Finally, she looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe I’m not there because you made me, Fabiana, but because I want to be. Perhaps it’s not so much the placement of us, but the projection to help you realize something.”
She sighed. “And what would that be?”
“Why can’t you look deeper?”
Fabiana pushed at his chest but he didn’t let her go. “Look, I know this thing between us is what our wolves wanted, but we are human too. No one should be made to feel inferior.”
Adonis shook his head. “Your father was a sick bastard who got his kicks from seeing you break. He used those around him like tools for his own ambition, delusions of grandeur of a weak man and an even weaker wolf. Stop letting his lesson cloud your better judgment because you’re too scared.”
“I am sick of everyone telling me I’m scared and hiding. I went through hell.”
“And you’ve now found heaven if you would just stop looking back all the time. Your past happened, and I will never take that away from you, but what is standing before you is a chance for you to be what you’re running away from.”
“What? Your mate?”
“Yourself. You are still locked in that steel box in your closet, trying to force yourself into the image of Fabiana that Primo created. You’re sick with it, but every day you walk right back in there. Do you know how many times I’ve had to grit my teeth in bed to stop from taking you when you rub against me in the late hours of the night? How many times your seeking hands search my body and memorize it? And every morning, I’m greeted with a woman who’s wrapped those walls around herself again.”
“I don’t–”
“Suficiente. You do, Fabiana. Every. Night.”
Adonis gripped her fingers and pressed them to his heart. He didn’t break eye contact as he made her fingers travel across his chest and down his stomach.
“You know this body better than you know your own,pequeña. You know where it’s hard and soft, where it gives and pushes back.”
He brought her hand back up, sliding it behind his neck and into his hair. And just like she did every night, she twirled her fingers into his curls and held on tight. Most days, he dried his hair straight to control the riot of hair given to him by his father. He hated the reminder that he looked like him, that he resembled him at all.
Fabiana seemed to love it from the first day she saw him step out of the shower and her eyes widened. And when she slept, she always played with the strands, slicing through the cool thickness and finding what seemed to be her favorite curl at the base of his skull.
“Did you find your curl?”
Fabiana didn’t remove her hand when he released her, pulling on the lock as she frowned.
“Every night?”
“Sí.”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember it.”
“Your body does, and it’s time for you to know in the light what you ignite in the dark.”
Adonis pressed his lips to hers, swallowing her choked cry.
He was tired of waiting, of forcing himself to move at her pace when she only wanted to keep the distance between them when she was awake.
He didn’t need to tell her how wet she always got for him.
Every time she moved his hand between her legs, he redirected it her to his hair instead to stop from touching her. He would never take her in her sleep, no matter how tempting she was. Now was different. She knew he was there, looked him in the face.
He could let himself go, get his fill of her cool taste.
Fabiana was like warm cocoa on a winter’s night, or the scent of evergreens in the cold wilderness. He ate at her mouth, a man starved for what only she could give. Her rounded breasts were crushed between them, the heavy masses tipped with hardened nipples. Adonis would taste them soon enough, but for now, he needed to make her wild.
He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling on the strands to force her head back farther and give him more room to explore. Her lips clung to his as he slid his against her before plunging his tongue inside.
He’d been soft with her, but he was an animal, and she belonged to him. He wanted to mark Fabiana, to rub his scent over every part of her body until they blended. His teeth sank into the plump flesh of her lower lip before he dipped his tongue back in and slid it against hers.
