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He stills. “You don’t want this?”

“No! It’s not that. I just…” Oh my God. This is so embarrassing. “I don’t really know what … condition things are in … down there.” I’ve been at sea without a hand mirror or proper grooming tools, and after a lifetime of celibacy, I wasn’t particularly methodical about keeping things trimmed.

His brows knit together. “I’ve been dreaming about tasting you again for the past twenty years. You think I give a fuck about anything but getting my tongue inside you?”

With a few simple words from him, my fears dissipate.

I remove my hand from his and watch as pure devotion shines in his eyes. My panties discarded, I sit on the edge of the console with my thighs open, my most intimate parts bared to him. Most intimate and vulnerable parts because my scars are on display as well. More than anything, those scars are the greatest source of my insecurities—the aesthetic aspect, but also the implications. The older I get, the less shocking it is to find a woman who can’t have kids, but for many years, I judged myself based on that single label.

Elio rises on his knees, kissing a path up my inner thighs, nudging my legs wider with his hands and propping one of my legs over his shoulder. He has a perfect view of the scars on my belly, and they don’t seem to faze him at all. It’s as though in his eyes, they aren’t even there.

“Angle those hips for me, beautiful. I want full access to you.”

I contract my pelvis.

Elio rumbles with approval. “Kardia mou.”

“What is that?” I ask, remembering that he said something like it before.

“It’s Greek,” he murmurs distractedly. “It means, my heart.” He runs the bridge of his nose along my slit. His fingers spread my lips apart, allowing me to feel the tease of his warm breath on my sensitive core.

I want to revel in his words, but his touch is too overwhelming.

My core swells with a heaviness—a pressure that desperately needs relief. I don’t know how he does it. His touch is a bolt of lightning sparking a raging fire in the middle of a rain forest where a fire shouldn’t be possible, yet he sets the sky ablaze.

I cry out when his tongue finally makes contact with my pulsing clit. He laves several long, savoring strokes along my center. My right hand goes to his head, weaving my fingers through his thick curly hair while I watch him devour me. Forearms corded with muscle. Coiled shoulders bulging with restrained power. And above all, infinite care to ensure every touch maximizes my pleasure. Despite what he said about needing this for himself, every touch caters to me.

“El, you make me feel so good,” I breathe on shallow pants.

“That’s because I know you. This body is mine. I’ll show you.” His masterful tongue circles my clit relentlessly, then withdraws seconds before I’m about to come. He works me two more times in the same way until I’m begging for him to let me come.

“Please, please don’t stop.”

“Who controls this body, Isa?”

“You, Elio.” And he does. He pulls my strings with expert precision. Strings I didn’t know I had.

“Then come for me, Ees. Come now.” Instead of circles, his tongue flicks straight up and down insanely fast. It’s almost too much—an assault of pleasure that commands my release.

My body complies, bursting into a trillion tiny points of light. I am a human rainbow, glittering from the inside out. As I coalesce and return to earth, I’m aware of Elio tenderly kissing the inside of my thigh.

He stands and scoops me into his arms in a bridal carry, retrieving my blanket in the process, and sits us in the chair to hold me while I recover. He makes sure to drape the blanket over my legs, so I don’t get cold. I keep my arm wrapped around his shoulders and rest my head in the crook of his neck.

“Whether you remember or not, you’re mine. I think that’s why you haven’t been with anyone else,” he muses quietly.

“My lack of a love life is a bit more complicated than that.”

“Explain.” It’s a request, not a demand.

“Well, I lost my mom, then Ario, and…”

“And?”

“There was the accident.”

“Yeah, that’s how you lost Ario.”

I take a slow breath and lift my head to meet his gaze. This isn’t a subject I’m crazy about, but he needs to hear it. “No, that’s how I lost my ability to have children. I had massive internal bleeding from the impact. The doctors had to do an emergency hysterectomy to save my life—that’s what the scars are from.”