Page 66

“Your wound,” I barely got out. My voice sounded weak, and I cursed myself for it!

This man could do to me what no one else could—draw tears from my eyes.

My family enjoyed me being unfeeling. Less chance I would explode and cause a scene.

This was my sister’s job. Her feelings were uncontrolled and allowed to be wild.

I was the same in certain ways, I had a temper, but the world mostly called me unfeeling.

I was cold. Callous.

Uninterested in anything but designing and creating jewelry, all my warmth and feeling directed toward those areas of my life. I could not recall how many Fausti men attempted to speak to me only because I presented a challenge to them.

Although Mariano had sparked something in me right away, again, I had considered myself only a challenge—especially to the Casanova Prince, a man who was perhaps never told no by a woman.

For him, and him only, I turned as hot as the butane torch I worked with.

“Fuck my wound. My blood runs hot. It’ll kill anything that threatens me.

And fuck the rest of the world. Us. We’re the only world I’m in.

So fucking deep, I can’t see straight unless my eyes are on mine—you.

” He refused to move his stare from mine.

His next words were spoken in Italian. “No other man will come between us in this moment. A moment where I am so vulnerable, I will die if I am not inside of my wife.” He took his hand, my wrist with it, and punched over his chest.

The back of my knees hit the bed, and I went down on top of it, him with me.

He was not hurting me, but I felt the weight of him.

The weight of all he felt for me. I could barely breathe as his mouth came over mine and kissed me.

His lips were smooth, but the kiss was rough and hot.

I melted into it before he even truly began.

I gave myself over to him.

To this .

Whatever this was between us.

I could barely breathe, yet he was keeping me alive. I could not speak, but every word I longed to say seemed to slip from his lips as his cock slipped inside of me.

I made a garbled sound, my hands seeking a part of him to touch.

He stilled, eyes closed, neck back, mouth parted.

He moved inside of me and growled low in his throat.

He hissed out a breath when I touched the wound on his back, and it seemed as though he became even harder, moving faster. My hands went to his culo instead. I pulled him toward me, demanding he go deeper, and he did.

My mistake or not. I realized how deep he could go.

I could not escape from him.

From this .

Whatever this sweet, maddening thing was between us.

He slid out, and I whimpered at the loss of the connection before he came back and sent all the breath from my lungs and all sense from my mind.

All I could feel was him.

He owned me.

Owned me.

His shoulders moved, his powerful hips did as well, as my thighs were parted even further, and he moved in between them as if he were a man possessed. His muscles strained, his veins swelled, and his eyes refused to leave mine.

“Open your eyes, my wife,” he ordered me in Italian.

I had not even realized I had closed them.

All I could see was him.

He owned me.

Owned me.

I could barely keep my eyes open. He was too powerful. I could not even escape him when my eyes were closed. Open to him…he was the world. My world. And he was rocking me to my core. Releasing all he felt onto me. Giving it to me to feel and hide.

The romance of what he had done in my honor.

As if he could read my mind, he leaned down and kissed me where I had been struck years ago.

His body was a storm against mine, but the way his lips had barely touched mine…

it was maddening. The contrast between rough and tender.

His strokes could never be described as tender, however.

He would stretch me, moving his hips in a way that made my eyes roll back in my head so hard, I was not sure if they could ever see straight again.

Then he would pound into me, as ruthless as his blood.

I was on the brink of shattering around him.

Every movement he made was controlled. Even the wild behind it.

Yet…I could feel what he was holding back.

How, if he acted on impulse, he could severely harm me.

It was in the way his muscles trembled beneath his skin.

A man who stands against a storm to save me from it, not even thinking twice of how it might topple him.

I was not sure if I was speaking to him or pleading.

I was not sure which language I was speaking in.

Or any at all.

Perhaps it was the one he and I shared—only he and I.

I was not sure if I felt trapped by the intensity or wild from the freedom that only he could give me.

The world had shrunk to the two of us, and nothing was certain except for the fact that we were connected this way, and if we were not, neither of us could breathe.

I did not want to feel disconnected from him.

I wanted to live this way forever. Never leave this cabin.

This bed. However. My body was fighting to be set free from the immense pressure that had me throbbing all over, as if I had transformed into a pulse.

Again and again, oh God , please, again and again.

Forever.

I cannot hold on. I cannot.

“You can,” he spoke to me in Italian, and I realized I had spoken the last words out loud.

“You can, my wife.” He stilled, rolled his teeth over his bottom lip, groaned.

“You can because you were made for me. You can withstand my body. Its needs. They are yours, just as yours are mine.” His hips slowed, his rhythm not as fast, but his strokes…

He stretched me beyond my means, almost, and each stroke glided along my walls and touched every sensitive nerve I was designed with. The noise that erupted from my chest was strangled, but mixed with a pleasure so sweet, I could taste it on my tongue.

His tongue danced in my mouth, going so deep, he stole the long moan from my throat for his own. He made the same noise, and the vibrations seemed to meet in the middle, giving us music for our hearts and souls to dance to.

The deeper the noise he made, the harder it was for me to hold on.

He sensed it.

My entire body trembled.

The noises from my mouth were not pretty, but to him, by the look in his eyes, he thought I was the most beautiful creature to ever grace the earth.

“Come to me, my wife,” he said in Italian. He stilled, groaning even deeper. “Come to me. Give yourself to me. All of you.”

I did, shattering over his cock, my orgasm ripping through me as if it had to open me up entirely.

And then it flooded me with warmth I could only describe as an ethereal experience, although it had ripped through me.

My orgasm clung onto another when he started to pound into me.

The look on this wild animal’s face was as beatific as mine as he gave himself over to me.

A moment in time seemed to freeze between us before he ordered me to look into his eyes. My lids were heavy, and they had to flutter a bit before they could fully open.

His breath caught. I heard it. “Fuck,” he breathed out, leaning down to kiss me. We started to move again, our bodies starving, although we had just been filled. I could feel his seed slipping out of me, cool air hardening it on my thighs.

I could smell it in the air.

Him.

Me.

Us.

“Fuck,” he said, almost…not panicked, but something close to it.

“I’ve never loved anything so much. The word feels like a fucking lie, but how could it be when it’s present too.

” He kissed me again, this time rougher, his groan meeting mine again.

“Love you, my Annie. Never loved anything more. I’d die without you.

My healing.” He kissed me again, this time softer, as my light, trembling moan met his darker sound.

Then he started to speak to me in Italian.

Telling me all the things his heart ordered him to.

Our world continued, the one outside not even having a chance to slip back inside, even with the heat of the sun illuminating us through the window.

The heat from our bodies turned all but us to ash.