She pressed against him. “Take me to bed, Damian.”
And now he couldn’t hold back the groan that emerged from his throat as he swept her into his arms.
As he carried her to the bed where he would make them both forget.
8
She was floating above the floor, adrift. But this time it was okay because she was in Damian’s arms.
And nothing bad would ever happen to her while she was in Damian’s arms.
He lowered her onto the bed gently, carefully, like she was a rare and precious thing. For a long moment, he stood looking down at her, his chest rising and falling, his eyes dark with an emotion she couldn’t name.
She expected his eyes to sweep her body. She’d caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror. She knew she was too thin now, her skin pale from lack of sunlight.
But he seemed more interested in her face, and he studied her for a long time before she spoke.
“I don’t look the same,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Surprise passed over his features. “You’re sorry? Why are you sorry?”
She hesitated, suddenly feeling vulnerable spread out naked in front of him. “It must be hard to look at me now.”
“Hard to…?” He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair. He lowered himself to the bed and ran a hand from her temple down her cheek, over the curve of her jaw and down her throat. “It’s only hard to look at you because I want you so much. And it feels wrong to want you with all you’ve been through.”
“It’s not wrong,” she said. “It’s the only thing that feels right.”
He let his eyes travel the length of her body, his hand resting on one of her breasts, his fingers teasing the nipple into a peak. She waited, letting him take his time, trying not to squirm under his hand as his fingers ignited a fire in her belly.
He returned his gaze to her face. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Aria.”
She met his eyes. “Show me.”
His eyes darkened to pools of ebony fire as he leaned over her body. The touch of his shirt against her bare skin sent a shiver through her body. She thought he would kiss her. Instead he lowered his face to her collarbone, nuzzled against her tender skin until she gasped with the pleasure of it.
He pressed his lips firmly against her neck, his tongue darting out to taste her, a lick of fire against her already-fevered skin. She lifted a hand to his chest, let it travel up the hard peaks and valleys on the way to his neck. His hair was as soft as she remembered and she plunged her fingers into the silky locks at the back of his head as he kissed his way up her neck.
She was already writhing on the bed. Already wet for him.
He continued along her jaw toward her mouth, his kisses as light as a summer wind, his hand still working her nipple between his fingers.
He kissed the corners of her mouth and hovered over her lips, his breath mingling with her own in the moment before he lowered his head to hers.
The kiss was gentle at first, almost chaste.
She closed her eyes, let his lips sink into hers, let herself revel in the fact that it was real.
That he was real.
Then his tongue parted her lips and the embers that had been smoldering at her center erupted into a full-fledged fire. She opened her mouth to him, heard his growl as his tongue invaded her.
Now there was no hesitancy. No gentleness.
It was all need and urgency, a mandate to be as close as they could possibly get.
His hand slid into the hair at the back of her neck, tipping her head to give him better access to her mouth. She sank deeper into the exploration of his tongue, the sweeps and parries of it as familiar as if she’d kissed him yesterday.
As familiar as if she’d kissed him every day of her life for a hundred lifetimes.
She reached for the bottom of his T-shirt, tried to lift it without breaking their kiss. It was impossible and she finally broke away for the briefest of moments.
“I need you naked, Damian. I need to feel your skin on my skin.”
He stood without a word and stripped off his shirt. She had the feeling she could have asked for the moon and he would have plucked it from the sky for her. Not just at that moment but at any moment.
That he would move heaven and earth for her.
He already had.
The flush expanded through her body as she took in his smooth skin, his defined biceps, the broad expanse of his shoulders converging at the muscled peak of his chest.
She stopped on the red wound of the gunshot that had dropped him in Capri, her heart clutching in her chest at the sight of it, at the reminder that he could have been taken from her forever.
He reached for his belt and she followed his movement, past the ridges of his stomach to the thin line of hair at the apex of the prominent “V” disappearing beyond his black jeans.
He let the jeans fall to the floor, and then he was standing before her, naked in all his glory. He was a golden Adonis, even more beautiful than she’d remembered during all the nights she’d called up his image to keep her safe inside her room in Greece.
His cock was massive, long and thick and perfectly formed between muscled thighs. Wet heat rushed to her center. It made her feel alive. Reminded her that she was still whole and human in spite of everything she needed to forget.
She lifted a hand. He took it and she pulled him down onto the bed, his body covering hers. She’d never felt so safe as the weight of his body enveloped her, his head dipping to capture her lips.
He propped himself up on his arms as he kissed her long and deep and slow, his body wedged between her legs, the head of his cock brushing against her inner thigh until she was on fire for him.
She ran her hands along his strong back as she met his tongue thrust for thrust, her hips rising of their own accord, her pussy already opening to him. He kissed his way down her throat, lingering over her collarbone before making his way to one of her breasts.
Her back arched as his tongue flicked against the rigid peak, his mouth closing over it a moment later, enveloping it in heat. He sucked and lapped, kneading her other breast, pinching the nipple between his fingers.
She opened her legs wider, moving her hips to position him more firmly against the cleft between her legs. She was aching for him, her center pulsing with the need for completion, with the need to feel him slide into her.
She rubbed against him as he sucked, letting his shaft slide between her folds, the tip bumping up against her clit, the rhythm of it already calling forward an orgasm at the center of her body.
Just when she thought he couldn’t stand it another second, he moved downward, kissing the flat of her belly, dipping his tongue into her navel. He positioned himself between her legs, spreading her thighs with his big hands.
“My god, Aria,” he breathed, looking down at her. “You’re more beautiful than I remember.”
He lowered his head between her legs, nipped at the tender skin on the inside of her thighs. She clutched at the sheets as he came closer to the apex of her desire, his breath heating her pussy as he hovered over it.
“Please,” she gasped.
She thought he might play with her. Their lovemaking in the past had sometimes been playful, complete with teasing and bawdy laughter long into the night.
But tonight wasn’t a night for teasing.
He lowered his mouth to her, running his tongue through her folds from her perineum all the way to her clit. Then he fastened his mouth around it, sucking until she cried out.
His fingers slid inside her as he covered the tiny bundle of nerves with the flat of his tongue, licking and lapping hungrily at it as he moved his fingers through her tight channel.
The orgasm that had made itself known when his cock had been between her thighs was now an insistent drumbeat deep in her core, her hips moving in time to it, a primordial rhythm she couldn’t deny.
He circled her clit with his tongue, his fingers keeping up wi
th the rhythm as her body reached for release. She was almost there when he pressed against her G-spot.
She tumbled into the abyss all at once, light exploding behind her eyes as her pussy clenched around his fingers. She ground her hips against his mouth, lost in the plethora of sensation. His hands cupped her ass, his face buried in the heat of her pussy. She was still shuddering against him long after she thought it would end, her body releasing all the tension she’d been forced to store inside her during the weeks she’d been kept prisoner.
When it finally stopped, he kissed his way up her body. He hovered over her, dragging his knuckles against her cheek, a kaleidoscope of emotion in his eyes.
“We can stop now,” he said. “You should rest.”
She adjusted her position so she could feel the hard length of his cock against her wet pussy.
“I don’t want to rest, Damian. I want you to fuck me.”
He lowered his mouth to hers and plunged into her.
9
It was bliss to be back inside her.
It wasn’t just the tight clench of her pussy around his throbbing cock. It was her silken skin against his, the soft swell of her body underneath him. Most of all it was the knowledge that she was safe and in his arms. That the next person to try and take her from him would die trying.
He lingered over her mouth as he moved in long, languorous strokes inside her. He wanted to make it last. Wanted to feel every satiny inch as he moved inside her. Wanted to give her time to stretch around him. Wanted to learn her all over again.
She opened her eyes, looked up at him as she opened her legs wider, clenched his ass to push him even further inside her.
“Don’t be gentle with me,” she said. “Just fuck me.”
He hadn’t been aware that he was being gentle. He knew only that he had her back in his arms, that she was the most precious thing he’d ever been entrusted with.
That he’d almost lost her.
Now he growled and drove into her with a ferocity that took even him by surprise.
“Yes,” she cried out. “I want all of it. All of you.”
The words were like gasoline on the fire already unraveling in his veins. He moved faster, pushing all the way inside her until the tip of his cock bumped up against her cervix, dragged out of her almost all the way just so he could drive into her again.
It wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Wanted to embed himself in her so thoroughly they could never be torn apart again.
He hooked his arm around one of her knees and pushed it back as he thrust into her. She opened further to accommodate him, the soft walls of her pussy like rose petals against the throbbing heat of his cock.
“Fuck, Aria… You feel so good.” He lowered his face to her neck as the orgasm rose inside him. “So fucking good.”
“I’m going to come again,” she said. “Come with me, Damian.”
He moved faster, on a mission to find release. He felt the pressure building at the center of his body, traveling upward to the tip of his cock.
She pulled her other leg back, giving him access to the darkest, sweetest part of her pussy, and it was all over. He erupted with a shuddering groan, spilling into her as she cried out into the room.
She tightened around him, clenching his shaft like the sweetest of vises as her own orgasm ripped through her body. It seemed to go on and on — the grasp of her channel on his cock as her body trembled under him, his own body coiled and tight until he’d finally spilled everything into her.
He was only dimly aware that they hadn’t bothered with a condom as he collapsed next to her, pulled her into his arms.
He didn’t care. She would be his forever.
Any children he ever had would be born of her body.
Her soul.
He kissed the top of her head as their breathing regulated. The room had grown lighter around them, the rising sun casting a golden halo on the soft plaster walls.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after awhile.
She didn’t say anything for a minute.
“Not really,” she said. “I’m with you now. That’s all that matters.”
He hesitated. Part of him wanted to know everything, no matter how much it hurt. The other part wanted to pretend it wasn’t as bad as his worst imaginings.
In the end, it didn’t really matter. It was her story to tell.
“At some point you’ll have to tell us about the men who took you,” he said. “It’s the only way we’ll find them.”
“It wasn’t Primo, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.
He forced his body to remain loose, not wanting to alert her to his surprise. “How do you know?”
“He was never there,” she said. “Not once. Only Malcolm.”
He craned his neck to look at her face. “Gatti?”
He would let Primo’s involvement in her kidnapping go for now. She’d been safe for less than twenty-four hours. It would kill her to know her own brother had been complicit in keeping her locked up for almost two months. He would tell her later.
Or never, if he could make it work.
She nodded against his chest. “Malcolm and the other men you saw. I don’t know who they were.”
“They work for Stefano Anastos,” Damian said.
“Anastos… The guy who controls Astoria?”
He wasn’t surprised she knew about Anastos’s stronghold in Astoria. She was Primo Fiore’s sister, and while she hadn’t taken an active role in his business, she’d probably overheard plenty, both at home and at Velvet, the nightclub that served as Primo Fiore’s headquarters.
“That’s the one,” Damian said.
“You think Malcolm is plotting against Primo with the Greeks?” she asked.
He hated the worry in her voice. Hated that she was still worried about Primo after everything he’d done. But of course, in lieu of Primo’s involvement with Anastos, she would assume it was all Malcolm’s doing.
And the only reason Malcolm would conspire with Anastos would be to overthrow Primo and take his territory.
“I don’t know,” Damian said, trying to stick as close to the truth as possible without hurting her. “I can’t speak to Malcolm’s motives, but we know the apartment in Athens is owned by Anastos, and we know the men who were holding you there worked for him. It stands to reason that if Malcolm was there too, they were working together in some capacity.”
“But why? What did they have to gain by kidnapping me?” She propped herself up on his chest to look at his face. “Do you think they were trying to get Primo to turn over his territory to them by using me as leverage?”
He had to swallow the fury in his throat. After everything Primo had done to her, she still believed in him. There was no way she was ready to hear that he had allowed her to be locked up, not for territorial gain but simply to keep her from Damian.
To teach her a lesson. And Damian too.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re still sorting out the details. We have to do some more digging on Anastos’s activity over the past two months.”
She trailed a finger over his chest, gently touched the area around his healing gunshot wound.
“I thought maybe you’d died,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “Not a chance.”
She propped herself up, looked in his eyes. “Seriously, I thought I lost you that night.”
His eyes darkened. “I would have come for you on the terrace if I could have. You know that, don’t you?”
“I would have come for you if I could have,” she said, laying back down on his chest with a sigh. “I missed you so much.”
He tightened his hold on her. “I missed you, too. More than you know.”
“I thought about you every day. Every night.” She drew in a deep shuddering breath. “Sometimes I think you were the only thing that kept me alive.”
“No.” He tipped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You did that all
by yourself. You’re strong, Aria. Stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
She smiled a little, the first one he’d seen in almost two months. “Well, it didn’t hurt to think of you. Let’s put it that way.”
He returned her smile, felt the chuckle spread from his stomach up through his chest, the first time he’d laughed in almost two months.
“Touché.”
She stretched to kiss him, lingering over his lips before returning her head to his chest. “Just promise me we’ll never be apart again,” she said.
“I promise.”
He held her closer and tried to ignore the feeling that he was making promises he couldn’t keep.
10
He was already gone when she woke up. She wasn’t surprised; the sun had already turned the room gold when they’d finally drifted off to sleep after making love a second time.
It had been everything she remembered.
More.
It wasn’t just their bodies, which fit as if they’d been made to be joined together. It was as if their souls were pieces of the puzzle too, pieces that somehow managed to align perfectly in spite of their rough, jagged edges.
A nightmare lingered at the edges of her consciousness, but she pushed it away, focusing instead on the soreness between her legs that was a reminder of the night she’d spent in Damian’s arms.
She stretched and looked around. The room was filled with light, the open doors leading to a balcony beyond the sheer curtains blowing in the breeze.
For the first time since her rescue, she wondered what had happened to her phone after her kidnapping on Capri. She’d gotten used to being without it in Greece, but now she realized there were no clocks in the room, no way to know if it was afternoon on the day of her rescue or if she’d slept so long it was a new day entirely.
She sat up in bed and walked naked to the open balcony doors. She hesitated at the threshold, not wanting to give anyone below a view — especially the daughter Jenna had mentioned when they arrived the night before. Then she spotted the thick granite balustrades that would shield her body and she stepped outside.
Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2) Page 5