Page 214 of Valentino

“Anna.” He cups my jaw in his hand, and he brings my face to meet his. “Relax.” But it’s not a request, it’s a demand. “Babe.” His eyes search mine. “I need you to relax.”

My eyes hold his; fear is pumping adrenaline through my veins.

“It’s okay…I’ll slow down,” he whispers. “I’m sorry…I just lost my head for a moment.” The grip he has on my face loosens. “I’ll take it slower.”

I nod, slightly mollified that even in his heightened state he’s still aware of how big a man he is.

His lips take mine and he kisses me, and it’s soft and tender and just the reassurance that my body needs. For a long time we kiss, it’s slow and unhurried as if almost forgetting that his body is deep inside of mine.

“Anna,” he breathes against my lips; he holds me as close as a man could ever hold a woman. Etched deep within her, body and soul. When two physical heartbeats become one.

“My beautiful Anna.”

We kiss and just for a moment I open my eyes to see that his are shut tight, I know that he’s right here with me.

Lost in this perfect moment.

“I’m okay,” I breathe. “It’s okay now.”

He opens his eyes to look into mine and I smile up at him as he slowly pulls out and slides back in.

It is okay now….

I smile, this time in relief, and as if sensing that he has the green light, he does too. He pulls out and pushes back in, slow at first, again and again and we fall into a rhythm.

After a while each pump becomes deeper than the last, a little faster, and a whole lot more pleasurable.

The bed begins to thump against the wall, a soft sound at first. As he gets deeper, more lost in my flesh, the sound gets louder, a roaring thunderous clap as the bed frame nearly smashes through the plaster. Our skin slaps.

But it’s my heart that steals the show.

She’s quiet.

Pensive.

Free-falling into the void between the physical and the magical realm of reality.

The man she has felt deep within her for so long, is here in the now.

Wiping the memory of any man before him.

I cry out as my body comes hard, jerking beneath him as I claw into his wide back.

“Fuck.” He grits his teeth. “Fuck.” He holds himself deep and comes hard in a rush.

And then he kisses me, we free-fall to a perfect connection.

A sacred place of vulnerability and tenderness that I haven’t felt with anyone else since him.

Regardless, it’s as beautiful as it is terrifying.

He pulls out of me and rolls over to fall onto his back, his eyebrows flick up and his chest rises and falls as he gasps for air. His eyebrows flick up again as if a fleeting thought is running through his mind.

I glad his thought is fleeting, mine is as subtle as a Mack truck.

What the hell was that?

“Fucking…” he glances over to me, “…hell, Anna.”