But he saw her.
Saw the body he had missed for weeks and saw the changes too.
Full, ripe breasts made his throat catch, and he noticed the dusting of weight on her hips, although there was something else too that he couldn’t define, an added dimension to her femininity.
She was like a drug that kept beckoning. Never had he cared for someone like this before—last night he had accepted the release she had offered, not for escape but to go back, to return, to savour the feelings they had once created in one another.
He had told her some of it, he had told her, and she hadn’t blanched or turned away from his horrible past—and he was finally glimpsing a future, a future where bathroom doors were open, where you kissed and made up and you tried again.
Where you were there for each other.
‘Why would I knock?’ he teased gently.
‘Because…’ She was starting to cry and couldn’t help it. ‘Because…’
He pressed her against the sink with his kiss—naked, gorgeous, she made today possible. He had sworn to never again make love with her, he had sworn to just let her go, let her be, keep her safe, but he was finally seeing things differently.
She was safer by his side.
Safer with him than without him.
He kissed her as if it was the first time, relishing her all over again.
‘You do make things better. With you things are better.’ And that he remembered their words, that each conversation they’d ever had was in his head the same way it was in hers, brought assurance. ‘You could always make things better…’
‘This isn’t just sex.’ She wept out the words as he lifted her to the edge of the sink. His mouth lowered and suckled her swollen breast as her fingers knotted in his hair.
‘No,’ he murmured, because it wasn’t. This was it, this was him and this was her and this was the place he always wanted to be. He lifted his head and kissed away her tears, kissed her mouth as his hands followed the curve of her thickening waist.
‘Don’t hurt me again, Luca…’ she begged brokenly.
His eyes jerked up to hers, his mouth pulling away simultaneously with her words. Was that what he had done? Yes, he acknowledged. In protecting her, he had hurt her badly.
He could never hurt her again, never would hurt her again. Of that, at this very moment, he was absolutely certain.
‘Never.’ He growled out his truth.
‘And tell me this isn’t just sex,’ she pleaded as his hips parted her thighs, because it wasn’t just sex for her, because she could never be so real, so open, so exposed with anyone other than Luca. His fingers spread her pretty butterfly lips and he saw changes there too, and he was awash with this fierce surge of protection, assured in his answer.
‘No.’ His mouth was in her neck, he was as close to weeping as he had ever been. Her curls, wet from the shower, draped his face and as he slid inside her, he was certain of the moment. He was smelling her again, tasting her again, inside her again, and he was truly home, deep, deep inside her. His arms circled her, his mind wrapped around hers, and this was nothing like anything he had ever envisaged. Then she was arching towards him and he didn’t have to hold back, he didn’t have to do anything except love her, and that was so scarily easy.
The passion that blazed in his eyes should have assured her, but then he lowered his head. Nuzzling her shoulders, her neck, he drove deeper into her, only she couldn’t give in, couldn’t let herself be swept away by the building current, because she couldn’t risk going under again.
Her body was twitching, her legs wet and wrapped around him, and it was Emma who sought release now. She could see his jet curls, see him slide in and out of her, and knew he was ready, knew he awaited her—but she was too scared to trust, too scared to hand over that last little bit of her heart to him.
She wanted his love, wanted a father for her baby, wanted him no matter how her head denied it.
She knew he was close and, locked into a rhythm, his body begged her to join him. He was saying her name over and over, his lips kissing the back of her neck, his hands cupping her damp bottom, and she could feel his abandon.
‘I love you.’ He groaned out the words as if it hurt to say them. She’d never thought she’d ever hear him say them, but he was saying them again and again, saying them over and over as he spilled inside her, rapid, urgent thrusts that took her to this heady place where she gave in to him, gave in to her body, and she was saying it too.
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He was kissing her passionately, his tongue circling hers, as finally she joined him, and he dragged from her that last restraint. His mouth stifled her sobs as she gave that piece to him and then his tongue soothed her as he slowly kissed her back to the world.
‘You,’ Luca said slowly, wrapping a towel around her, holding her shivering body, comforting her on a day when it should be her comforting him, ‘make this day bearable.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN