Page 68 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
"Fine. Julian checking in." He doesn't look up. His pen moves across the page but the strokes are harder now, pressing deeperinto the paper, leaving grooves I can see from my angle on his shoulder.
Julian checking in. That's the third time today he's used a brother's name to explain a phone call he didn't take. Yesterday it was Luca. The day before, Kon. His sleep has thinned over the past two nights, his body restless beside mine, rolling from his back to his side and back again, his arm reaching for me in the dark with a grip that feels less like affection and more like a man holding onto something he's afraid will be taken.
I could push. I could ask what's really on that phone and in those closed-door meetings and behind the deepening shadows under his eyes.
But I look at this man sitting beside me in his reading glasses with his red pen and the faint trace of tomato sauce on his collar from dinner, and I choose trust. He told me he would protect me. He told me he would never lie. I believe him because believing him is the only foundation I have left, and pulling at it right now feels like testing a bridge while you're standing in the middle.
So I don't push. I hook my chin over his shoulder and breathe him in and read another page of contract law I don't understand and let the quiet evening settle around us.
After he finishes the brief, he pours us both wine and we move to the sofa. The penthouse is warm and dim, the only light coming from the kitchen and the amber glow of the table lamp beside the bookshelf. Rain from earlier has left streaks on the windows that fracture the city lights into long, blurred lines.
I curl into his side and his arm drapes around my shoulders. His fingers trace absent patterns on my upper arm, slow circles that raise goosebumps along my skin despite the warmth.
"Massimo."
"Hmm." The vibration of his voice runs through his chest into my shoulder.
"I want to try something tonight."
His fingers pause. He looks down at me, his whiskey eyes shifting from relaxed to alert in the space between one breath and the next. The reading glasses are gone now, tucked into his shirt collar, and without them his gaze is sharper. Unshielded.
"I trust you." I sit up and turn to face him, pulling my legs underneath me. My heart hammers against my ribs but my voice is steady and I hold his gaze because I need him to see that I mean this. "More than I've ever trusted anyone. More than I thought I could. And I want to show you."
His hand rises to my jaw. His thumb finds my cheekbone and traces it with a pressure so gentle my eyes sting. "What are you asking,tesoro?"
"Everything." I turn my face into his palm, my lips pressing against the rough center where his calluses are, tasting salt and the faint trace of red ink on his fingers. "I'm asking for everything. I want you to be my first and only in everything. You’ve teased me and caressed parts of me that want to know your full touch."
Understanding moves through his face. His pupils dilate, the golden brown swallowed by black. His breath catches and holds.His hand tightens on my jaw, not hard, just present, and I watch the muscles in his throat work as he swallows.
"Are you sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything."
He stands. Takes my hand. Our fingers lace together, his palm warm and dry against mine, and he leads me to the bedroom without a word. Our bare feet are quiet on the hardwood, the only sound the rain dripping from the eaves outside the windows.
The room is dark except for the city light filtering through the glass, casting long silver shapes across the bed and the floor. He turns me to face him. His fingers find the hem of my shirt and he lifts it over my head with a slowness that makes me feel the fabric slide across every inch of skin. He slides my shorts down my hips, over my thighs, his fingertips trailing my legs on the way down. Then he stands back and looks at me, his eyes moving over my body the way they did the first night, with an attention so thorough it feels like being held.
He lays me face down on the bed. The cool sheets press against my breasts, my stomach, my thighs. My cheek presses into the pillow and I breathe in cotton and his cologne and close my eyes.
"I'm going to take care of you." His voice is low, close to my ear, his breath warm against my hairline. "If anything doesn't feel right, you tell me. We stop. No questions."
"I know."
"Say it back to me."
"If anything doesn't feel right, I tell you. We stop."
"Good girl."
The praise sinks into my bloodstream. I feel it spread through my chest, my stomach, the backs of my thighs. I press my face deeper into the pillow and feel my body soften, my muscles releasing one by one.
His hands start at my shoulders. Firm, slow strokes down my spine, his thumbs pressing into the muscles along my vertebrae, working out knots I didn't know I was holding. The heels of his hands press into my lower back and I exhale a sound that is half groan, half surrender. By the time his fingers reach the curve of my waist I'm liquid against the sheets, my breathing slow and deep, my mind quieting to a hum.
His mouth follows his hands. Lips against my spine, the scrape of his beard following the path his fingers carved, rough and warm against my skin. Down to the small of my back. Lower.
He parts me with both hands and his mouth moves between my legs from behind, his tongue slow and thorough, and my hips push back against his face without permission from my brain.
"Massimo." My voice comes out muffled by the pillow, thick with need. My heart thumps out of control. A sliver of fear skates beneath the need for what I know comes next. What I asked for…
