Then his mouth finds my collarbone, and the complicated feeling dissolves into something much simpler.
He works his way down — unhurried, attentive, mapping me the way I mapped the brownstone, learning every response, filing away what makes me gasp and what makes me dig my fingers into his shoulders. His mouth finds my breasts, and he takes his time — tongue circling, then sucking, then the edge of his teeth in a bite so soft it short-circuits my entire nervous system.
I moan before I can stop myself. Loud enough that I'd be embarrassed if his response weren't so immediate — a sharp intake of breath, his hands tightening on me like the sound did something to him he wasn't expecting.
He does it again. Deliberately. Watching my face while he does it, collecting my reactions like they're worth keeping.
Then he keeps moving downward.
His mouth finds me, and he groans against my skin — low and rough and wrecked. "Cazzo," he breathes. "You're so wet." Not a boast. Not performance. Just raw, honest shock from a man losing his composure one inch at a time, and hearing it makes me wetter still.
He works me with his tongue until my thighs are shaking and my hands are fisted in his hair, and I'm past the point of quiet entirely. Then he drags himself back up my body like it physically costs him to stop.
By the time he looks at me, I'm past embarrassment. Past strategy. Past every reason, this is a terrible idea.
"Look at me."
I look at him.
He pushes inside me slowly— a long, controlled slide that steals every thought — and I feel my whole body accept him like it's been waiting. Like all those months of nothing were just preparation for exactly this.
I make a sound I feel more than hear, low and unraveling, nothing like the composed surgeon who walked into his study an hour ago.
"Dio mio— my God." His forehead presses against mine. His control is fraying — I can feel it in the way his hands grip my hips and in the set of his jaw, like he's trying to hold himself together and losing. "You feel—" He stops. Starts again. "Serafina."
"Don't stop." My nails find his back. "Please don't stop."
He doesn't stop.
He moves, and I move, and we find a rhythm that feels less like two people negotiating and more like something inevitable. He's generous in a way I didn't expect — checking my face, adjusting without being asked, his hand sliding between us until I'm gasping against his shoulder, my hips moving without my permission. I've completely lost the ability to form a coherent thought.
He doesn't speed up. He keeps that same devastating pace, watching my face come apart, until I'm shaking. Desperate. Past the point of pride.
"That's it." Low and rough against my ear. "Let go."
So I do.
The orgasm hits like a current — electric and total, leaving no composure to salvage. He follows moments later — and the sound he makes is the most unguarded thing I've ever heard from him. Wrecked and real and mine in a way that lands somewhere deep and stays there.
We stay tangled togetherwhile our breathing finds its way back.
I have had sex before. I have had good sex before.
I have never — not once, not with anyone — felt like I left my body and came back different. Like something was reorganized in my absence. Like I handed something over that I'm not sure I want returned.
That terrifies me more than anything that's happened since a dead man pressed a drive into my pocket.
Luca presses his mouth to my temple. Doesn't speak. His hand moves slowly up my spine — not possessive, not demanding. Just present.
I close my eyes.
Outside on 92nd Street, the city keeps moving. Somewhere in this building, there are men with weapons and evidence of a war that was never real. My father is out there. Enzo is out there. Richard Hale doesn't know yet that his empire has an expiration date.
None of it goes away.
But for right now, in the last of the afternoon light, I let Luca Moretti hold me together.
And I don't hate myself for it. Not even a little.
