He had wanted her to come back to him on her own. He’d hoped she would see that they were meant to be together. He had taken her choices from her at a very young age, and he’d told himself she needed time to grow in confidence, to learn who she was. Between her brothers and him, and that mother of hers, Emme had to fight just to stand on her own. He wanted to give her that chance. But there was Elie Archambault. He’d never wanted to kill a man more.
Valentino had kept eyes on Emmanuelle at all times, even when she disappeared out of the country—and that hadn’t always been easy. She would take her family’s private jet and go, supposedly to see relatives to have a vacation, to have fun shopping, or skiing, or whatever the hell she was pretending to do. He knew it was none of those things. When she came home, she was always with Elie again, and it seemed the only time she smiled anymore was when she was with him.
If Emme had fucked Elie, Val knew he couldn’t have stopped himself from killing the man. Nothing would have stopped him. Nothing. She hadn’t. The two had the strangest relationship. They were close. Very close. Almost inseparable. That hurt. She gave Elie her friendship. Her laughter. When they went clubbing and the man danced with her, Val watched the videos of the two of them endlessly, and it was pure torture.
“You thought you were giving me time?”
“I know I was. I know you thought it was something else, but for me, it was giving you time you needed on your own. I watched over you in case Miceli or my cousins went after you. I know they thought about it a time or two. Had they done so, the war would have started a lot sooner.”
He pressed kisses up the right side of her rib cage, along each rib, careful of any bruising. He wanted to make love to her, a slow, burning assault on both of their senses, not the fast, dominant fuck he’d taken that had sent both of them into such a sexual frenzy. He’d been away from her for so long he’d needed to get that out of the way. Now they both needed something else, something that defined the way they felt toward each other.
“Dario said you told him not to call me.”
He lapped at the little indentations between her ribs that took him underneath the swell of her right breast. He kissed and sucked gently, nibbling his way around her full mound, wishing she wasn’t so bruised. There was little space to leave anything of himself, or anywhere he could pleasure her. She liked breast play, and the son of a bitch who had punched her had taken that from her.
Val transferred his attention to the left side of her rib cage and took his time before answering her, pressing kisses and flicks and licks along those little indentations. “I did say that to him,” he confirmed.
“You knew he would ignore you.” Her breath hitched as he reached under her left breast and gently repeated his actions, kissing his way up and over the purple-black mound to her nipple. He used his tongue first and then oh-so-tenderly drew her into the warmth of his mouth. He took care not to constrict around her sore nipple, just let his heat surround her for a moment before he let her go.
“I did. Dario always ignores every order I give him.”
Her arms came up to cradle his head to her as he switched to her right breast, soothing it with the warmth of his mouth. He loved her. His mouth said it for him. His hands, too, as they gently shaped her, stroking caresses over those dark bruises. His cock was a monster again, thick, his girth pulsing and throbbing with need, her heat calling to him. He felt her slickness with the broad crown, so ready for him, in the way she always was.
She never turned him away, no matter how many times he turned to her. It would be easier this time, with the combination of her heat and his seed helping to make her even slicker. He would need that to ease his way inside.
He kissed his way over the curves of her breasts to her throat and then over her stubborn, sometimes very defiant chin. His teeth scraped back and forth against it. He was overly fond of her chin. He knew he always would be. He kissed his way up to her bottom lip and brushed his lips gently back and forth over hers.
She had the softest lips anyone could imagine. Like velvet, only softer. Her lips were generous and plump and curved upward to give him a smile even when she mostly wanted to try to frown at him. He tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth just because he liked to bite at it. She knew he did. That was one of those things that sometimes earned him the fake scowl. This time it earned him her hips squirming closer to his—her hot little gasp right into his mouth.
Valentino had always loved the way Emmanuelle was so responsive. He kept the first kisses gentle. Tender. So loving, Emme had tears in her eyes when she looked at him. He removed them from her cheeks with the pads of his thumb.
“Don’t, baby. We’re here now. Don’t think about anything else. We’re together now.”
He pushed deeper into that silken vise that was home to him. His breath left his lungs in a long, raw rush, and he wasn’t even more than an inch in. She was just that tight. That hot. He wanted slow, and it was both paradise and hell. Entering her slow meant he never was certain he was going to make his way in. He’d forgotten that.
He couldn’t trap her wrists and hold her hands above her head like he preferred because he didn’t dare let her chest take his weight. He had to hold himself off her just enough while he forced his body to inch his way deeper into that tight inferno. “Baby, you feel so good I think the end of the world could come and I wouldn’t know it.”
He leaned down, licked her neck and then bit down. She gasped, and he was able to manage another inch.
“It’s just that you always feel like it’s impossible for you to actually fit.”
She whispered the confession to him, her blue eyes staring up at him. Wide. Worshiping. Loving. Making his damn heart stutter. Bleed. There was so much feeling he didn’t remember, even though it was there in his mind. Like this moment. His cock stretching her body so that it felt as if she was resisting him, trying to fight him, to keep him out.
He circled her clit gently with a finger, whispered to her that he loved her, that she was beautiful. To relax for him. He didn’t want to drive through her folds hard and fast and just take her the way he could, burying himself deep, forcing her body to accept his. He did that often. Too often. He’d done that already. This was not that. This was a slow burn. A smoldering, inch-by-inch claiming of her body. Sharing her skin. Her mind. Her heart and soul. She not only surrounded him with that scorching sheath so tight he felt her every heartbeat, but she surrounded him with love every bit as tight. Wrapping him completely in everything Emmanuelle.
“It’s too much.” Her voice was ragged. Now she was moving, her hips bucking, fighting, either pushing to get him inside, or trying to throw him off of her.
“It’s not enough,” he denied. “It’s never enough for either of us. Your body was made for mine. It remembers me. The way we are together.”
“Val.”
A little sob in her voice. She always got that little hitch when she was climbing high. No way was he stopping, not with her body strangling his, pulsing around his cock like the tightest, hottest mouth trying to milk him of everything he had in him. He was no more than halfway in her, and already he could feel her body coiling tight. That tension winding in her. Preparing. Needing. His Emme responding to him.
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.