“Oh fuck, Luc.” She arched her back. “Please. Faster.”
My lips slid to her jaw, and I bit down, just enough to cause a jolt of sensation to permeate her mind. “Say it, angioletto. Say you can’t live without me.”
“Ah, God, I can’t. I...”
“Yes, you can.” I kissed the pulse at her throat, her jaw, the corner of her luscious mouth. “Say you can’t live without me the way I can’t live without you.”
“Dammit.” Her fingernails curled into my sides. “I do need you. I only need you. Please stop torturing me and—”
My willpower shattered. I closed my mouth over hers and kissed her, and she opened at the first contact, drawing me into a scorching kiss that detonated in my veins.
I drew back and shoved in deep, unable to hold back any longer, giving us both exactly what she’d begged for, fucking her hard and fast as she devoured my mouth and heart and soul.
“Oh yes, Luc. There. Right theeeeeere...”
I only managed a handful of thrusts before she threw her head back and screamed. And I was glad, because my orgasm was already streaking down my spine and exploding in my balls, triggered not from the sound of her pleasure but from her admission that I was all she needed. That I was all she ever needed.
I slammed deep and groaned as my release erupted and devoured me, letting her words and sweet submission drag me down into a blinding bliss that—for the first time in weeks—gave me peace.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed. I’m pretty sure I blacked out. When I came to, I was lying on my side on the bed with Natalie still curled around me, both of us slicked with sweat and breathing heavily, her face hidden in my chest and my hands buried in her hair.
My eyes driftted shut as my heart slowed its maddening rush.
This was what I wanted. Just this for the rest of my life. I breathed in her sweet scent and pressed my lips to her temple, loving that she’d come to me. Loving that she’d given in to me. Loving most of all that she was still mine.
Her hand slowly lifted to my chest, and she drew back just a bit and inhaled deeply. “I...I need to use the restroom.”
“Okay.” I released her. Cool air washed over me as she scooted back. I couldn’t see her face in the dim light, but my gaze immediately rushed down her curves as she stood and stepped away on wobbly legs. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll...be right out.”
She crossed the room in the moonlight, her hair a messy tangle hanging down her back, and closed the bathroom door behind her. Alone, I sat up and looked over the room, seeing my boxers and her sleep shorts scattered on the floor.
I rose, got rid of the condom, and pulled on my boxers. After folding Natalie’s shorts, I set them on her dresser, then I tugged the comforter back and climbed onto the bed, bracing a hand behind my head as I reclined in the pillows and waited for her.
We still had so many things we needed to talk about, but I didn’t want to get into them tonight. Tonight, I just wanted to hold her and kiss her and reconnect the way we should have done weeks ago. And then I wanted to make love to her all over again, this time so slowly, there was no question in her mind about what she meant to me.
Long minutes passed. I glanced toward the bathroom door, expecting it to open at any moment. Silence filled the room. I could hear nothing coming from the other side—no water running, no toilet flushing, nothing but an eerie silence that made the hair on my nape tingle as five minutes turned to ten and ten crept toward fifteen.
I climbed off the bed and quietly crossed to the carved folding doors that separated the bathroom from the bedroom, listening for the shower in case she’d decided to jump in, but still heard nothing. I seriously didn’t want to interrupt her if she was on the toilet, but the flutter of unease in my gut told me that wasn’t the case.
Cautiously, I knocked. “Natalie? Are you okay in there?”
“I-I’m fine,” she called in a weak voice. A sniffling sound echoed from beyond the doors. “Don’t come in.”
Don’t come in shifted my unease to full-on worry. I reached for both door handles and jiggled, finding them locked. “Open the door, Natalie.”
“No.” That sniffling sound met my ears again. “Go away, Luc. I’m fine. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
She didn’t sound fine. Her voice was raspy as hell. And I didn’t like her telling me to go away after what had just happened in that bed.
My adrenaline surged, and I stepped back, ready to kick the door in if I had to. On the top of the bathroom doorjamb I spotted a small hooklike key.
I grabbed the key and flicked the lock open. Then pushed the doors apart and froze when I spotted Natalie sitting on the floor in the bathroom with her back against the clawfoot tub.
She was still naked, her legs pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, her hair a wild mess of curls around her face. But one look was all it took for me to see she’d been crying. Tear tracks marred her cheeks, and her bloodshot eyes were swollen and red-rimmed when they met mine for the briefest second before darting away.
She turned her back to me and pressed her face to her knees. “I told you to leave me alone. Just go.”
My heart dropped like a stone into my gut. I’d known I’d hurt her. I’d known she was mad at me and that she had every right to be. But until this moment, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d damaged her.
In that bathroom, I didn’t see the headstrong, challenging, never-take-no-for-an-answer woman who’d turned my world upside down. I saw a broken angel who’d all but given up. One I’d finally pushed too far.
“Merda.” I reached for a towel from the bar with shaking hands and crossed the floor in two strides.
She tensed as I knelt at her side and wrapped the plush burgundy bath sheet around her body, but she didn’t lift her head, and from her muffled sobs, I could tell she was still crying. Which was my fault as well.
My chest contracted, and pain stabbed as deep as a dagger plunging to the hilt in my chest. Sitting next to her on the floor, I scooped her up and pulled her onto my lap.
She didn’t fight me, and I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t because she wanted my touch but that she had no more fight left inside her. And that knowledge sent that dagger stabbing deep again and again because there wasn’t a thing I could do or say to make this better.
So I just held her. Leaning back against the tub, I rubbed my hand down her back and my fingers through her hair, and I did what little I could to comfort her while she cried against my shoulder.
And the whole time, I tried like hell to figure out what the fuck I should do next.
Or even if there was anywhere for us to go from here.
4
Natalie
Rolling to my back on the plush mattress, I stared up at the beamed ceiling as the warm light of morning shone over the bed.
A good crying jag had a way of leaving a person feeling wrecked, and I was wrecked. Completely wrung out. At the end of my metaphorical rope.
I raked my fingers through my messy hair, inwardly cringing at the scene I’d made last night. I hadn’t planned to let the waterworks loose, but once the tears had started, I hadn’t been able to stop them. Not even when Luc had come barging into the bathroom.