Page 56 of The Butcher's Wife

He glances at me like he wants to make sure he heardme right, and then back down at my spread legs. “Eager, huh?”

“A little.”

His hand slides forward, and he skims two knuckles against my wet slit. I hold my breath as he pushes his thumb between my lips until it grazes against my clit.

“That’s good,” he says.

The anticipation, the build-up, his soft praise—I nearly come.

“Just your fingers inside me for now,” I blurt out. I mentally list all the purse brands I can think of and the ingredients for dinner tonight. I don’t know when he’ll give me this again. I don’t want it to end too soon.

Dom’s free hand trails down to adjust himself, drawing attention to the long, hard outline in his jeans.I whimper and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Are you sure you want this?” he asks in a low rumble.

I’m not looking to see if he’s teasing me or earnest, but it spikes a messy panic in me.

I almost cry. “Please don’t stop. Two fingers, please.”

He presses a single finger against the wet mess I’m making. And then he slips it inside.

I groan with unabashed relief and slump down onto my back. Oh, thankGod. The pressure against my inner walls feels amazing, better than I could’ve hoped, and he was right just to start with one. I would’ve come straight away if he’d given me more.

The slow rhythm he’s set is perfect, stoking the fires enough that I can enjoy what he’s doing, but not finish immediately. I rock my hips along with the motion of his hand. That feeling again, ofaffection—though I’d give it a different name if I were brave enough—swells inside me. He’s doing this forme. He’s taking care ofme.

He sinks his second finger inside me and curls both, and in a few strokes, it builds up enough pressure that I can’t fight it anymore. I clench down as hard as I can against the impending orgasm, but it only brings the rush on stronger, and then Dom rubs against a spot inside me.

If I’m gonna come, it’ll be with my eyes open.

A beautiful flush covers his face, and when we lock eyes, I gasp out his name as waves of starburst pleasure rock through me.

He slows his pace until, gradually, he pulls his fingers out of me. Once we’re separated, he stands fully, and we stare at each other for several seconds. I’ve never seen the expression on his face before—like he wants to whisper a secret he’s never told anyone before.

I glance down at his hard cock. “Can I help you with that?”

He palms himself, grinning, before dropping his boot back down from the bed to the floor with athud. “You just helped me plenty.”

I lie there, bewildered as he throws me a wink and leaves, shutting the door behind him.

It’s only after an hour of lying in bed in the most relaxed bliss I’ve ever experienced in my life that I search for my panties on the floor, in the sheets, and finally realize he took them with him.

I’m making a mess.

The flowers Valeria delivered this morning litter the dining room table, scraps of petals and stems. The few that made it into the stone vase are all quietly rebelling. Stems that should be rigid are drooping nearly to the table, and afew of the rose heads are so overplucked that they look like half-bald Barbie dolls. I pause the video that promises a “Simple, Beautiful Winter Floral Arrangement” and groan, dropping my face into my hands.

Once I’d gotten out of bed, the easy bliss from this morning burned away as quickly as a fog in the morning sun.

Mom and Carlo had sent me texts saying Carlo would be stopping by to “check up on me”, and I’d come downstairs to find that my least-favorite Eduardo was my new bodyguard—the one whose sense of humor is firmly stuck in the third grade. Thankfully, he seems mostly content to raid the fridge every hour and splay out on the couch as he watches videos of women in bikinis bouncing around in front of cars.

The elevator door dings, and I look up through my fingers to see Carlo slinking in, wearing a ridiculous orange beanie. He waves at me, tossing his coat and a brown lunch sack on the kitchen counter—leaving his sunglasses on—as he walks to the fridge.

A moment later, with a new bottle of lager hissing open in his hands, he joins me at the dining room table. “Nice flowers.”

“Nice beanie.”

“I paid Cousin Steffie twenty bucks for this.” He flicks the bright yellow pom-pom on top of his orange beanie. “You don’t support women-owned businesses?”

My mouth twitches. I lean back in my dining room chair, stretching long until my back pops. I didn’t realize how much I’ve been hunching over these flowers all afternoon. Mom would kill me if she saw me in that posture.