We lie entangled on the bed in the dark.
I don’t know how long we’ve been like this. Hours, maybe. Days? Years? Who fucking knows. I’ve lost all sense of time. All I know is that I’m here, in a place I never dreamed I’d be, with a woman who makes me feel like life might be worth living after all.
Her head rests on my chest. Her legs are twined between mine. Her warm hand is pressed flat over my beating heart.
My stunned, achy, battered heart that doesn’t have a bloody clue what just hit it.
It’s been bitten by a viper with sharp fangs and the sweetest venom.
After a heavy exhalation, Reyna whispers, “What happens now?”
“Now we figure it out, I suppose.”
There’s a brief but tense pause. “Is it…”
“What?”
“Is it always like this for you? I mean, this intense?”
I close my eyes and exhale. My lungs ache, too. “No, lass,” I murmur. “Not for me.”
“Good. If you’d said yes, I was going to rip out your nipple rings with my teeth.”
Chuckling, I comb my fingers through her long silky hair.
Stirring, she presses a soft kiss to my jaw. I turn my head and look at her, stunning even in shadows.
“Did your mother really name you after the artist Winslow Homer?”
“Aye.”
“That’s nice.”
“She was a nice person.”
I can tell she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. She just toys with my beard and watches me with those mermaid eyes, glittering in the dark like sea glass under shifting waters.
Feeling a thousand years old, I turn my head and stare at the ceiling. After a while, I say, “I’m thirty-eight.”
“Hmm. You don’t look a day over fifty.”
“I deserve that.”
“You do. What else? Tell me more.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know… What’s your favorite song?”
“‘God Bless America.’”
She laughs. “That’s not your favorite song.”
“It is.”
“Really?” She digests that in silence for a moment. “How strange.”
I shrug. “I like you, too. You can’t account for taste.”
She laughs again, softly, tugging at my beard. “Good one.”
Then, a moment later and sweetly hesitant: “You like me?”
And she calls me an idiot.
My sigh is a huge gust of air. “Aye. I like you. But then again, I’m a glutton for punishment, so there’s that.”
“That’s such a weird phrase. ‘Glutton for punishment.’ What does that even mean?”
“It means you love what hurts you.”
A delicate shiver runs through her body. Burrowing closer to me, she whispers, “Don’t love what hurts you, Quinn. Whatever hurts you doesn’t deserve you. You’re made for so much better than that.”
A thousand knives carve her name into my heart. Bleeding, barely able to breathe, I say gruffly, “Goddammit. Stop being sweet. I can’t handle it when you’re sweet.”
“Yes, you can, you wuss. C’mon, we’ll practice.” She lifts up to an elbow and smiles down at me. “Hi, Homer. I’m Reyna. It’s nice to meet you. You look like an orphan’s idea of Christmas morning.”
Closing my eyes, I take a breath and pray for the Lord to help me.
Not that he’s listening. He was done listening to me a long time ago.
She whispers, “I love it that you’re this big tough guy who runs around shooting people like it’s just another day at the office, but inside, you’re all gooey. One little compliment and you melt.”
“That wasn’t one little compliment. It was a smile that could end wars and the only time you’ve ever said my first name and a metaphor about how you think of me that felt like a goddamn standing ovation.”
“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?”
When I turn my head and look at her, she’s grinning at me.
She pokes me in the ribs. “Now you do one.”
I cup her jaw in my hand and stroke my thumb over the lovely curve of her cheek. Gazing into her eyes, I murmur, “You’re a privilege I don’t deserve, but I’m going to spend the rest of both our lives trying to be worthy of you.”
She’s stunned for a moment, swallowing and blinking. Then she turns her face to my neck, closes her eyes, and says faintly, “If you make me cry again, the rest of your life will be very short.”
That makes me chuckle. “Now who’s the gooey one?”
Hiding her face, she shakes her head and says nothing.
Rolling onto my side, I gather her in my arms, bury my face in her hair, and inhale deeply. When she slides an arm around my waist and squeezes me, I feel as if someone just handed me a crown and ushered me into my new castle.
After a while, her voice muffled, she says, “I don’t know how to be a wife.”
“That’s okay. I don’t know how to be a husband.”
“No, I mean, I don’t know if I can be a wife. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a lot of baggage from the matrimony department.”
I stroke a hand over her shoulder and down her back, gently tracing the outlines of her scars. More than ever, I wish that worthless fuck of a dead husband of hers were alive.
Oh, what I would do to him. All the ugly and wonderful things.
“If it makes you feel better, I have zero expectations. If you’d let me look at you naked every once in a while, that would be grand, but other than that, you don’t have to do or be anything.”
Sounding confused, she says, “Are all Irishmen as easy to please as you are?”
“Are all Italian women as gorgeous as you are?”
“There are a million Italian women who look like me, Quinn. Tits, ass, lots of sass. It runs in the gene pool.”
“Hmm. Sounds like I need to book a trip to Italy.”
She slaps me on the back, making me chuckle.
“That was a joke.”
She mutters, “Better be.”
“I’m sorry, is this the same person who accused me of being jealous and possessive? Because hello, pot, meet the kettle.”
“I’ll put a bullet in that stupid kettle if you don’t shut up soon.”
My chest shaking with silent laughter, I roll on top of her, brushing her hair off her face.
She glares up at me with flashing eyes.
“My God,” I breathe, staring down at her lovely, livid face. “You’re a fine thing, Mrs. Quinn.”
“And you’re crushing me. How much do you weigh, anyway?”
“Dunno. Don’t bother with scales much.”
“Maybe you should buy one. You’re abnormally heavy.”
“It’s all the muscles.”
She sighs, closing her eyes.
“I have an idea.”
“The poor thing must be lonely inside that empty brain of yours.”
“Stop insulting me for a minute and listen. Let’s go shopping in the morning.”
She opens her eyes and quirks a brow.
“Do you not recall that the only item of clothing you currently have is a wedding dress?”
“Are you really suggesting I should go shopping for clothes wearing a wedding dress?”
“Hmm. That is a problem. I’ll have some things brought up from the boutique downstairs, then we’ll go shopping.”
“I have plenty of my own stuff to wear, Quinn. You don’t have to bother buying me anything.”
“Everything you own is black.”
“Oh. Right.” She pauses, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “And I threw out all my old clothes after I moved in with Gianni.”
“So we’ll go shopping. While we’re doing that, I’ll send some lads to your house to pack your things.”
I watch her expression carefully to see what she thinks of that idea.
After a moment of processing it, she says, “Because I’m moving in with you.”
I dip my head and press a gentle kiss to her lips. “Aye. If you want to.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Don’t be a bloody moron.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a yes.”
“I just wanted you to say it out loud.”
“I already told you before.”
Lowering her lashes, she whispers, “I know. But I like hearing it.”
It’s so bashful and so unlike her, it catches me completely off guard. It also charms the bejesus out of me.
I say gruffly, “I want you to live with me. I want you to sleep with me. I want you to shower with me, feed me, and fuck me every night and four times on the weekends.”
“Aha! I knew you were going to make me cook!”
“Really? That’s what you got out of all that?”
“No,” she says softly, smiling up at me. “I got the other stuff, too.”
“And?”
“And…it was all very nice.”
“Nice? You force me to wear my heart on my sleeve and all I get for the bloody effort is a ‘nice’?’”
“Is Mr. Hyde coming out to play now? I feel like we’re about to start arguing. Wait, or is it Dr. Jekyll?”
When I growl, she laughs, thoroughly pleased with herself.
“I’m only getting you back for making me wear my heart on my sleeve.”
“Fine. We’re even. No more getting each other back for anything else, aye?”
Grinning at me, she teases, “Aye.”
I flip onto my back and pull her along with me. She settles on my chest with a sigh of satisfaction and runs her toes along the insides of my calves. Wrapping my arms around her, I kiss her hair and close my eyes.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until she reaches up and touches my lips.
She says, “You really are incredibly handsome, Quinn. I’ve never seen a man with a jawline like this. Even with the beard, it could cut steel.”
My voice thick with emotion, I say, “Now you’re spoiling me.”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“Aye, evil witch. I fucking like it. Which you know. Stop patting yourself on the back about it and keep going.”
“Okay. Hmm…what if I told you that when I first saw you, my heart skipped a beat?”
“My dick would get hard, that’s what.”
“It already is.”
She’s not lying. All this praise she’s heaping on me has my balls tight and my cock jacked. It wants to get sunk into her sweet, slick heat again.
Reaching between us, she wraps her hand around my erection. “Would you show me how to kiss it so it feels good for you?”
My eyes snap open. My heart takes off like a rocket.
“Because I don’t know how to do that.” She exhales a shaky laugh. “Enzo was embarrassed about how small he was, so he didn’t like me to even look at it, let alone put it in my mouth.”
I’m a sick, sick puppy for how happy it makes me feel to know that a) he had a small cock and b) she never sucked it. Also that she wants to suck mine.
She’s right: all that therapy I had was a waste of money. I’m still as fucked up as they come.
Exhaling a slow breath, I say, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’ll never make you do anything you don’t want to do. And you shouldn’t feel obligated to do something just because I’ve done it to you.”
“I know. Which are all reasons why I want to do it.”
When I only lie there with a hammering heart, trying to figure out if I should kill myself now because this is clearly the highlight of my life and everything can only be downhill from here, she whispers, “I want to make you feel good, Quinn. It makes me feel good to please you.”
I groan.
Now I can kill myself.
She slides down my body until she’s eye level with my dick. Propped up on her elbows between my legs as I stroke her hair, she muses, “I wonder if all those romance authors I read have been secretly following you around for inspiration.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning oversized dicks are the norm in my books.” She looks up at me. “Or is this the normal size?”
Trying to suppress a smile, I say, “I’m no expert, but from what I understand, there are as many different sizes and shapes of cocks as there are men.”
“Oh.” She stares at my hard dick again. “God, if there are cocks bigger than this, the men who own them must be giants.”
“The fact that you’re not even trying to give me a compliment makes that the best compliment of them all so far.”
“So how do I start? Pretend it’s a lollipop?”
I’d have never in a million years believed I’d be trying not to laugh out loud when a woman was about to give me head, but this day just never stops surprising.
“Give me your hand.”
I guide her hand to my shaft and curl her fingers around the base.
Wide-eyed, she whispers, “My fingers can’t even touch.”
“Be quiet now.”
Wrapping my hand around hers, I squeeze, then draw her hand up the length of me to just under the crown. I squeeze again there and murmur, “Lick the slit on top.”
She laps at it eagerly like a kitten with a bowl of cream. It feels fucking incredible, but we’re only getting started. I don’t want to come all over her face and ruin the mood.
My voice husky, I say, “Take your time. Suck on it a little, just the crown, then lick again.”
When her lips slide over the engorged head of my dick, a low moan breaks from my chest. She sucks, and my eyes slide shut. Her hot wet tongue swirls over the slit on top, and I shudder.
“Good?”
“Perfect.”
I guide her hand down the shaft again, flexing up against the pressure as she continues to suck and lick the crown.
I’m starting to sweat. My breathing is erratic. The hand I’ve got curled over hers shakes slightly, and the muscles in my thighs and stomach are tensed.
I whisper, “Try to take a little more in your mouth, sweetheart. Go slow.”
The entire head of my cock is enveloped in wet heat. It feels so fucking good, I groan again. She licks and sucks and swirls her tongue around and around as I lie on my back, unraveling.
“You’re so hard,” she whispers, her lips moving against my skin.
She starts to stroke me slightly faster, responding to the pressure of my hand and the flex of my hips. When she leans forward and bobs her head, I warn, “Not too much or you’ll—”
She makes a retching sound. My dick pops out of her mouth.
“Gag.”
Pausing to catch her breath, she says hoarsely, “Boy, they never mention that in my books.”
“You’ll have to send a strongly worded letter to the author.”
“Damn straight,” she mutters. She exhales, tosses her hair over her shoulder, and leans forward again.
God bless a determined woman.
She starts to suck and lick again, setting a comfortable pace. Comfortable for her, anyway. I’m digging my heels into the mattress and grinding my teeth, trying to maintain a semblance of composure. The last thing I want is to lose control and start fucking her mouth like an animal, though that’s exactly what my body is demanding I do.
My cock throbs against her tongue. My balls ache. There’s a white-hot whorl of pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in my pelvis, and it’s all I can do not to clamp my hands on either side of her head and surge up into her perfect wet mouth over and over again until I explode.
I have to be a gentleman.
It’s our wedding night, after all.
Her hand and my shaft are slick from her mouth, so every stroke is now deliciously slippery. She’s squeezing harder as she strokes me, and it’s driving me fucking wild.
Through clenched teeth, I say, “I’m getting close. I’ll warn you right before.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t come straight down your throat.”
“Why would that be bad? I want to taste you.”
My groan is broken. If I walk out of this room alive, it will be a miracle.
I tip my head back on the pillow, find a strand of her silken hair, and tug on it as she sucks and strokes my cock. “Viper,” I whisper raggedly. “My beautiful viper. What have you done to me?”
When she moans around my cock, I feel it all the way down to my balls. Sucking in air through my teeth, I sink my hand into her hair and make a fist.
“Baby. Fuck. I’m there. I’m right fucking there—ah—”
I gasp and jerk, erupting in hot, uncontrollable pulses before I can finish the sentence.
She curls both hands around my shaft and sucks the crown as I come in her mouth, lost to sensation, my heart flying and my entire body shuddering with release.
When it’s over and I’m lying there panting and shaking, she gives my cock one final squeeze, sits back onto her heels, licks her lips, and smiles at me.
“You taste like hazelnuts.”
My laugh is breathless. “You like hazelnuts, sweetheart?”
“They’re my favorite thing.”
Maybe God doesn’t hate me so much after all.
