Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
I know that kind of desperation.
“Is she better?”
“Who?”
“The wife. You said she was sick.”
“Yes, the money from the necklace allowed her the medication and treatment she needed.”
It’s hard to hate Bert for being desperate enough to steal the necklace when it meant he could save his wife.
For a second, I can see his thoughts. Feel his desperation. My mom was dead. His wife still had a chance.
“That explains the unusual placement of her face on the pool step,” I say.
Massimo nods. “He couldn’t leave her floating face down. Despite her being dead, he wanted to keep her face out of the water.”
We sit in silence as the information settles over me. I inhale a deep breath and feel the calm slide through my body. A heavy weight has been lifted.
“You did this for me?” I whisper.
“Yes, and I will spend the rest of my life doing anything and everything for you. Because I love you.”
He speaks with so much conviction it’s hard not to believe him.
But I can’t reply, because I know if I open my mouth to speak, my voice will crack. And once it cracks, the tears will follow, and I’ll be reduced to a blubbering mess when I had been so sure I would never shed another tear in front of him ever again.
A new war takes up inside of me.
Leave and never look back.
Forgive him and move forward.
I’m being pulled toward the latter by an aching heart that wants to end this suffering.
I look at Massimo.
I can’t stand it. Being without him. Not waking up next to him. Looking at him and seeing the pain on his tortured face and knowing I can end it all.
I grab his face and press my lips to his, and God it feels good. The release from the pain. The untethering from heartbreak. I’m immediately swept up in his scent and the warmth of his lips on mine, and I know this is the way forward. He groans and pushes his fingers through my hair.
Tears fall from my closed eyes and slide down my cheek. His kissing is sweet agony. But oh so beautiful.
I pull back. “I think you’d better take me home now.”
47
MASSIMO
We kiss like we’re possessed, shedding our clothes like a trail of breadcrumbs as we stumble toward the bedroom.
It’s been almost two months since I’ve made love to her, and I can’t wait another minute to be inside her. Once we’re naked and on the bed, I push into her sweet pussy and my eyes roll to the back of my head.
“Fuck, nothing feels as good as this,” I groan, overwhelmed by the rush of pleasure surging through me.
She moans beneath me, and I know there’s not a snowflake’s chance in hell that I’m going to last. Not when she feels so soft and supple and warm, and when she moans like that, I feel it all the way down the length of my cock.
I’ve got two months of pent-up desire for her begging for release.
She wraps her legs around my waist, and the move pulls me in deeper, and it takes everything not to come. I grip the bedsheet and bite back the urge, determined to get her there before me. My little monster has similar ideas, because she lifts her hips to meet each thrust and chases her own release beneath me. She stops suddenly, and her pussy clenches tightly around my cock, throbbing against my engorged length as she comes. She cries out, and I can’t hold back. The cries. The clenching. The soft warmth. It’s too much, and my release roars out of me with blinding ecstasy.
I collapse against her and bury my face in her neck, and the smell of her skin and the warmth of her body lulls me into a peacefulness where it is just her and I who exist.
Rolling onto my side, I pull her with me and secure my arms around her.
Outside, the rain has stopped, and the sun has burned through the cloud, sending warm rays of light into the room.
Everything feels right. Which is in stark contrast to the last six weeks.
I’m not too proud to admit I was lost without her. Driven to the point of almost-madness in her absence.
At night, her face would come to me, and my body would ache with longing, and my heart would harden beneath the grief. I fucked my hand so many times I lost count, and every time, I told myself I was fucking her memory out my head. But I’m a liar. I would come and she would still be there, that beautiful face haunting my memories.
Finding her mother’s necklace and figuring out the truth of the night she died was the only thing I could do to keep me sane. I was like a dog with a bone. Determined and tenacious. Because she needed answers, and I needed her.