The room’s everything the brochure promised. Floor-to-ceiling glass on the ocean side. Moonlight on the duvet. The faint white sound of the surf coming through the cracked window. A king bed I haven’t lain in.
This is the beach house fantasy, I think. This is the picture on the cover of every dream I’ve ever let myself have about a man.
But it’s all wrong.
I sit on the edge of the mattress in my robe with my knees together, and I don’t start to undress. Raffaele’s undoing his cufflinks one at a time. He hasn’t noticed yet. He’s still riding his high.
I’ve never felt so low.
He gets one cufflink off. Then the other. He pulls his shirt out of his waistband without unbuttoning it and looks up at me.
“Fucking hell, Bea,” he says. “You never get old. You know that? You’re fucking gorgeous. You’re fuckingmine.”
He kneels in front of me. His hands dip beneath my waistband and start to work my pants down my hips. He doesn’t go for anything else. Not the robe I’m wearing on top. Not the shirt. Just the pants.
“You wanna know why I do this?” His mouth’s at my hip. “Why I go out there and make calls and drive across three counties and put a piece of paper in my pocket and come back here? It’sthis.It’s coming back tothis.It’s opening a door and finding you in a fucking robe and a body my whole life’s been working toward, and it’s being the one who gets to put my hands on it, and it’s?—”
He has my pants past my knees. He slides the underwear down with them. I let him. I don’t help him.
“It’s being the man who deserves it. I’m gonna be the man who deserves you. That’s the whole thing. That’s the only thing. That’s why.”
He looks up at me from the floor.
He sees me, finally, and his voice changes.
“Hey. Hey. Look at me.” His hand cups the inside of my knee. “Don’t worry about him.”
That isn’t what I’m worried about.
He doesn’t hear it because I don’t say it.
“He’s done. Lorenzo’s people are turning over every property the family has, every place that little prick has ever slept in. We’re going to dig him out of wherever he’s hiding, and I’m going to put one in him myself, and?—”
His own sentence catches in his throat.
“Fuck this.Fuck Nico.I don’t want to be in this bedroom talking about Nico. I want to worship you. That’s all I want to do tonight.”
He doesn’t wait for a response.
He parts my thighs and plunges beneath them. My body instantly betrays me.
“Fuck,” I curse, pushing into him as his tongue works its magic.
This fucking man. I’m still angry. Pissed.
That’s the thing nobody warns you about. You can be angry, and you can still come apart on a man’s mouth. You can be cataloging every grievance you’ve ever had against him, and your hips can be moving against his face anyway.
Raffaele rumbles into me, his hand spreads flat against my belly, holding me down.
I’m a mess, tangled into deeper and tighter knots by his wicked tongue. I try my best to swallow my moans, to hide my pleasure. He doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
When I come, I come quietly. I press a hand against my mouth, partly out of habit and partly because I don’t want him to hear how easy it was, after everything. He works me through it without slowing down, kissing the inside of my thigh on the way back up. He gently bites my hip and looks up at me with his mouth still wet.
He’s grinning.
The beautiful, twisted bastard.
