Page 144 of Pietro

I can't deny her. Not when I need it just as much. I snap my hips forward, driving hard into her.

A gasp tears from her throat. I do it again. And again. Her body accepts me, taking every brutal thrust.

Her cries sharpen. She's meeting me stroke for stroke, arching up despite the ribs she insists don't matter.

"Yes," she pants. "Like that. Don't stop."

My control is fraying. The feel of her. The sounds. The way she clenches around me. I'm getting close. Too close.

I bury my face in her neck, breathing in her scent. My thrusts grow erratic, desperate. I can feel her tightening again around my cock, her body climbing toward another peak.

"Pietro," she whimpers. "I'm— Oh God!"

Her second orgasm hits her, pulsing around me. It drags me over the edge. Pleasure explodes through me, white-hot and blinding. My hips jerk forward once. Twice. I push in deep?—

And pull out at the last second, spilling hot onto her belly. My body shakes with the force of it. My forehead presses against her shoulder as I gasp for air.

NORA

He pulls me against his side, careful of my ribs. I curl into him, my splinted hand resting on his chest. His heartbeat thunders beneath my palm, gradually slowing.

"You're going to hurt yourself one of these days," he murmurs into my hair. "Being so stubborn."

"Says the man who got shot two weeks ago and refuses to take it easy."

"That was barely a graze."

I tilt my head back to look at him. "It required twelve stitches."

His lips quirk. "Still barely a graze."

We fall into comfortable silence. The television plays quietly in the background, forgotten. His fingers trace lazy patterns on my shoulder, over the t-shirt I'm still wearing.

I want to know him. Really know him. Not just the Don, or the dangerous man who kills without hesitation. I want the pieces he keeps hidden.

"Tell me something," I say softly.

"About what?"

"You. Your life." I shift slightly, trying to see his face better. "Something important that I don't know. Something you think I should know."

His hand stills on my shoulder. I watch his jaw work, that muscle ticking the way it does when he's thinking too hard.

"You already know everything," he says finally.

"I know about Pablo." My voice is gentle. "And Bruno. Riccardo. Your mother living in Italy with your aunt."

"Then you know what matters."

"Pietro—"

"There's nothing else." He sounds almost defensive. "My life is the family. The business. That's it."

I prop myself up on my elbow, ignoring the twinge in my ribs. "There has to be something. A memory. A moment that shaped you."

He stares at the ceiling, his expression unreadable. Minutes pass. The silence stretches between us, not quite comfortable anymore.

"I don't have anything," he admits quietly. "Everything that matters, you already know."