Page 134 of Promised to the Don of Naples
He drew the slip's strap down one shoulder. Kissed where the strap had been, drew the other down and kissed the other shoulder. The white slip slid to my waist and stayed there, caught on my hips, and Luca ran both hands over my bare waist, slowly, like a man storing something in the memory of his fingers.
"Lie down with me," he murmured.
I lay down, but this time I didn't want to be on top.
That night I wanted his whole weight on me. I wanted the Latin tattoo against my chest, wanted his rough jaw on my neck, wanted to be covered entirely by him, as if his body could protect me from everything that would come in the morning.
He understood without my saying it.
He took off the shirt and the rest. He lay down on top of me, propped on his elbows, with the care of a man who doesn't want to hurt even while wanting everything.
His skin was warm, mine was covered in goosebumps.
His mouth found mine again. His hand moved down my belly—and stayed there, open, on my womb, the way he'd been doing for weeks without knowing why.
I closed my eyes.
His fingers moved lower, slowly, and I arched against his hand and bit his shoulder so I wouldn't make a sound—becauseRaffaele was in the next room, and Matteo in the other, and the walls of the Hotel Lucia were thin as paper.
"Madonna," I whispered.
"Bella mia."
"Don't stop."
"I won't."
He readied me slowly, his mouth on my neck and his hand between my legs, until I was trembling, until I was pulling him by the shoulders, by the hair, by the ribs.
"Now."
When he came into me, I held his face in both hands and opened my eyes.
I wanted to watch, wanted to see his black eyes while we did the thing that could be the last time.
He looked back at me without turning away, and he went slow, and he went deep, and he went with a tenderness that hurt more than any hurry.
His free hand stayed on my belly, and that was the moment I almost told him.
The word rose to my throat.
Luca, I'm pregnant. Luca, there's a child of yours in here, right under your hand. Luca, I don't know if you know that your body already knows.
But I held it back.
If I tell him now, I thought, he won't let me into that house tomorrow. He'll lock me up in Salerno with three soldiersat the door, and I have to go in. He's my father, I have to be there when this ends.
So I swallowed the word, swallowed it down along with a stubborn tear that ran from the corner of my eye.
Luca stopped moving and kissed the tear. He didn't ask where it came from.
"Ti amo," he murmured in my ear, low, rough. "Ti amo, bella mia. Did you hear me?"
"I heard you."
"Say it back."
"I love you." My voice broke in the middle. "Madonna, Luca, I love you. More than I wanted to, more than was safe."
