“Fuck, you’re wet,” he groaned.
I tensed when his finger inched into the wrong hole.
“Nico,” I gasped.
Beneath my palms, a tremor rolled through his chest. He slowed, kissed my cheek, and murmured against my lips, “Tell me to stop and I will.”
I didn’t believe I was an adventurous girl, but I suddenly knew I would do anything to feel this man shudder like that.
His gaze liquefied when I didn’t say a word. He watched my face as his finger pushed further inside of me. It was a strange feeling, but I grew hotter than I’d ever been at the way his breathing turned ragged and his body grew tense, as though he struggled with holding himself back.
Two of his fingers slid inside while one still filled my ass. I groaned when he began to move them in and out slowly. The fullness was intense, delicious, and close to tipping me over the edge. He kissed my throat, and I shook beneath him as his fingers fucked me agonizingly slow.
I fisted the sheets, dug my heels into the bed, and when I came he swallowed my noises in his mouth. The finesse of the kiss faded. He nipped at my lips and jaw. Sucked on my tongue. Clinked my teeth.
It was messy and dirty. And everything him.
“I’m going to fuck you slowly,” he breathed in my ear.
He did as he said.
And in every possible way.
The kitchen. The living room. The shower. The hallway. His bed.
Seven days passed, and I grew very familiar with Nico, sex, and every possible place and position to have it.
I didn’t think it was healthy.
I breathed, slept, and consumed everything Nicolas Russo.
The first time I attempted to leave his bed after we were married, he grabbed my wrist and watched me with that lazy stare again. This time, he would hold me there forever. Not once had he complained about the ring, and I could only assume he felt better about it now that his was on my finger as well.
I slept in his bed. Sometimes with my face in his chest. Sometimes with his body spooning mine and his arm around me. Always with him pressed against me. Always with his hands on me and his smell everywhere. I didn’t know how or even when it happened, but somehow, he’d found a way to tear down my boundaries and embed himself in every piece of me.
Something touched me deep in the chest.
Something warm and fragile.
Something unraveling like a rope.
He didn’t go to work those seven days.
He taught me how to cheat at cards. How to fuck. And how to make an omelet.
His mamma was a good cook, he said. When she wasn’t high, he was quick to specify.
I soaked up any and all information he shared, no matter how small it was. Soon I would have every piece of the puzzle.
Slowly but surely, I was learning how to cook.
“I’m telling you, Mamma, it’s all watery,” I sighed into the phone.
“You didn’t make the roux right.”
“I did it exactly how you told me!”
“My recipes are buono, Elena. It is you who’s the problem.”