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So I keep going.

I lay her still-shaking body down on the old rug with care and find her mouth again. My lips trail down her throat, right in that sweet spot between her breasts, before mapping her stomach. I’m taking my sweet time because every second matters.

Her hands skate along my back, memorizing scars and muscle, and damn if it doesn’t feel like she’s staking a claim, like I belong to her.

Wouldn’t mind, honestly. Not one bit.

Eventually, my hand slips beneath the waistband of her panties. I pause, my thumb drawing soft lines just above where she burns hottest.

“Just tell me.” I hold her gaze. No hiding. No games.

She chews her lip. “I want to. I just…”

Tensing, Sophia trails off, and I don’t miss the flash of fear.

“I know.” I brush her hair from her face. “I won’t take anything from you that you’re not ready to give.”

She stares at me like she’s never seen me before. Like maybe she didn’t believe that until now.

Then something cracks. Her eyes fill. She cups my face with both hands and traces my jaw with her thumb. “You mean that.”

“Always.”

A tear slips down her cheek. Trembling, she offers me a sweet kiss, pouring everything she can’t say into the gesture.

My chest cracks open. This isn’t just desire anymore. It’s deeper. More dangerous.

I kiss her again. Slower. She wraps her arms around me to anchor herself.

We stay here for a while, tangled up, skin on skin, both of us burning but content to just be. My hand maps patterns on her back. Her fingers thread through my hair. We kiss until our lips are swollen. Until our breathing steadies. Until the urgency fades into warmth.

My chest aches for more of her. The sensation of her heart racing under my palm…her ragged breathing… She’s everything.

An hour later, maybe more, I lift her up and bring her to my bed, where she curls against my chest. Somehow, we both manage to sleep like this…blanketed in each other’s heat.

And here it is, the thing I never let myself feel. Hope.

Chapter 13

Sophia

When morning arrives, my nerves are still raw. The sunlight cuts in crooked through half-drawn curtains, and the sheets are too warm.

The space beside me still holds his heat, a reminder that, last night, we slept in the same bed for the first time. We actually shared a mattress, shared air, shared warmth…but he’s already gone.

Of course he is.

There’s an ache under my ribs laced with longing that I don’t want to name. My sleep was filled with dreams and memories of last night… His kiss, his touch, hands that knew exactly where to go. The fact that we hit a pause, that he pulled back when he could have kept going, haunts me more than I want to admit.

The rational part of me that knows this is all too fast and tangled is grateful. The part that still feels his hands on my skin, though, wishes he hadn’t stopped at all.

Why does restraint from a man like Enzo feel more dangerous than the act itself, like he’s holding back a storm I’m not sure I want to survive or escape?

The world is already up and about. I can hear maids shuffling softly in the halls, the clink of breakfast trays signaling the start of another day in this gilded prison.

After a quiet knock, a maid enters with tea and a tiny bow, her eyes skimming past me with a kind of reverence or fear—or both—that I can’t quite tell. Everyone in this house has started calling me Signora Ricci as if the title and me being his wife make me untouchable.

Thanking her, I sip as I hear another set of feet at the door and look up to see Izzy Benedetti strolling in.