Page 17 of Stained Honor

“One month, Carlo!” I cry against him. “One month away from you and our son. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”

He tightens his arms around me and lets me fall apart against him while every ugly feeling I buried over the past month finally spills out.

“I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

A quiet laugh brushes my ear.

“Not loving a woman like you would take a skill set I don’t fucking have.”

A broken laugh escapes me through my tears, and I smack his shoulder weakly. “You’re such an asshole.”

“I know.”

He lays me back against the bed and cages my body beneath his, kissing my uninjured eyelid gently before lifting his head again.

I cup his face between my hands and whisper, “Then why didn’t you call me? Why did you disappear before I left?”

His expression hardens again as he answers, “I didn’t come say goodbye because I couldn’t watch you leave. Because you’re my fucking life, Emily. You’re a part of me, baby. And I didn’t call because I knew if I heard your voice, I wouldn’t be able to handle staying away from you. I would’ve broken.” His forehead presses against mine. “And if I break while something this dangerous is hanging over us, all of us go down with me. You know that, don’t you?”

I stroke my thumb gently across his cheek and nod.

“There’s still danger?” I ask.

He shuts his eyes tightly for a second before nodding again. “Brando’s working on it. But we still need to be careful.”

I let go of his face and curl onto my side instinctively, drawing myself inward like I’m trying to protect the tiny life inside me. My throat tightens again.

“I can’t bear being away from Gabriel anymore.”

He presses a little more of his weight against me and brushes his lips softly over my temple before turning me back toward him.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs. “I’m gonna fix this.”

Slowly, he slides the straps of my dress down my shoulders before peeling the white fabric away from my bare chest and pulling it off completely. Then he settles over me, kneeling between my legs while taking off his jacket. He’s so big the mattress shifts beneath even the smallest movement he makes, sending soft tremors through my body.

Now that I’m finally out of the storm and back in the only place that’s ever felt safe, I realize how exhausted I really am.

So I simply lie there weakly and let him take both my body and soul somewhere warm and blissfully empty, somewhere far away from fear and loneliness. Somewhere I’ve been craving for an entire month.

The top buttons of his shirt already hang open, but apparently that isn’t enough for him. He opens two more, revealing the armor tattoo spread across his chest.

A crooked grin pulls at his mouth when he notices my heavy-lidded stare. Then he lowers his head and starts lavishing attention on my breasts while his large hands slide beneath my panties, slowly teasing life back into starved flesh with every touch.

I stretch my arms above my head, close my eyes, and let out the deepest sigh I can manage.

His wet kisses move lower while he slowly drags my panties down my thighs, pulls them off my ankles, and tosses them somewhere across the room. Then a slow, hot lick spreads through my folds before he seals his mouth around my clit hard enough to make my entire body jerk. One arm wraps firmly around my hips, holding me still whenever I writhe beneath his mouth.

He kisses.

Sucks.

Sometimes bites just enough to make pleasure sting.

And with every passing second, it feels like all the stress poisoning my body gets dragged out of me by his mouth and pulled into one tight, burning point deep inside me. A pressure that keeps building and building until every inch of my skin tingles violently.

The second his name falls from my lips, the pressure explodes.

But instead of shattering into panic or fear, it bursts apart into nothing except pleasure, warmth, and blissful emptiness.