Page 24 of Silent Cravings

Valentina:Fine.

Me:Good, because I’m outside your building. Be right up.

I chuckled to myself, imagining her reaction while theelevator crawled up to her floor. Now that I knew what I wanted, I couldn’t wait another minute to have her. She wanted me too. That was obvious. Time to stop acting like there was anything we could do about it.

Her front door opened within moments of my fist striking the wood. Her hair was in a bun, wet strands hanging around her fresh, shining face. The tank and shorts she wore clung to her damp skin. “Well?” she demanded, tits heaving like she had run down the stairs.

Desire stole my voice before I stepped over the threshold. The floral scent of her body wash hung in the air, wrapping me in a cloud of sensory input I couldn’t begin to process when lust took up so much of my brain.

“What’s so important?” She was wide-eyed, standing with her hands on her hips and her shoulders pulled up around her ears. “Please, tell me there’s not a conflict or cancellation. I don’t think my nerves could stand it.”

I had a bigger problem on my hands. Like the fact I couldn’t stand much more of being this close to her without putting my hands on her. I closed and locked the door, my heart pounding with determination.

She threw her hands into the air. “Hello, asshole! I barely had a chance to dry off after my shower because you said it was an emergency. What is it, already?”

I wanted to find the words. I did. A way to tell her I was sorry for what happened, the way it happened. To tell her I wanted to start over again. We couldn’t pick up where we left off, but we could start fresh if she would let us. I didn’t need a commitment. I only needed right now, this moment, and I would have said anything to make that happen.

Except, I couldn’t find the words. I had no practice apologizing and even less when it came to explaining my feelings. What I needed.

The next best thing was taking her by the waist and pushing her up against the door before holding her there with my body. “This,” I whispered before my self-control shattered, and I covered her mouth with mine. It was always like this, the rush of claiming her. The sense of coming home, where I belonged, where I never should have left.

She indulged me for a few heart-stopping seconds before turning her head sharply to break the kiss. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she whispered, her chest heaving, eyes burning when they found mine. “You don’t get to drag me over here for a booty call. You don’t have booty call privileges.”

“Are you sure about that?” Trailing a hand down her side, I could barely contain the shiver of anticipation that ran through me when her breath caught, her back arching and pressing her tits against my chest. “Because you don’t seem to mind this.”

“My body might not, but my brain is another story.” Her nostrils flared over clenched teeth which she bared at me in a snarl.

I couldn’t lose this. Not when I had her here, so close. “Tell your brain to shut the fuck up,” I suggested, grinning when she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I cannot spend the next four weeks pretending I don’t want you. You know I do. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could be inside you.”

“Evan…” she whispered the way a person did when resistance was fading. She was getting weak, but then she had never been that strong to begin with. She only wanted to believe she was.

“And that’s going to keep going as long as we work together.” My already hard cock turned to steel when I dugmy fingers into her ass. “Why are we wasting time fighting this?”

“Because…” Her tongue darted over her lips to moisten them, and the sight made me groan. That was what she did to me. All it took was a simple gesture, and I was hooked.

“You can’t come up with a reason, can you?” I dragged my thumb across her full bottom lip, and she sighed, eyes sliding shut, her breath hot on my skin. “Why bother trying? I’m not going to bother trying to pretend I don’t want you.”

My lips replaced my thumb, brushing softly over her mouth, leaving her whimpering. She was as helpless against this as I was. Heat raced through my veins, compelling me to do it again, to make her melt against me, to make her part her lips and touch her tongue to mine. I had never been this hard, this desperate to sink in deep and fuck her until she forgot every reservation she ever had.

“God, why are we doing this?” She gazed up at me, looking dazed and hungry. “Why am I letting you do this to me?”

That much I knew beyond a doubt. “Because it is so fucking good when I do,” I reminded her, grinning at the understanding in her gaze before kissing her again.

This time, she didn’t stop me.

9

VALENTINA

Traffic was light on my way to the bakery to test cake flavors. We had four weeks to go, and I had never felt so much like I was behind the controls of a speeding train whose brakes were gone.

“Did you get the updated list of RSVPs together?” I asked Bianca as I turned onto Greenwich Street.

“Sure did, and I forwarded it to you.” Bianca was breathless and overwhelmed, as always. I’d have to encourage her to take a vacation when this was over.

“Great. I need to work on the seating arrangements over the weekend.” A couple of kids crossed in the middle of the street without looking, making me slam on the brakes and tap my horn to get their attention. They were maybe nine, ten years old.

The age my child would’ve been.A lump formed in my throat as a tsunami of sadness washed over me.

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