innocence. Of passion. Intimacy is supposed to feel like this. Raw, vulnerable. An unpainted building, waiting for someone to splatter it with beautiful, original, untraditional art.
“Santino, I want you,” I say, breaking our kiss and reaching between us to fumble with his trousers. “I want you to make love to me.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, searching my eyes for confirmation. “We don’t have to.”
I cup his erection in my hand and nod firmly. “I’m sure.”
In a flash, Santino lifts himself off me, and we both ditch our clothes in record time. His cock bobs towards me, long and strong and probably waiting for this moment for far longer than it wanted to.
When he pulls a condom out of his wallet, I take it from him, sliding it over his immense length with pleasure. I grip it and stare up at him with wide, wanting eyes. “I want to feel alive again. Loved and cherished. Not broken.”
“You’re not broken,” he says, coming down over me and kissing my lips passionately. “And you are so cherished.”
My heart, my belly, my mind, my everything are on overload. I need this. I need it now.
I scoot myself up to the head of the bed, and the mattress dips as he positions himself between my legs. Holding on to his back, I tell him in a shaky voice, “You’ll probably need to go slow at first.”
“Anything.” He kisses me deeply, swirling his tongue with mine as his hand slips down between us. He swipes his fingers along my centre, growling into my lips as he notices how wet I am. “Always wet for me.”
“Yes,” I gasp as he pulls back to grind his shaft along my clit. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
He positions his tip at my entrance and pushes in just a couple of inches. It’s tight. Immensely tight. Tighter than I even realised a body that’s had intercourse before could be. But as he presses in deeper, my arousal ratchets up, and the barrier feels less harsh and more needy. I find myself wrapping my legs tightly around him to pull him in quicker just to get the friction where I need it. I need it so, so bad.
When he’s finally seated inside me, the pressure is so intense, my fingers dig into his shoulders. “Oh my God,” I groan, my pelvis aching like it’s developed its own heartbeat.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” He stares down at me, his hair flopping over his forehead in that perfect mussed way that drives me wild.
I nod fervently, wondering if one can become a reborn virgin in their thirties. “Just move, Santino. I need you to move.”
He pulls back slowly and thrusts in one, two, three times, each time getting smoother and smoother and the pain dissipating more and more as my muscles stretch to allow the glorious stroking of a nerve inside me that hasn’t been touched in ages.
When I was hesitant to have sex with Santino before, it’s because I was scared. I was scared that the act could somehow trigger the memory of a strange man over top of me who I didn’t want inside me. I was scared I could be like an amnesia victim who gets her entire memory triggered the moment a similar act occurs. It was stupid, but it was where my mind was at the time. I didn’t want to remember that night. I wanted to forget everything about it, including what happened afterwards.
It wasn’t that I never wanted to have sex again. I just knew before I did it, it would have to be with someone I trusted. Someone I cared about. The fact that it’s with someone I love…it’s an honour I didn’t know I was even deserving of anymore.
Just as that thought crosses my mind, Santino rocks harder into me and whispers against my lips, “Ti amo.”
I don’t need a translation for that.
I love him, too. More than I ever thought my heart was capable of loving someone. After everything I experienced, giving myself to a man like this didn’t feel possible. I didn’t feel worthy. I felt ruined inside, like I let someone take a piece of me that I could never get back. But as Santino makes love to me, whispering words of Italian in my ear, against my breast, and across my lips, I finally start to believe that nothing inside me is gone. It’s just been hiding in the dark, waiting for someone to pull it out.
I stand in Tilly’s room, gazing