: Chapter 22

“So.” Enzo lifts his head, looking out at the mess I made on the balcony. “Do we skip breakfast and go straight for lunch?”

Rolling onto my back, I let out a faux sigh. “And here I was, momentarily believing you knew me better than I realized.”

He leans up on his elbow so he’s above me, raising a dark brow. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“You’re the one who asked such a ridiculous question.”

He cocks his head, his hair falling over his forehead slightly. It’s the first I’ve seen him like this.

Messy, sleepily sated.

Naked.

He’s even more handsome outside of his suit than he is in it.

He regards me and I swallow my thoughts, anticipating a silky comeback to my remark.

He doesn’t keep me waiting long. “I’ve sat through several breakfasts with you, distantly served you three times as many when you were here the first time, unbeknownst to you. Even when I couldn’t be, I was eating alongside you from a different room, through a screen you didn’t know I was watching you on that did your beauty no justice. All those mornings, not once did you ever choose a food option I would classify as breakfast. You always go for fruits, yogurts, and on the rare occasion, granola, but never once bacon or eggs, pancakes or waffles…not even so much as a pastry. All that said, I can’t count the number of times you have opted for a fresh cappuccino in place of something else, not only at lunch, but dinner as well. Most of those times, fruit was also involved. So, no. The question is not ridiculous. In fact, I’d say it’s the opposite.”

Enzo smiles down at me, a sort of ease on his expression I’ve yet to see, and there’s an air of boyish charm exuding from him he’s never revealed, if he’s even conscious of it.

It’s as if he’s comfortable and this is normal. He stares as if we’re having any other conversation, or as if we’ve had many or any of these moments at all.

Meanwhile, my pulse seems to have slowed, or perhaps that’s time itself, which is odd given my mind is racing.

He was watching me. He told me as much the other night, but I didn’t think it was like this. I assumed he wanted to keep me in line, to learn all the ways he wished to change me, but not this. Not as a way to…get to know me.

Maybe that’s not what he wants.

Maybe it’s something else entirely, but right now, I’m going to pretend that it’s true.

That he does want me for me.

I realize it’s a terrible decision, throwing caution to the wind and allowing myself to get comfortable. To want. To…look forward to, well, anything at all.

I thought I knew what I was getting into.

I expected there to be desire between us and yes, in time, the semblance of a real marriage, even if the dutiful parts were absent, but Katana has flipped all of that upside down.

There’s a constant timer ticking away in my mind, and I’m continuously waiting for it to ding. For my time to be up.

For him to be done.

And where will that leave me?

I’m not sure I want to find out, but some part of me must not be computing properly with the other, because right now, tomorrow doesn’t matter.

Today, I know I’m what he craves and as naive as it would be to believe that this is more than a rare moment he’s allowed, right now I don’t have it in me to care, and I sure as hell don’t want to think about what his words could mean.

His eyes narrow slightly, his lips parting as he likely reads all the warring thoughts crossing my features, but I don’t let him speak. I push up, pressing against his chest until the confusion falls from his face, because he knows.

He sees.

I climb over him, and he reaches up, gathering my hair from my back and laying it over my shoulder as he draws my lips to his. The kiss is slow, rhythmic, but just as commanding, even with my body naked and hovering above his own.

“Are you taking me for a ride, Little Bride?” he rasps, his voice thick with approval.

There’s no need to speak, the answer clear as I begin to crawl backward down his lap.

His chest inflates, a low groan slipping past his lips, but then he jerks forward, latching onto my arms and hauling me up.

“No.” He frowns.

“Yes.” I slide my mouth along his, whispering, “You said take, so I’m taking.”

“Take from me.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, but keeps it forward so it hangs between us, the tips brushing along his chest. “There is a difference.”

I pause for a moment, the words ready to slip free but unsure if I want to let them. In the end I do it anyway. “Are you going to deny me of something I’ve always wondered about, but never wanted to do before this very second?”

His eyes flare, and I start to move again, sliding backward on the sheets, but in the same moment he’s bending at the waist to catch me. Long, strong fingers wrap around my throat with a gentle firmness that has my nipples hardening. I tug against his hold, forcing if not silently begging him to clench his grip a bit tighter.

Enzo doesn’t disappoint, adding a little more muscle as he draws my face to his.

I swallow against his palm, tipping my head back as far as he’ll allow and giving him every inch of my neck just in case he wants it.

“What are you saying to me right now?” His voice is heated velvet in a thunderstorm; it’s a thick and rich caress with a thrilling threat of violence…the good kind. “Are you telling me no man has ever touched the back of your throat?”

I swallow at the insinuation, enticingly aware that he could, in fact, reach that deep.

What if I can’t take all of him?

Enzo shakes his head, reading my mind with ease. “You can handle me, baby. Want to know how I know?” he murmurs against my lips, squeezing my neck just a little bit harder. “’Cause I was made to be yours.”

Not I was made to be his, but he was made to be mine.

A gasp pushes past my lips and he releases me, the green in his hazel eyes shining darker against our sheets, gaze fixated on mine with zero intention of breaking away.

His stomach muscles ripple as he eases back, moving at the same pace as my backward crawl. Before he hits the pillow, he adds a second behind his head, lifting him up higher, giving him a better view of what I suspect may become his favorite show.

He’s already naked, his dick hard and proud, pressing against his stomach, the tip nestled just below his belly button.

Rather than taking him in my hand, I start with my tongue at the farthest left point of the head of his dick and run it along the sharp cut of his tip.

Enzo’s groan is deep, a rumble from beneath his chest, and I’m hardly touching him.

I do it again, but the opposite direction, and he hisses.

My eyes snap up, finding his already waiting for me, his pupils so dark he looks possessed.

I want him demonic.

I take him in my palm, and it’s like holding heated velvet. I squeeze him, closing my lips and pressing them over his head, slowly guiding him inside my mouth.

His muscles ripple, his knees jerking at my sides, and I smile to myself, eyes closing as I take him deeper, sucking lightly as I roll my tongue along the underside of his cock.

“Your mouth. It’s paradise, pure ecstasy.” His knuckles graze my cheeks, and my eyes open, locking on his. “You’re doing so good,” he whispers.

My core heats, toes curling into the sheets, and a knowing glint flashes in his eyes.

Enzo licks his lips, tucking my hair behind my ear and giving it a little tug.

I feel my own arousal between my legs, and I rub my thighs together, sucking him faster, deeper, and he nods his approval.

“Just like that. You’re doing perfect. So good.”

I take him deeper, my ass rising into the air. I suck him down a little more than halfway, eager to make him feel good, to hear more moans slip from those luscious lips, and I’m rewarded instantly.

His chest rumbles so loud, I feel it in his thighs.

I wait for him to instruct me, to tell me what he likes, but he never does, simply content with whatever I want or can give him, wanting me to learn his body the way he’s been enjoying learning mine.

More than content, if the rapid breathing and hard beating pulse tells me anything. I want this to be good for him. I want him to think about what my mouth feels like on him the way I find I think of his on me.

I grip the base of his dick, sucking hard as I pull up, letting him pop free only to rapidly close around him once more, hollowing my cheeks out as I take him all the way. I gag, but I don’t stop.

I relax my throat like in the books I’ve read and pull him in until my nose is pressed to his skin, until I’m suffocating from my mouth and nostrils, and I roll my tongue along his cock.

I move faster, bobbing up and down, spit dripping over my knuckles, and my eyes watering as his teeth sink into his lower lip as he moans into the air. I take him in my throat again, and nearly retch.

His body spasms, and satisfaction explodes in my chest.

I’m doing this.

I’m making him lose himself.

“Look at you,” he rasps, his words broken up by heady groans, and he strokes my hair from my face. “So beautiful, choking on my cock like a queen.”

I scrape my teeth along him, sucking hard, rolling my tongue, and he cradles my face.

My eyes fly up to his and he holds my gaze.

“I’m going to come in this pretty mouth now, gorgeous girl. And you’re going to swallow me down this delicate throat of yours.”

I can only nod, too turned on and unwilling to lose this. I keep the same speed, and a few moments later, his cock goes ramrod stiff. His hips buck, and liquid heat coats my throat.

I hold still, letting him fuck my mouth until he’s ready, and once he pulls free with a pop, he grips my arms and hauls me up, tucking me into his chest.

It’s intimate, almost…lovey-like, but I’m too excited to care and happy I can hide my grin in his chest.

Suddenly, he flips me over and repays the favor.

Only when we’re spent and sweaty do we pause for air.

We lie in silence for a little while, and I think I was falling asleep when his voice fills the space, softer than I’ve heard it before.

“Will you tell me about your scar?” he wonders.

I tense at first, before reaching up, and taking his chain in my hand.

For the first time, I inspect it closely. The pendant is a small angel, far from what I would have expected, and right where the palms press together, is a single, small emerald. “Will you tell me about your necklace?”

Enzo is silent a moment, his hands never stopping their gentle strokes down my spine. Up and down my scar. I can tell he’s about to speak, but I decide it’s my turn to go first.

That, and it seems like it’s a simpler subject than his would be.

“My body stole my dreams from me.”

“We’ll find a way to give them back.”

I smile at his instant response, believing he would do all he could, if he could. “I had just gotten into the school I always wanted. It would have been mine and mine alone. Something I earned, but I couldn’t pass the physical.” Bitterness used to bleed through me at the mere thought of what I missed out on, but I find as I tell Enzo, there is none. “Scoliosis. Nothing life-threatening, thankfully, but at the time it felt…life-ending.”

“And it no longer feels that way?”

I think about that for a moment, even though the answer filled my mind the second he asked. “No. I’d be happy to simply dance for fun, maybe even choreograph.”

“Then you will.”

A low chuckle leaves me and I roll onto his chest, looking down at him.

Before I can say anything, he takes his chain in his own hands. “The reason it was so simple to have Katana considered as a student for Greyson Elite as my sister is because the records already existed.”

A small frown begins to build across my brow and with his free hand, he swipes it away, a half smile on his lips.

“I did have a sister,” he says, a haunted look I’ve never seen slipping over his eyes. “I don’t anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” I try to push off, but he wraps his arm around my middle, holding me to him. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“You’re my wife. My life, past and present, belongs to you.” He pauses. “She died when I was still in juvenile hall. They didn’t allow me to attend the funeral, not that there was much of one. Miss Aurelia could barely feed her own children, let alone hold a funeral for the little girl she took in. So when I got out, myself, Mino, and Miss Aurelia held one of our own. This is the necklace she was wearing when she died, and Miss Aurelia gave it to me the day she took me to the place where she spread her ashes.”

I think of Jazzy’s similar necklace, warmth settling into my bones as the answer becomes clear. “Grandma.”

“Yes.” His lips twitch. “Grandma, as you call her, cared for her when no one else would.”

I offer a small smile, pressing my lips to the edge of his because I don’t know what else to do.

No one showed me what you’re supposed to do when you lose someone.

After the first few weeks following my mom’s death, I had to figure it out on my own as an eight-year-old.

“My mom was murdered,” I say suddenly, deciding telling him when I found out will do nothing with where we are now.

Enzo slides his hands into my hair, tugging my forehead to his. He kisses me softly, his lips hovering over mine. “So was my sister.”

His mouth moves slowly against my own, his pain seeping into me, and I welcome it.

Pain.

Such a shitty thing to have in common.