Page 79 of Owning Nicci

“I’d do the same to anyone who did that to you. I understand Dimitri’s perspective, too. But I also understand yours, intimately. That’s why we’re leaving, and we don’t ever have to come back.”

I draw in a long, slow breath. “I want to leave how we started behind, too.” I twist toward him. “I know maybe it’s not healthy to not talk about it or try to forget it. But everything before that first night we slept together at the cabin—I want to put it behind us. I want us to start there, when we both wanted each other the same way.”

Savio chuckles. “Not after you held a gun to my head?”

“I wouldn’t want you getting too cocky.”

He grabs my hand, raising it to his lips and pressing a kiss to my knuckles before setting both of our hands back on my knee. “Around you,principessa? Never.”

We drive until the early morning, stopping for gas and snacks that I’d never have allowed myself to eat before this, and get a mid-grade hotel room that’s the only thing that’s open at this hour.

“This kind of feels like a honeymoon,” I suggest with a yawn as Savio comes around to open my door, and he laughs.

“If I take you on a honeymoon,principessa, it won’t be in Missouri.”

“Fair enough.” I grab my bag and follow him into the hotel, where he pays and gets key cards for us both. It’s far from luxurious, but it’s clean and comfortable enough, and I practically fall into the shower.

When I come out, wrapped in a towel, Savio is sitting on the edge of the bed. He looks over at me, and I see his gaze heat instantly.

He stands up, slowly, crossing the room to where I’m standing. With slow movements, like a predator looming over its prey, he backs me against the dresser, one hand going to slide his shirt over his head as he reaches for the edge of my towel with the other.

With one smooth movement, as it drops to the floor, he spins me around and bends me over the dresser, the large mirror just in front of me. I hear the sound of his pants hitting the floor, and then a moment later, I feel the blunt, swollen head of his cock between my thighs.

“Feel how fast you get me hard,principessa?” he growls, pushing himself inside of me in one long, slow stroke that leaves me gasping. “I look at you, and I’m fucking aching to be inside of you.” He draws out to the tip and then slams back into me, rocking the dresser as I let out a keening moan of pleasure. “You make me want to fucking come before I’m even inside of you.” Another hard thrust, and I feel his fingers start to roll expertly over my clit, finding exactly where I want to be touched.

I open my mouth to say something back, but all that comes out is a moan. Savio leans forward, sinking into me as his lips brush against my ear, and the words that he whispers send shivers down my spine.

“I love you,principessa,” he murmurs. “I’ll love you forever. You’re the only woman I’ll ever want. The only one I’ll ever fuck like this again.”

Somehow, that tips me over the edge. I never would have imagined that a man whispering sweet nothings into my ear, whispering that helovesme would make me come, but I feel the pleasure start to crash over me, my body tightening around Savio’s thick cock as he groans and thrusts into me again, fucking me through the orgasm until it feels like it will never end.

He comes moments later, filling me with his cum as he groans my name, and he presses his mouth to my shoulder, teeth grazing my skin as he shudders against me. “Marry me,” he groans as I feel him throb and pulse inside of me, and I freeze, startled.

“What?”

Savio moans as the last of his orgasm ripples through him, and he kisses my shoulder. “Marry me,” he repeats.

I’m too stunned to speak for a moment. “You’re just saying that because I just made you come,” I manage to stutter out. “You don’t mean it.”

Savio shifts, slipping out of me as he turns me to face him, my back against the dresser as he presses his warm, muscled body to mine. He stands there like that for a moment, skin to skin, every inch of him touching all of me as he reaches up to brush a lock of hair out of my face.

“I didn’t tell you I loved you because you were holding a gun to my head, and I didn’t ask you to marry me because every fucking orgasm I have with you is the best one of my entiregoddamn life.” He bends his head, pressing his mouth to mine in a searing kiss before pulling back. “I asked you to marry me because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Nicci. I want my ring on your finger and my child in your belly, and I want to do this right, since we started it all wrong. I want to marry you—and hopefully I get you to say those vows before you’re pregnant, because I’m not going to stop fucking you long enough to get to a wedding first.”

A warmth fills my chest that I’ve never felt before. I lean up on my tiptoes, my hand pressed to his cheek as I kiss him softly.

“How could I say no when you ask like that?”

“Is that a yes?” he asks between kisses, and I nod—just as he picks me up and sets me on the edge of the dresser, wrapping my legs around his waist.”

“Yes,” I murmur, just as I feel his cock nudge between my thighs again, rock-hard for a second time.

“Good,” Savio groans. “Because I wouldn’t want to think you were saying yes just because my cock feels so good inside of you.”

With one quick thrust, he sinks into me again, and I pull him close to me, laughing as I kiss him. I’ve never laughed during sex before. Never felt this kind of joy, this ease, ever. I kiss him again and again as he thrusts into me, and as we both come together for a second time, he whispers that he loves me.

“I love you too,” I whisper against his lips. And I know—I mean it with every part of me.

He was right when he said I was his. And now I will be, forever.

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