Page 90 of The Savage

We collapse together, breathless, my forehead pressed to his as our chests heave. Minutes later, he’s still buried inside me, twitching with the last of his release. ‘Fuck,’ he murmurs, hot and thick against my lips. ‘I fooled myself into thinking we’d go slow this first time. But slow isn’t your speed, is it, angel? You’re gonna be the fucking death of me.’

I smile, my fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the stubble rough beneath my touch. ‘Then I will pray for your soul as it leaves your body,’ I whisper.

He laughs, low and thick and… sexy enough to send a shiver through me.

He kisses me then, slow and deep, his good hand tangling in my hair, holding me to him like he never wants to let go. When he finally pulls back, his eyes are dark with promise, a wicked glint returning to them.

‘You know,’ he says, his voice a dangerous purr, his fingers trailing down my spine, ‘I still have one good arm.’ His hand slides lower, his fingers teasing the curve of my ass. ‘And I’m not done with you yet. Not by a long shot.’

But despite his words, his lips brush my temple, my jaw, before he repositions us so I’m lying on the bed, my back to his front, his sore arm still somehow draped over my waist, caging me to his body.

A yawn catches me unawares and his voice rumbles in the semi-dark. ‘Sleep now, angel. And if you’re good, I’ll wake you with cock and kisses.’

* * *

I’m not good.

Because apparently, what barely feels like an hour later, my body wakes me, my hunger for Renzo urgent and unstoppable.

I sense the moment he wakes up. Tremble with anticipation when his hand frames my hips as if he’s afraid I’ll vanish between breaths, but his voice – God help me – his voice is pure sin brushed in velvet.

‘Come here,’ he murmurs against my throat, guiding one leg over him with aching care. Then he slides inside me and I see stars, dive through constellations.

Heady with bliss, I rock back into him, earning a grunt of approval.

‘Yes. Just like that… sweet girl. You wake me like this and think I won’t take you? Think I won’t fill you slowly until you forget every prayer but my name?’ The words curl through me, molten and tender, his kisses an oath down my neck, his palms stroking my breasts, strumming my nipples and trailing reverence into every inch of skin they find.

I gasp when he rocks harder into me, deeper, surer, and he groans like he’s the one being undone. ‘So good,’ he breathes, mouth brushing my ear. ‘Wanted you like this… soft, needy, climbing all over me in the dark. You feel that? That’s me losing my mind for you.’ His fingers lace with mine, pinning our hands to my chest. ‘Take what you want, angel. I’ll give you all of it. Every time.’

The pace rises, coils, sweetens into unbearable, and somewhere in the rush something else happens – dark corners of my mind flash with image and sound: the scent of lilies; the choir at a Kyrie; the brush of a young man’s knuckles against mine in a pew where we should have been thinking of heaven and thought only of each other.

‘Giada?’ he asks, catching the change.

‘Memories,’ I manage. ‘Not all at once. Glimpses.’

He kisses me like he’s grateful to them and jealous of them in the same breath. The wave takes us a second time, harder and brighter, and I cry out, clinging to him, feeling him go with me, the two of us tipping over the edge together, undone by the same fire.

After, there is only breath. He rolls carefully, keeping me gathered, keeping us skin to skin as if any space would be too cold.

‘We crossed a line,’ I say into the quiet, because the truth deserves a place in the room.

‘We did.’ He presses his mouth to my hair. ‘But there’s no going back.’

I should feel fear at that. I feel peace, fragile and immense. It settles over us like the sea breeze when the heat finally breaks.

He holds me tight. Tighter.

And I turn and tuck my face into the warm place beneath his jaw and let the rhythm of his breathing rock me, slower, slower.

Sleep comes like mercy.

Just before it takes me, I think that if there is ruin ahead, I will meet it with my eyes open. And if there is redemption, it will look like this – his heartbeat under my hand, the night outside, and the knowledge that whatever we’ve started cannot be unwritten.

13

RENZO

I stare at her across the breakfast table, a little jealous of the way the light spilling across the Ortigia terrace drapes over her, like it knows it’s intruding on something holy.