Page 48 of Run

I nodded. “She is.”

“And her husband… He’s not like Santo?”

“No. He’s a good man. He loves her. He’d die for her.”

“Would he let her live, though?” she asked.

I said nothing, but I didn’t need to. I knew exactly what she meant, how important this question was to her. She wanted to make sure that Sergei wouldn’t suck the life out of Daniela, like her father had from her mother.

“He will,” I said.

She looked at me, and I could tell she was weighing my answer. Then, finally, she nodded.

“Look after her, okay? Promise me.”

“I promise, Giovanna,” I said, powerless to deny her anything.

She got even closer then and pressed her lips against mine. Her kiss was different, just as passionate as always, but more intense, more filled with an emotion that wasn’t anger than any other I could recall.

I kissed her back just as hard, with just as much emotion, wanting to leave no doubt as to what I felt. For years, I’d wondered if that was the reason she’d left. I wasn’t good at emotions, but I tried to show her that I loved her more than life itself, and more than once I’d wondered if I’d failed, wondered that if maybe I’d done something different, had tried harder, she would have believed in me, in our love, enough to stay and fight for it.

Maybe, maybe not, but I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I wouldn’t give her any reason to wonder. When she left this time, it would be with full knowledge of how I felt.

I broke the kiss and stared down at her, breathing heavy. I kept my eyes on her for long seconds, long seconds that I watched her watch me back. And then I kissed her again, this time with passion that was so intense, I’d almost been afraid to unleash it.

I did, though, didn’t hold anything back as I kissed her.

My arm was anchored around her waist, and I lifted her and breathed out a hard breath when she wrapped her legs snug around my waist.

Her core was hot against me through the layers of our clothes, and on instinct, I rocked my hips. The contact wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy me, but it broke the dam, sent me into a frenzy. And from Giovanna’s harsh breath and roving hands, she felt the same. As I walked her to my bedroom, she touched me everywhere she could. I broke our kiss long enough to allow her to pull my shirt from my body but soon covered her lips with mine again, trying to devour her with deep, eating kisses.

There was no finesse in the way I kissed her or in the way she touched me, but we were beyond that.

When I reached the bedroom, I tossed her on the bed, but paused for only the briefest second before I reached for her.

I pulled off her shoes and then reached for her waistband and quickly opened her pants and lowered the zipper. I peeled her pants and panties down her legs and off and then got rid of her shirt and bra.

I stopped then, took a moment to stare at her naked body, the curves and hollows and softness and warmth memories that would be with me for the rest of my life. I rested on my heels and then reached for her, letting my fingers trace across her collarbones, between her breasts. I paused and pressed my palm against her heart, feeling the deep thud against it. I wouldn’t look in her eyes, couldn’t risk seeing what I might see there, so I moved again, brushing my fingers down the gentle slope of her stomach, between her thighs.

I lingered against that heat for a split second and then moved again, trailing the fullness of her thigh, across her knee, down her strong calf, the perfect arch of her foot. Then I stood long enough to quickly discard the rest of my clothes and reached for her again, tracing the path with my lips that I had so recently with my fingers.

I took my time, enjoying the feel of her smooth skin against my mouth, listening intently to her breath, lingering when she moaned, tracing my tongue along the crease of her knee. She nearly launched off the bed, and I laughed and then latched one hand on her hip before I continued.

Soon, the treat between her thighs became too much to resist, but I paused long enough to lay a series of eating kisses on her thigh, sucking her skin between my teeth. I could see the mark even though the room wasn’t lit, and knowing it was there gave me a deep satisfaction. She’d leave soon, and that mark would fade, but I’d have the memory of putting it there, of seeing it there.

That would have to be enough.

My chest squeezed at the thought, so I pushed it aside, focused on the here and now, a now that had Giovanna with me again, for the last time, time I wouldn’t squander. I moved up, up, up her thigh, but stopped just before I touched her core, my lips grazing the outside of her lips. I paused, breathed in deep, the musky-sweet smell of her cunt forcing a moan from my chest.

The need to taste her made my movements clumsy, hurried as I sealed my lips around her hard clit. At the first contact, she let out a sound that was half sigh, half moan, and I felt her body stiffen then relax under me. My own reaction was just as intense, and I thought I would come out of my skin with the depth and intensity of the desire and emotion that raced through me.

I’d been idly strumming her nipples as I licked her clit, but I moved my hands down, held her thighs open with one hand and replaced my tongue with the other thumb. Then I moved my mouth lower, tracing her puffed lips and hot opening with my tongue, lapping at the moisture that seeped from her. My cock throbbed, wetting my thigh with precum, but I hardly noticed. I needed her climax as much as I needed my next breath. More. Needed her to know how much I treasured her.

So I licked and sucked her with abandon, jabbed my tongue in and out of her pussy in hard little thrusts that made her scream and finally sent her over the edge.

She stilled and then cried out, her muscles clamping down around my tongue as she tugged at my hair. I didn’t stop, didn’t even slow. Instead I continued, working until she cried out yet again and went limp under me, her voice coming out in a series of low, satisfied-sounding pants.

It was only when she was still and quiet that I moved up. I was so hard, so on edge, I thought I would explode, but I found control I didn’t know I had and eased into her slowly, filling her centimeter by centimeter. Her flesh giving to me, cradling me so perfectly almost undid my control, but I maintained it, continued to push into her bit by bit until our bodies were joined fully.

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