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"Here," he says.
His fingers push my underwear aside and I gasp when he touches me, his thumb finding exactly the right spot like he's memorized me the way he memorizes everything else. Two fingers slide inside me and I arch off the wall, my head falling back against the stone.
"You're so wet for your fake husband, aren’t you Aria?" he murmurs against my collarbone, and the way he says it makes my whole body tighten around his hand.
He works me with his fingers until I'm shaking, until my thighs are clenching around his waist and I'm making sounds I can't control. Then he pulls his hand away and I almost cry from the loss of it.
The clink of his belt. The rasp of his zipper. His hand gripping himself, lining up his tip to my center, and then he pushes in side of me. So slow I feel every inch of him filling me up, stretching me, and my mouth falls open to a whimper.
He stops as soon as he’s buried to the hilt. His forehead pressing against mine. Both of us breathing hard.
"Look at me," he says.
I open my eyes.
He's right there. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his irises. Close enough that when he starts to move, I can watch his jaw clench and his eyes go half-lidded and his lips part on every thrust.
He fucks me slow at first, every stroke pins me to the wall and makes my toes curl inside my sandals. His hands grip my thighs hard enough that I'll have bruises tomorrow and I want them. I want proof that this happened. That he said what he said and meant it.
"Faster," I whisper.
He obeys.
His hips snap harder and the rhythm shifts into something urgent, something neither of us is steering anymore. My nails dig into his shoulders through his shirt. The stone scrapes my back with every thrust and the friction is just on the right side of painful. His mouth finds my neck—teeth, tongue, the hot press of his breath against my skin—and I clench around him so hard he groans my name.
"I'm close," I gasp, and I don't even recognize my own voice.
His hand pushes between us. His thumb finds my clit and presses in tight circles while he keeps driving into me, and the combination of his hand and his body and the words he said—I want that man to be me—sends me over the edge so fast I can't breathe.
The orgasm tears through me. My whole body locks, my back arching off the wall, my legs clamping around him so tight he couldn't pull away if he wanted to. I cry out and it echoes off the stone walls and I don't care. I don't care about anything except the waves rolling through me and the feeling of him still moving inside me, chasing his own release.
He comes three strokes later. His hips slam into me and hold. I feel him pulse inside me, hot and deep, his face buried against my neck, his hands gripping my thighs so hard they're shaking. The sound he makes is quiet but it cracks something open in my chest because it sounds like surrender.
We stay there.
Pressed against the wall. Tangled together. His weight pinning me to the stone and my arms wrapped around his neck and neither of us willing to be the first one to let go.
His breathing slows against my shoulder.
I run my fingers through the back of his hair and feel him shiver.
Slowly, he lifts his head. Looks at me. His eyes are soft in a way I've never seen on this man before—not the controlled softness he sometimes allows, but the real thing. Unguarded. Almost bewildered, like he didn't know he was capable of what just happened.
He lowers me gently. My legs are trembling when my feet touch the cobblestones and he keeps one arm around my waist until I'm steady.
His thumb traces under my eye, wiping away what's left of the tears.
"I meant it," he says. "What I said."
"I know."
"I don't say things I don't mean."
"I know that too."
He leans his forehead against mine. We stand like that for a long moment—his hands on my waist, mine on his chest, the evening light fading gold around us.
Then he takes my hand.
