“Truce?” she asked.
“No.”
I crossed the room in three strides. She attempts to duck past me, but I block her, placing my arms on either side of her head, trapping her against the shelves.
“Nowhere to run, Tesoro.” Nodding to where I have her trapped between me and a first edition of Dante’s Inferno.
I’ve noticed that—the way her pupils go wide when I speak in my mother tongue, the way her body leans in. She doesn’t know most of the words yet. But I know she feels the weight of it, even if she doesn’t know the meaning. She feels the way it claims her.
“You’re cornered,” I continued, my voice dropping. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“That you’re a sore winner.”
I leaned in, my lips brushing her ear. “I haven’t won yet.”
Then I kissed her neck, her head fell back, her hands coming up to grip my shoulders. I trailed my mouth down her throat, tasting the salt of her skin, feeling her pulse flutter beneath my lips. She moaned, and I felt it in my chest, in my gut, down to the base of my fucking spine.
But then a book fell from the shelf behind her, landing on the floor with a heavy thump. She startled, looking down, and I seen her eyes go wide.
“Oh no. Not the books.”
I glanced at the fallen volume, then back at her. “You’re worried about books right now?”
“These are probably worth more than my entire life.”
“Probably,” I said bluntly.
“Well, that’s rude.”
I reached up and swept another armful of books off the shelf. They crashed to the floor, leather-bound and ancient, spines cracking, pages splaying. She yelped, trying to stop me, but I was already reaching for more.
“Stop!” She grabbed my wrist, laughing and horrified at the same time. “Lorenzo, stop, they’re?—”
“I don’t care about the books.” I cradled her face, my thumb tracing the flush on her cheek, forcing her to see me. “I care about your laughter. I care about the way you wear my shirt, bubbles tangled in your hair, racing through the house. These books are just paper. You are what matters here—the only thing that makes all of this mean anything.”
She stared at me, her chest rising and falling, her eyes shimmering.
“I must do what my wife says,” I murmured, releasing her. I step back, holding up my hands. “If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, softly: “I don’t want you to stop.”
“Then what do you want?”
She stepped forward, closing the distance between us. Her hands sliding up my chest, around my neck, and she pulled me down into a kiss.
When she pulled back, she was smiling. “I want to stay here with you. Just like this.”
In that moment, I realized: I don’t deserve her.
But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to.
We didn’t have sex that night.
I want to. God, I want to. Every fiber of my being is screaming to lay her down on this rug and worship every inch of her, to hear her moan my name, to lose myself inside her until we’re both breathless and ruined.
But she’s still sore from all the times I’ve taken her tight little pussy across Italy. I can see it in the way she shifts her weight, the way she winces when I step between her legs. And as much as I love being between her thighs—as much as I crave the way she falls apart for me—I want this more. Her head on my chest,her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin. The fire crackles in the hearth. The books we knocked over still lay scattered on the floor.
“What did you dream about?” I asked, my voice low in the quiet of the room. “When you were a little girl?”
