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“That’s it, my Annie,” he said, rolling his teeth over his bottom lip. He pulsed his hips up, and I sucked in a ragged breath when his cock pushed against my entrance.

Nothing.

Nothing had ever felt so good.

When he did that, it was as if my whole body gave in and…

“ Ah! ” I pulsed against him, chasing the high, riding it out, my entire body trembling from the orgasm tearing through me.

My body was covered in sweat. My lungs burned. My thighs and legs ached. However, the pulse that had started between my legs beat frantically, and it needed…more. I leaned in to kiss him, about to pull his sweater over my head, my skin refusing to be separate from his.

He stopped me with two words. “Still yourself.”

He did not miss the frustrated noise I made, but he did not go back on his order either.

Instead, he hauled me up, as if I weighed nothing, and brought me into the bedroom.

He closed the door with a slight nudge of his foot, then set me on the bed.

He moved toward the door, placing his back against it, legs crossed.

I looked down at my hands, as if weeds had suddenly sprouted from my fingertips.

“Annie,” he said.

My eyes slowly moved to his.

He said nothing.

I sighed out a heavy breath. “Did I…did I do something wrong? Do you not want me?”

He made it to me in three strides. He used his pointer knuckle to lift my chin. He released a heavy breath, then grinned, but it was not funny. “I cannot resist you,” he said in Italian.

“You have been,” I whispered.

“I’ve never had anything special enough to fucking prove—to anyone. I’m proving to you that you can trust me. If I can resist you—I can resist breathing air.”

“Is that how you have been feeling? You cannot breathe without me?”

“ Sì .” He cleared his throat. Spoke in Italian. “Wherever you are not, there is no air. There is no life. Holding back from you is the same as holding my breath. Since the day we met.”

I had been around Fausti men my entire life, but I did not understand it before then. How it was to be with one. One this…romantic. As romantic as he was ruthless.

He gave me a moment to compose myself, and when I looked at him, all I could do was open my arms. He made a strangled noise in his throat and came into them, kissing me. He kissed me so softly I lost myself entirely and could only sigh when he began to undress me.

He undressed me reverently, as if each inch of my skin was glass, and he could shatter it with his massive hands. Not my skin, but my heart.

Perhaps he was showing me that he would keep it safe.

I did the same for him.

Undressed him as though his skin was rugged enough to cut me, but I was determined to get to the true heart of who he was.

Mine.

“Annie,” he whispered, his lips caressing mine as he explored my body. “This is enough for tonight.”

I pushed against his chest, demanding to look into his eyes. Then I sneezed—explosively, three times. He blessed me, then kept kissing me. All I could do was sigh as he explored my entire body with his mouth.

This would be an exercise in self-control for me as well. I could almost not take it. And when he reached my thighs, my body had already turned into hot candle wax, being formed at his touch. I parted them as his face came between my legs.

Somehow, in a bed, naked with him…my response to him was even more powerful. It felt as if I had been turned inside out, and all of my nerves were exposed.

His warm breath fanned over me. “ Grotta ,” he said, and he flicked his tongue on the most sensitive spot of my body.

I trembled, reaching for the sheets—something to hold on to. Or I would be lost. I desperately needed to be, but at the same time, it was frightening to be so lost inside of him.

He had called my vagina grotta, which translated into cave.

He was whispering against me, speaking of the treasures that were hidden inside of me, a place only he could find.

They had been hidden there for him only.

His words, the possessiveness in them, were working my body more than his magical tongue.

“Mariano.” I squeezed the sheets, moaning so loud, it echoed inside of my head. I was riding his face, my hips adding to what he was already doing to me. Sending me over again. I was still sensitive from when I orgasmed on the couch.

I was fighting the urge to let go, spin out of control, because I desperately wanted how good this felt to last. I wanted to increase my stamina, so I could be with him this way all day long, all night long, for the rest of our lives.

“I cannot…”

“Come to me, my woman.” Then he bit me.

Bit me.

My entire body went off like an earthquake, and I shook around him, my hips still working, his tongue still devouring.

He did not quit until I made a breathless noise—so sensitive, a breath against me almost burned.

Then he made his way over my body, his chest directly across from mine, gazing into my eyes.

“I don’t know what to fucking do with this,” he breathed out.

“What is between us?” I whispered, my nails lightly grazing his skin. I needed him this close. I needed him this close forever.

Even closer.

Almost to the point that my grazing nails would turn into claws, shredding his skin, so I could rush through his bloodstream and inhabit the entirety of who he was.

Even longer.

Forever would not do.

He nodded.

“It is the same for me,” I whispered, pulling him closer, as if whatever existed between us was speaking to me—directing my hand, so I would know what to do with it. How to satisfy it. How to take care of it.

He understood the language of it as well.

The pull.

The force of it.

The power.

We both surrendered to it.

He settled behind me, pulling me in so close to his body that, from above, we would be one body—an extension of each other.

He kissed my neck, my cheeks, and then released me and leaned over me.

He took the matches from the bedside table and lit my religious candle.

I did this before bed every night. I did not particularly enjoy being in total darkness, especially during a storm.

Whenever my eyes opened when I could not sleep, my mind and body restless, they always found a spark of life.

A flickering tiny fire highlighting the details of the glass filled with hardened wax, frankincense and myrrh the scent of this one, usually a prayer on the back that I would whisper to myself in my sleep.

I found rest when Mariano found me.

My restless spirit settled.

Behind my eyes, the candle burned, and behind me, so did the man who held me in his shielding arms.