“Rafaelle.”
“Quiet,” he murmurs against my collarbone.
I go quiet.
He works his way back up my body with maddening patience, pressing his lips to every place that makes me shiver. The curve of my breast. The dip of my waist. The soft skin below my ear. Until I’m arching beneath him.
By the time his mouth finally meets mine, I’m breathless. I fist the sheets, my hips rolling toward him without permission.
He fills me in one slow, deep, devastating push.
I cry out, the stretch of him more overwhelming than before. Deeper somehow. Like he’s staking a claim he intends to make permanent.
My nails bite into his shoulders and his exhale shudders out of him, long and controlled. The sound of a man working very hard to hold himself together.
This time is slow. Purposeful. Devastating in an entirely different way.
His hips roll against mine in a rhythm that builds with quiet, relentless intensity, and he keeps his eyes open the entire time, watching me like he can see every secret I have ever tried to hide.
He covers me completely. His chest flush against mine, his weight a warm, immovable thing that presses me deep into themattress until I feel every single inch of him. His breath against my lips. His heartbeat against mine.
I am, in every possible sense, consumed by Rafaelle Vitale.
He moves inside me with patience. With intention. Like he is rewriting something in me I won’t be able to take back.
And although it feels terrifyingly like more than just this night, I let him.
I come apart, his name dissolving on my lips like a secret. He follows shortly after, burying himself deep and going utterly still, a rough, broken sound pressed into my hair.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
My body feels completely wrung out and warm and oddly, terrifyingly at peace.
Eventually, he shifts, drawing me gently against his side. My head finds the curve of his chest like it was made to rest there.
Sleep is already pulling at the edges of me, thick and insistent and impossible to fight.
“Now you’re ready for bed,” he says, his voice low and rough and achingly soft all at once.
I should probably say something. Argue. Roll my eyes. Pretend he hasn’t just ruined me all over again.
Instead, I close my eyes against his chest and let myself believe, for one reckless second, that this is where I’m supposed to be.
“I want it to be meaningful,” he murmurs after a few seconds. “When I tattoo the rest of my body, I want it to be something meaningful.”
The words are soft and a part of me isn’t even sure he spoke them. I don’t even realize he’s answering the question fromearlier. The lull of sleep is too enticing, and although I want to ask him what he means, I find myself drifting off instead.
“Good night, little siren.”
* * *
When my eyes open the next morning, his are the first ones I see. He’s sitting in a chair that wasn’t in the room last night, spread out like a king, his expression thoughtful, his eyes tired. He’s wearing a pair of black joggers but no shirt leaving his chest bare. I frown, sitting up in the bed pulling the covers with me as I look at him warily.
The memory from last night replays in my head, dulling my trepidation. But the sight of him looking like a predator waiting for his meal isn’t helping at all.
When it becomes clear he isn’t going to speak, I force some words out of my mouth.
“Were you staring at me all night?” He nods once in reply. “That’s very creepy,” I state, my heart pounding.
