Sempre: Redemption (Forever Series #2)(18)

“Now who’s second guessing?” she asked. “Don’t you trust me?”

He smiled, amused she would turn his words around on him, and pulled her hand away. She held her breath as he pushed inside of her, filling her completely with one deep stroke.

“Of course I trust you,” he whispered. “I’m just giving you a chance to change your mind.”

“I’ll never change my mind,” she said. “Not when it comes to you.”

His thrusts were slow and gentle at first as he kissed her softly, whimpers escaping her throat. She wrapped her arms around him, clinging to him as her hands roamed the sculpted muscles of his back.

The pleasure was intense as it swept through her, and it didn’t take long before the pressure built again, her body quivering.

Carmine’s movements grew more frantic after a while, his thrusts harder and deeper. His breathing grew labored, his body trembling in her arms as he slid in and out of her body with fervor. She could feel the desire seeping from his pores as he gave himself to her. The love, the need, the yearning . . . the raw passion between them was enough to take her breath away.

Skin soaked with sweat, Haven felt as if she were on fire, every inch of her aching for all of him. She could hear his pants and gasps, his hands gripping her firmly as he challenged logic by pulling her closer than she had ever been before. It was as if they had melted into one, where he ended and she began nothing but a blur.

Bodies pressed together, she could feel his pulse, blood furiously rushing through his veins. “Your heart,” she whispered. “It’s racing.”

“You feel it?” he asked. “You hear it?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it saying?”

She smiled, her eyes fluttering closed. “It’s saying you love me.”

“I do,” he said. “No matter what. Sempre.”

That word washed through her. “Sempre.”

Carmine’s body shook as his cli**x hit. He smashed his lips to hers as he thrust a few more times, holding Haven so tightly it was as if his life depended on it.

He stilled his movements, nuzzling into her neck, and let out a shaky breath as a shudder ran through his body.

“Good night, my hummingbird,” Carmine whispered. “I’ll keep you in my dreams.”

7

Sitting at the bottom of the stairs, Carmine dropped his head low as his hand gripped his unruly hair, his eyes fixed on the black duffel bag full of clothes near his feet. His old acoustic guitar was carefully balanced against it—half teetering on the bag, half on the foyer floor.

A chime echoed through the downstairs from a clock in the family room, an eternity seeming to pass with each tick of its hand. Time was a merciless bitch, taunting him as it slipped away. One second; two seconds; twenty minutes; an hour. A century could have gone by, or no time at all.

Carmine’s chest ached. He wished it would just f**king stop.

Footsteps on the stairs behind him made him feel like he was going to be sick. He was afraid Haven would wake up and catch him sitting there alone—part of him treacherously hoping she would find him and stop him, even though he knew it was too late.

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” Vincent said, stepping past. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

“So did I,” he said, his voice shaking as he continued to stare at the bag on the floor. “She’s gonna hate me. She’s gonna regret ever letting me into her life.”

“She’ll understand someday.”

Carmine clenched his hands into fists as his eyes burned with unshed tears. “This is gonna f**king devastate her.”

“Yeah, it probably will.”

“Great,” he spat, glaring at his father. “Thanks for making me feel better.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?” Vincent asked, raising his eyebrows. “Of course it’s going to hurt her, Carmine. There’s no getting around that.”

“This is f**ked up,” he said, shaking his head. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this. We’re supposed to be together, get away from all of this bullshit and just be. For once in our f**king lives, we were going to just be, and now look at everything.”

“Are you rethinking this?” he asked. “It isn’t too late.”

“It is too late,” he said. “The moment I went to Sal, it became too late. She’s better than the life I can offer her.”

“Then what do you want me to say, son?”

“I want you to say she’s better off without me, that we’re better off apart.”

“Fine,” Vincent said, “but who’s going to convince you of that?”

His question caught Carmine off guard. He stared at his father pointedly, awaiting some answer to ease his concern, but the mere thought of stepping out of that front door without Haven hurt worse than Carmine ever imagined it would.

Before he could come up with something to say, the front door opened and Dominic stepped inside. He froze when he caught sight of Carmine and narrowed his eyes as he slammed the door. Dominic rarely lost his temper, but when he did another side of him came out that was unpredictable, his words often hurting just as much as Carmine vaguely recalled his fists did.