She’s all I see, all I want. And just when I’m about to make her mine all over again, my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I freeze, my annoyance flaring, but I ignore it. I kiss her deeper, my tongue curling around hers. The buzzing stops, then starts again. It's fucking relentless, like it doesn’t care that I have the most perfect reason not to answer it. I pull back, cursing under my breath.
My eyes are still on Liliana, on the delicate rise and fall of her breath, the loose spill of her hair across the pillow, the warmth of her body curled into mine. She is quite perfection, the reason my hand doesn’t immediately reach for the nightstand. But the phone persists.
With reluctant precision, I drag my gaze away from her and glance toward the sound. Tomasso’s name flashes on the screen. The timing tells me everything before I even answer.
I close my eyes, jaw clenching, and reach for the phone on the nightstand. Tomasso’s name flashes on the screen. I pick it up without bothering to mask my irritation.
“What?” The word is sharp, low, roughened by the fact that I’ve just been pulled away from the only peace I’ve known all morning.
“Boss,” his voice is tense, flat, with an edge I know too well. ‘Boss’ means there's trouble. “We’ve got a problem. One of ourshipments got hit in the early hours by a rival crew. The Messina route. We’ve lost two crates, three men injured.”
The annoyance cools, hardens, reshapes into something colder. I push the covers aside and swing my legs over the bed, pulling myself free of her warmth. The part of me that belongs to her stays in the sheets, the rest becomes what I need to be.
