Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 148612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 743(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 743(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
She tried to dig her heels into the mattress and push her way up toward the headboard as if she might be able to slide out from under him. At the same time, she raked her nails up his back, and then anchored her hands on his shoulders, trying to avoid the bandages. She tried to press her fingernails deep to hold him to her.
That bite of pain added to the climbing waves of ecstasy her body always sent through him as he buried himself in her, inch by slow inch. Inevitably, he managed to sink all the way to his balls, and hold himself deep. It felt like paradise to be able to feel every beat of her heart. To know every inch of her sweet pussy so intimately. She contracted around him until it was as if his cock felt her every breath. Hot and silky. Anticipating.
He caught her hips in his hands and slowly dragged his cock back until his crown was once more right at her entrance. Her breath hitched. His did as well. He pushed into her slowly, letting the flames lick over him, lick over her.
“I love you, Emmanuelle. So damn much.” He whispered his truth as he repeated that slow, easy action, a smoldering burn that threatened to consume them both. He didn’t take his gaze from hers. Looking into her eyes. Letting himself drown there. Wanting her to drown in him.
For a man like him, who swam with sharks, who put his trust in very few, and for whom one misstep could not only doom him but other entire families, a woman like Emme was the most perfect treasure in the universe.
“Valentino.” His name came out in that whisper she had. That way that made the earth stand still for him no matter what was going on around him. She could make him lose himself completely in her.
She didn’t look away as he moved in her. He wasn’t a gentle man, or a poetic one, but he knew when he moved in her like this, looking into her eyes, this wasn’t about heart to heart, it was about soul to soul. He may have been the one to wrap the ropes around her shadow and capture her, prevent her from leaving him, but she’d taken his soul long before he’d secured her to him. She’d been the one to make him her prisoner.
Val made love to her slowly, taking his time, building the pleasure between them to an intensity that shook both of them, and then continued to build it. Emmanuelle held him tighter, the tension in her growing, the alarm on her face spreading.
“Babe, it feels like we’re going to go up in flames. That you’re destroying me. I’ll never be the same.”
“Let go for me.”
“No, not this time. If I do, it won’t just be me anymore. You know that.” There was real panic in her voice, in her eyes.
He did know. He’d already gone there. He was nothing without Emmanuelle. She had to give herself completely to him. “Let go, Emme.”
“I can’t. I don’t know yet. I have to know. This will destroy me.”
She was right. “We’ll never be the same. There’s no Valentino without you, Emmanuelle—no Emmanuelle without Valentino. Give yourself to me.” He made it an edict. A law. The truth. He leaned down and sank his teeth into that sweet, sweet spot between her shoulder and neck.
She cried out and her scorching-hot sheath clamped down on his cock. He gave a strangled roar of pleasure as a thousand fists pulled and squeezed, mouths sucked and tongues lapped, all molten hot, swirling around him in a frenzied fury.
Emmanuelle’s orgasm went on and on endlessly, or one ran right into another until the two of them were so drained they couldn’t move and lay still, fighting to just breathe. In spite of feeling every wound in his body, Valentino had never been happier, especially when Emme curled into him and let him just pull up a sheet so they could rest together.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Valentino lay with his head in Emmanuelle’s lap. How many times had he done so at the lake house when they had hidden away from everyone? He had known even then that their time was limited. Maybe he should have tried to tell her that things were going south with the family business. She’d been trying to get him to commit to leaving. She wanted them to both leave Chicago, to strike out on their own together, to make a life without their families. She was ready to give up everything for him, but he knew he would not leave the famiglia.
Blood in. Blood out. That was his life. That would be her life as well. She humbled him with the way she loved. She gave him everything, and he was still holding back. He didn’t want to, but he knew if he told her his plans, he would lose her. Back then, he’d tried to find something to give her, something for her to hold on to when she realized he was going to keep them in Chicago, that he was going to take over his father’s business.