Page 163 of Ruthless Vow
“I was going to survive you.” The words come out before I can stop them. “That was the plan. Marry you. Keep you at arm’s length. Never need you.”
She tilts her head back to look at me. “How’s that working out?”
“Terribly.” I brush a strand of hair from her face. “You ruined everything.”
Her laugh fills the garden.
Cristo.
I’m thirty-five years old. The Don of New Orleans. And that sound still makes my hands unsteady.
I kiss her because I can. Because she’s here and she’s mine and I still can’t believe it.
“Take me inside,” she murmurs against my mouth.
I don’t need to be asked twice.
Our bedroom smells like her now. Her books on the nightstand. Her perfume on the vanity that used to be my mother’s. Her earring on the tray where I keep my watch, like it belongs there. Like she always did.
I stop just inside the doorway.
She turns back to look at me.
One breath. The last second of the man who told himself he didn’t need this.
Then I cross the room.
I undress her with no rush. We have time now.
“Bella.” I breathe her in as the dress pools at her feet. Jasmine from the garden. The warm salt of her skin underneath. Heat and Cassia.
“Every time. Every single time, you take my breath away.”
She reaches for my shirt buttons, just as unhurried. “Flatterer.”
“Truth teller.”
I walk her back toward the bed, mouth on her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breast above her bra. She unhooks it herself, impatient, and a groan scrapes out of my throat.
“Fuck, Cassia.” I drag my teeth along the curve of her breast. “Do you know what you do to me?”
“Show me,” she whispers.
Cazzo.This woman.
I lower her onto the mattress and follow her down, find her nipple, suck until she gasps. Her fingers rake through my hair and hold me there. The sounds she makes go straight through me. Small. Hitched. Desperate. I switch to the other breast, roll the stiff peak between my teeth, graze until she arches off the bed.
Her breasts are fuller than I remember. Heavier in my hands.
My hands still.
“More,” she breathes.
“I’ll give you everything.”
I kiss down her stomach, hook my fingers into her underwear, drag it down her legs. She’s already wet when I spread her thighs, already trembling when I lower my mouth to her.
“Dio.” I lick through her folds, slow, savoring. “I’ll never get enough of this. Never get enough of you.”
