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Grabbing the remote, Stefan turned on the lights to full. She turned toward him, her neck and cheeks still pink, a sudden shyness in her gaze.
Reaching her, he pulled her to him softly. That Jackson put those shadows in her eyes, his blood boiled just thinking about it.
“Clio, bella?”
She swallowed and raised her gaze to him. “Can we turn off the lights, Stefan?”
His first instinct was to refuse, to tell her that he demanded all of her, that she couldn’t hide herself from him, that she was his, scars or flaws and all.
He noted the vulnerability in her stance. Suppressed all his macho claims and nodded. Stared at her hungrily until every inch of her was burned in his brain. And turned off the lights.
Cupped her cheeks and brought her mouth to his.
With her expression hidden from him, with her face only visible in strips and flashes of the moonlight, with her curves accessible to him only through touch, every other sense became intense.
The scent of her, the rasp of her breath, the tremble of her chin...he was engulfed by her, ensnared.
He kissed and stroked her lips, tangled with her tongue until the roar of his own blood was the only thing he could hear.
The hot drag of her lips over his, the hesitant slide of her tongue against his, the honeyed taste of hers, it was a feast he couldn’t get enough of.
Kissing a woman until now had never been more than a forerunner to release, never more than foreplay. And yet, he could kiss Clio for hours, hear the soft mews and moans that fell from her mouth for days. Could lose himself in her soft mouth for aeons.
He would never have enough of this fantasy-turned-reality that shredded his control. He would never have enough of her, something warned him. He would never be satisfied with possessing her, yelled the cavernous chasm inside him.
He could never keep her from pervading his life, his days, his every moment, his every breath.
She was already everywhere, making him ache, making him want, pushing him toward the man he vowed he’d never be again. Shattering through the shell he had grown and reaching the most vulnerable part of him.
Soon, she would know all of him, she would know his darkest fear.
She would know how he had turned against his own nature and buried his heart and his deepest desires so that he could move on in life. She would know how much he envied Rocco for finding the woman who adored him for who he was in Olivia, and Christian for the family he would have with the lovely Alessandra...
How in the process of putting himself together after Serena’s betrayal, he’d lost something fundamentally good in himself, how he didn’t even know how undeserving and out of control he felt as he had watched Clio struggle with her fears and insecurities and emerge victorious.
How she made him wish he could be that old Stefan again.
But even through the aching vulnerability that he despised so much, he couldn’t walk away.
Instead, it fused with desire, pumping powerlessness through him.
Her soft gasp when he dug his teeth into her lip sharply dragged him from the edge of his own desire, remonstrated his lack of control.
He had bedded numerous women over the decade, and yet nothing like this need today had even touched him. He craved so much more with Clio.
Of her scent, of her skin, of her aroused gasps. She was vined around him, her slender body arching and pressing, as he devoured her mouth again.
One hand sank into her hair to hold her immobile for him, while the other snaked around her hip, pressing her into his erection.
Whatever he did to arouse her, to drive her out of her mind, he was the one who felt owned by her, consumed by his need for her. And it was a feeling he couldn’t shrug off.
All he seemed capable of was drowning and that’s what he did. But if he was going to sink, she would, too.
* * *
His mouth was so hard and perfect over hers. And so desperate and urgent. Her lower lip still stung, radiating waves of pain and pleasure all over, awakening a million nerve cells that had been dormant in her until now.
At least, that’s how it felt.
He was hers. Clio couldn’t stop the thought from resonating like a drum inside her head.
He was hers like he had never been anyone’s, she knew it from the increasingly erotic strokes of his tongue.
His mouth was an erotic lesson, a blast of heat to every inch of her, a fire that spread to every tip.
“Dio, bella. I knew not being able to see you would be a punishment. But not in this way,” he said angrily.
But Clio didn’t care why or how. All she cared was that he sounded on edge. Winding her arms tighter around his nape, she pressed herself closer, tighter, relishing the hard give of his muscles. Rubbed herself against him until her breasts were crushed and her breath a chore.
