Page 32 of Blossom in Shadows

I run my fingers through his hair. It’s so soft, surprisingly so. I thought I might not ever feel it again.

When he starts to move, it’s with a roll of his hips, the move languid and slow. He doesn’t fuck into me like he has so many times before. There is no frenzy. This is something else, something sweeter, something life affirming in a different way.

After he gives my other nipple the same kind of attention, until I’m panting and arching my back as my walls squeeze his shaft, he rises above me. He plants his forearms on either side of my head.

“You’re mine,Reginetta,” he punctuates each word with a harder thrust, and I cry out.

“And you’re mine,” my words come out slightly slurred, my body flooded with so much pleasure and relief that it’s hard to see straight.

“Yes,” his voice is dee and dark. “I’m going to show you just how much I’m yours.”

He starts to move faster, punching his hips forward harder. It’s exactly what I need. A feeling grows inside of me, one I’ve only felt with him. It’s bigger and more than pleasure. It’s hot and sultry. I know when it spirals out of me that I’ll be better than I was before.

Every time it changes me, makes me stronger, makes me love deeper.

I grip his shoulders, my nails digging into his flesh. “Elio,” I gasp when he hits the back of my channel in a brutal thrust, one I need so damn much. “I love you.”

His body stills for a heartbeat before he starts fucking me harder. “I love you, Zinnia,” the words are whispered, but they hold so much power.

It takes my breath away and my vision whites out at the edges a little bit.

“So close,” I moan, moving my hips to meet every one of his thrusts. “Need you to fill me with your cum,” I pant the words, barely able to get them out when all I want to do is float in this feeling of euphoria.

“You’re going to coat my cock in your cream,” he demands, and I shudder underneath him.

I force my eyes open, unsure of when I even closed them in the first place. I feel the power he gives me; it flows through me, and it gives me courage. It allows me the ability to demand, “Put a baby in me.”

He groans, his hips punching into me and forcing a moan out of me with every movement. “Marry me,” he snarls.

It’s not a question, but as I look into his eyes, I know it’s not a demand either. There is vulnerability in his gaze, a look I’ve never seen there before. That look is what sends me over the edge because I know the trust it takes for a man like Elio Agosti to let himself be vulnerable to me.

My pussy squeezes around his length as pleasure spirals out of me and overtakes every cell of my body. “Yes,” I shout out.

He growls as he shoves his cock as deep inside of me as he can get and lets go. I hold tight to him, grounding myself in everything he’s offered me, in everything he is.

He’s my future. He has given me a place to blossom, and he has chased away my pain. He doesn’t look at me as broken and he allows me to dance in his shadows.

I know life with him may never be safe, but I know he will always come for me, he will always fight for me. I will do the same for him.

EPILOGUE

ABOUT TWO MONTHS LATER

ZINNIA

Walking down the aisle with my husband on my arm is kind of surreal, especially when I consider how much power is in this room. It’s not just the Agosti family, my family, but the powerful people who Elio aligns himself with. This shouldn’t work, but it does.

Even the people who seem to have animosity between them have put it aside for the occasion. Because this is all about celebration and joy. There is no room for old wounds and disgruntled claims. Not today.

I look up at Elio as we walk through the doorway, our vows behind us and our rings catching the light. I thought, maybe, I would feel differently after we said our vows in front of people.

In some ways I do. It’s official now, we are bound together, and we pledged our lives and our love to each other in front of witnesses. There is power in those words.

In some ways I don’t. We were already committed. Elio was never going to let me go and I was never going to lethimgo. In the last two months our obsession for each other has grown. We’ve left the pain behind, and we find simple moments in the shadows of our love.

That won’t change after today. It is eternal and it was right from the beginning.

All I needed to do was give myself over to it. Now that I have completely, no longer trying to hold true to some ideal which was never even real, I know what real happiness is.

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