She felt drained and lifeless afterward, and Rocco picked her up and carried her to the side of 122B, to a wooden side door that led into the garage. He opened it, her still in his arms, and he stepped inside. Single occupant of the garage was a big black pickup truck and he opened the passenger door and set her inside it, easing her into the footwell. He said, “I need you to stay down. Hug this floor, okay, baby?”

She peered up at him through her hanging hair. He tapped the floor with his leather glove and she stayed low. He closed the door, careful to make sure she was clear. Then he was in, his heavy body shaking the truck on its suspension as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned the key (in the ignition where he’d said it would be), and the truck came to life—a roar turned to a diesel rattle. The garage door peeled up, shutters folding above their heads and the cabin of the truck was lit by snowy gray daylight.

They drove in silence through stop and go traffic. She listened to the jingling of the keys in the ignition, occasionally the loud clicking of his turn indicator. She stared into the floor mat, wishing she could see out, wishing she could see where he was taking her. She trusted him. Crazy as that sounded, she trusted him. This walking dead man, her callous betrayer, the breaker of hearts, was…trusted. It bewildered her.

It wasn’t long before he was slowing again, turning sharply and up a drive it sounded like. There was the sound of another garage door and then they were closed in the dark again. The truck was shaking, his heavy weight getting out, then her passenger door was opened. She was still frozen to the floor, irrationally afraid to come out. But she’d been painting in Sedona only a day ago and she thought the man she’d loved was probably dead.

“Daniella,” he said, and he held his hand out to help her. “You're safe now. We're safe here. I promise.” She looked in his eyes, saw an honesty there. They weren’t darting around, watching for danger, his hands were free from weapons. She put her hand out, touched his bare skin. His gloves were gone and she felt his warm but hard grasp. Felt how small her hand was in his. How fragile he made her. She got to her knees, stepped out, him holding her hand. The truck was in another garage. This one larger and almost empty. He took her by the hand and led her up stone steps to a wooden door and led her inside. It was warm. Dim and grey, but oh so much warmer than the cold and the snow and the death they'd just escaped from.

They were inside a Gothic stone mansion. Not that large, small and narrow, but solidly built with a stone wall ahead of them, drywall to the right and polished timber beams. The place was almost empty, abandoned looking. When Rocco tried to lead her deeper into the house she ripped her hand from his grip.

He turned, his face shocked with concern.

She stood toe to toe, staring into his eyes, getting lost in them. Her lips quivered and she felt like she would cry but she didn't want him to see that. Maybe she was too angry to cry. As her trembling lip threatened to turn to sobs she said, “You...I thought you were dead...”

“Daniella, I—”

“I want to be happy you're alive...my heart wants to enjoy it, but I know...”

“Baby—”

“I know you've been alive this whole time and you never even sent me a message...”

The tears came then and she couldn’t stop them. He was alive. She loved him and he was alive and he was here with her. He’d saved her life.

She sobbed, “I should fucking hate you...”

He gripped her suddenly and hard, pressed her back to the stone wall and held her eyes with his. She could see a raging sea in there. A storm. He was troubled. He was overwhelmed with his own emotions. His eyes quivered, they were wet, but Rocco was a man who never cried. His lips trembled as he fought for words. She stopped him. “Rocco,” she whispered, and her soft breath against his cheek warmed those eyes. His head tilted with remorse and affection, absorbing from her the pain he’d caused, seeing it in her and trying to take it from her.

“Did you ever? ...” she cried, her breaths chugging and the vision of his beautiful face warbling with her warm wet.

His hand came to her neck and his thumb caressed her jaw and she felt her heart threatening to burst.

“...Did you ever even think of me?”

He kissed her then, those beautiful lustful lips attacking hers and she went off inside, fireworks in her brain, her heart blasting cherry starburst love. She was swept away by his kiss. Their breaths scored through their noses, heavy, forceful, heaving with desire. His hand gripped the back of her neck and her head tilted to him, exposed herself to him.

He said, “I thought of you every minute, Daniella. I thought of a moment like this every single day. I never knew it would feel so good...”

“Rocco,” she whimpered, her hands clawing at the leather shoulders of his jacket. His kisses came again, wet and hot. He took her tongue and she gave it to him. That familiar feel, that strong Rocco tongue worked over her and she surrendered to him.

“I’m going to show you how much I missed you,” he said, his deep voice a lubricious force against her delicate ears.

“Ah,” she gasped, feeling his hips thrust against her, feeling that manhood of his press into her tummy. She climbed her legs up his hard denim thighs, her wool skirt riding up and catching at her hips. She scratched her fingers under his jacket, out of her mind with passion, desperate to feel that incredible body of his, wanting to feel his muscle as he fucked her with his huge cock.

“What's this?” she gasped, her hands getting under his leather, forming claws so she could drag them over his muscle and finding hard smooth canvas.

“Bullet proof vest,” he said, his voice a hungry groan. He ripped his shirt open and she heard metal clatter out and onto the polished tile floor. Bullets. He'd been shot by those men. They'd stuck to his vest.

“You were shot?” she panted, aching for him, her lower lip hanging wet and pouted.

“I'd take a hundred bullets for you,” he said, his mouth consuming hers again and he pressed her against the wall and she cried with passion into his kisses.

Her breaths trembled against him, sucking on his tongue, letting him take hers. Her hands went up and down those smooth bullet proof sides, wishing to feel his bare body. His mouth tasted just like it did four years ago. He’d been everything, and kissing him now it felt like it was yesterday. It felt so familiar. Her Rocco. Her love. She climbed higher up his hips as he kissed her—practiced moves, familiar things she did. She’d fucked him hundreds of times. They were practiced and efficient lovers. She knew he kept that big tool down his right pant leg, knew it was hard now, felt it crossing up and on an angle instead of hanging down, the end of it under his hip pocket. She pressed her sex to it, felt its wide belly scoring her across her panties, felt herself instantly sweating inside, felt a wetness spreading between her legs, and she slipped her mound against his hard column, wishing it was bare and inside her. Her hands fumbled with his belt buckle and he kissed her while his hands went over hers, as eager as hers, getting that buckle undone but she gripped the belt now—gripped it with all her might and she yanked on it, yanked him close, her hungry pussy slipping up and down that big hard thing he had, her aching sex being ground by him through her panties, her skirt, his rough denim. “Ah,” she gasped again, pulling her mouth from his kiss and pressing her cheek to him. Her fingers ached, she held her fists on his belt so tight her forearms were shaking. She humped and rode that cock, grinding herself into it, feeling something being drawn from her. Years of abstinence, years without passion, suddenly it was a dam bursting, suddenly years of pent up desire were exploding through a raging crack spreading in her walls. She was gushing now, their dry grinding bringing wet smacking noises. She snarled and bared her teeth feeling something rising inside her, feeling herself being swept up til she could touch the ceiling, feeling herself rising high above her own body, her hips grinding and pumping, her lover driving his denim hardness against her soft soft sex, over her panties, and then she came and she cried out, cried his name and her grip let loose—her hands scratching and raking his neck as the pleasure took her higher and she thought she would go black.

“Fuck, Daniella,” he growled. “Oh fuck, you sexy, ah,” he grunted, and now his pants were coming down, scoring along those rock hard thighs and she felt the heat from between his legs, his cock out now, out in the air, that big thing somewhere loose between them. Felt it then, its hot touch through her hose against the inside of her thigh and if she didn’t have it inside her right now she would fucking scream.

“Fuck me, Rocco, fuck me,” she said, dragging her nails through his thick hair and breathing in his man smell.

His big hands worked between them, his knuckles grazing her soft flesh, fingers working then underneath the trim of her panties, tearing them, shredding them and her tights, pulling. The silk of her ruined panties scored through her creases as he ripped them free and tossed them aside.

He gripped his cock, his thick end pushed at her, and she climbed higher, bared her pussy for him, dying to feel her lover inside her. He drove it up, and she felt its broad size mash her sex, pull her mound to the center as it struggled to breach her. Then it was in. Rocco was big. Big, and his size would sometimes punish her. But she was wet, wetter than she could ever remember, and even though she hadn’t been with him in four years he slid inside her in one stroke. It brought out a hiss as she felt so stretched and full, to her limit, but it was pleasure tenfold compared to the pain. Once he was in and stroking it, all that worry of tearing was washed away in a flooding ecstasy that rolled her eyes back and had her head falling to hit the stone wall. He felt so good. He’d been so missed. His passion, his lust, his size, his masculinity. There was no one like Rocco. There had been others since. Two men. Good men who sat at her father’s elbow but they were nothing compared to Rocco.

“Fuck, baby, I missed you...oh,” she cried into his ear and she pulled herself back to him, tightly hugged herself to him. Her cheek to his, her nails clawing his neck again, his perfect cock stretching her to her limit, driving in and out. She rode him as much as he pummeled her. His hips dove and thrust and she pushed and bucked, her tummy rolling to get those hips bucking against the greatest lover she’d ever had—could ever have.

“Ah, Daniella, I missed this...I missed you...”

“Ah, back from the dead...” she moaned.

“Back for you, Daniella,” he growled.

“Fuck me,” she repeated and his thrusts came faster, his breaths scoring harder, passion between them building and building, their ragged breaths out of control, a sweat forming on them. He kissed her neck and she kissed his and then his cock was swelling inside her, every cable and tendon in it flexing and flaring, the huge glans swelling, scoring her sensitive flesh like a knot, and he was coming. His hot wet seed shot out of him, filled her with its heat, splashing her insides with strong pulses and the feel of it, the tickle of his launching orgasm set her off again and she gnashed her teeth so hard she bit her own lip and made it bleed. She came with him, pounding her fists against his leather chest, hard, like she wanted to hurt him. Four years apart and now her resurrected lover had made her come twice and filled her with his own nectar. It was heaven. It was too good to be true. Still, she humped faster, sending thrills like electric bolts from her pussy up to the center of her brain, each time threatening to shut her off. Still, her balled little fists pounded him with rage and passion.