Sempre (Forever Series #1)(85)

He sighed. No more Moonlight Sonata. “Uh, sure. I’ll play a song that reminds me of us.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s a real song,” he said. “I mean, like one you hear on the radio or whatever.”

“Will you sing it too?”

He stared at her. He could probably rupture eardrums and break sanities with his voice, but he couldn’t deny her. Not when she looked at him that way. “Okay, but this might not be pretty.”

Her smile grew. Carmine strummed the first few chords of Blue October’s “18th Floor Balcony” before softly singing the lyrics. He could feel her gaze on him, his fingers wavering, but he tried to keep focused so not to mess up. He could tell her all day long that he loved her, but this was cracking his chest open and stepping out of himself fully for her to see.

He glanced at Haven toward the end of the song, his fingers stilling when he saw tears streaming down her cheeks. Reaching over, he brushed some of them away.

She let out a shaky breath as she placed her hand on top of his. “Can we go inside?”

He led her into the cabin for the first time, and she paused right inside the door, surveying the dozens of roses faintly visible in the glow of the room. He scooted around her and turned on some music, scanning through songs when Haven brushed against him. She pulled off her coat and draped it over a chair before grabbing a rose. Bringing it to her nose, she inhaled its sweet scent as she sat on the bed, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth.

Carmine tossed his suit coat onto the table and lit the fireplace before walking over to her. Her expression made his steps falter. “You okay, hummingbird?”

Her voice cracked. “Perfect.”

“Perfect, indeed.”

He cupped her cheek and kissed her as she ran her hands through his hair. She moaned as he pushed her onto her back and leaned over her with his hands on both sides of the bed. He pulled from her mouth to take a breath and nudged her head to the side to kiss her neck.

“Carmine,” she whispered as he kissed toward her collarbones. “Make love to me.”

Strong emotions swirled through him—shock and elation, with a ton of fear—as his eyes met hers. He wanted to . . . Christ, did he want to . . . but there was no turning back from that. “Haven . . .”

“It feels right,” she said. “We’re right.”

He felt it, too. There in that moment, it was just him and her, no one and nothing else. They were all that mattered—two people, desperately in love and wanting to show each other. No master and slave, no class divides. No Principe della Mafia and his sweet forbidden fruit.

They never really felt that way, but it was hard to ignore the labels. There were reminders everywhere of the people they were supposed to be, the ones they didn’t want to be, but it was different here. Here, they were away from everything threatening to tear them apart. Here, there were no complications, no need to hide or pretend.

Carmine didn’t respond. No words were necessary. That bitch of a voice inside his head, doubting and nagging, had finally been silenced.

He gazed at her, absorbing all the love, before leaning down and softly capturing her lips with his. He kissed her tenderly as he placed his hand on her knee, slowly running it up her inner thigh. She squirmed under his touch, a whimper escaping her throat as she ran her hands under his shirt, tingles swimming through him as she caressed his bare skin.

Pulling away, he crouched down beside the bed and pushed up her dress, watching for any sign of distress. “You can change your mind at any time, hummingbird.”

“I won’t,” she said, her voice trembling as she raised her arms, letting him pull her dress over her head. He was in a stupor as he gazed at her, the contrast between her scarred skin and the dark undergarments striking. The strong, feisty girl suddenly seemed fragile, and he could never live with himself if he somehow broke her.

She reached over and unbuttoned his top button, but he grabbed her hands. “Relax, okay? Let me worship you.”

Her lips curved at his words. He unclasped her bra, tossing it on the floor, and gazed at her as he grazed his hand across her br**sts. A blush started on her cheeks and trickled the whole way down her body.

She lay on the bed when he finished undressing her, fisting the comforter. Loud moans bounced off the cabin walls as he caressed every inch of her flesh with his tongue. Her body writhed, her legs vibrating as she melted for him. She smelled sweet like nectar he was desperate to consume. A starving man, craving her like nothing before.

She cried out when her body exploded in pleasure, the sight of her pushing Carmine over the edge. He shrugged off his shirt, discarding it with Haven’s clothes, before kissing her deeply. She wrapped her arms around him, her breathing erratic as he unbuckled his pants and dropped them to the floor. “We can stop—”

Her voice was a ball of fire. “I don’t want to stop.”

Relieved, his excitement outshined his fear. Hovering over her, he kissed her jaw and nipped at her neck, his heart thumping hard in his chest at the warmth radiating from her. Her hands on his skin were electric as she ran her fingers lightly over the scar on his side. She tilted her head as he kissed the dip in her throat, his lips moving along her collarbones.

His nerves flared as he reached between them to grasp himself. “I’ll go slow, okay?”

She clung to him, her brittle fingernails digging into his back, her body rigid when he pushed inside of her. A whimper escaped her throat as he stilled his movements to give her time to adjust. “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare la donna mia,” he whispered, the words from Dante’s La Vita Nuova flooding from his lips. “Quand’ella altrui saluta, ch’ogne lingua deven tremando muta, e li occhi no l’ardiscon di guardare.”