It was bliss to be back inside her.

It wasn’t just the tight clench of her pussy around his throbbing cock. It was her silken skin against his, the soft swell of her body underneath him. Most of all it was the knowledge that she was safe and in his arms. That the next person to try and take her from him would die trying.

He lingered over her mouth as he moved in long, languorous strokes inside her. He wanted to make it last. Wanted to feel every satiny inch as he moved inside her. Wanted to give her time to stretch around him. Wanted to learn her all over again.

She opened her eyes, looked up at him as she opened her legs wider, clenched his ass to push him even further inside her.

“Don’t be gentle with me,” she said. “Just fuck me.”

He hadn’t been aware that he was being gentle. He knew only that he had her back in his arms, that she was the most precious thing he’d ever been entrusted with.

That he’d almost lost her.

Now he growled and drove into her with a ferocity that took even him by surprise.

“Yes,” she cried out. “I want all of it. All of you.”

The words were like gasoline on the fire already unraveling in his veins. He moved faster, pushing all the way inside her until the tip of his cock bumped up against her cervix, dragged out of her almost all the way just so he could drive into her again.

It wasn’t enough. He wanted more.

Wanted to embed himself in her so thoroughly they could never be torn apart again.

He hooked his arm around one of her knees and pushed it back as he thrust into her. She opened further to accommodate him, the soft walls of her pussy like rose petals against the throbbing heat of his cock.

“Fuck, Aria… You feel so good.” He lowered his face to her neck as the orgasm rose inside him. “So fucking good.”

“I’m going to come again,” she said. “Come with me, Damian.”

He moved faster, on a mission to find release. He felt the pressure building at the center of his body, traveling upward to the tip of his cock.

She pulled her other leg back, giving him access to the darkest, sweetest part of her pussy, and it was all over. He erupted with a shuddering groan, spilling into her as she cried out into the room.

She tightened around him, clenching his shaft like the sweetest of vises as her own orgasm ripped through her body. It seemed to go on and on — the grasp of her channel on his cock as her body trembled under him, his own body coiled and tight until he’d finally spilled everything into her.

He was only dimly aware that they hadn’t bothered with a condom as he collapsed next to her, pulled her into his arms.

He didn’t care. She would be his forever.

Any children he ever had would be born of her body.

Her soul.

He kissed the top of her head as their breathing regulated. The room had grown lighter around them, the rising sun casting a golden halo on the soft plaster walls.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after awhile.

She didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Not really,” she said. “I’m with you now. That’s all that matters.”

He hesitated. Part of him wanted to know everything, no matter how much it hurt. The other part wanted to pretend it wasn’t as bad as his worst imaginings.

In the end, it didn’t really matter. It was her story to tell.

“At some point you’ll have to tell us about the men who took you,” he said. “It’s the only way we’ll find them.”

“It wasn’t Primo, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

He forced his body to remain loose, not wanting to alert her to his surprise. “How do you know?”

“He was never there,” she said. “Not once. Only Malcolm.”

He craned his neck to look at her face. “Gatti?”

He would let Primo’s involvement in her kidnapping go for now. She’d been safe for less than twenty-four hours. It would kill her to know her own brother had been complicit in keeping her locked up for almost two months. He would tell her later.

Or never, if he could make it work.

She nodded against his chest. “Malcolm and the other men you saw. I don’t know who they were.”

“They work for Stefano Anastos,” Damian said.

“Anastos… The guy who controls Astoria?”

He wasn’t surprised she knew about Anastos’s stronghold in Astoria. She was Primo Fiore’s sister, and while she hadn’t taken an active role in his business, she’d probably overheard plenty, both at home and at Velvet, the nightclub that served as Primo Fiore’s headquarters.

“That’s the one,” Damian said.

“You think Malcolm is plotting against Primo with the Greeks?” she asked.

He hated the worry in her voice. Hated that she was still worried about Primo after everything he’d done. But of course, in lieu of Primo’s involvement with Anastos, she would assume it was all Malcolm’s doing.

And the only reason Malcolm would conspire with Anastos would be to overthrow Primo and take his territory.

“I don’t know,” Damian said, trying to stick as close to the truth as possible without hurting her. “I can’t speak to Malcolm’s motives, but we know the apartment in Athens is owned by Anastos, and we know the men who were holding you there worked for him. It stands to reason that if Malcolm was there too, they were working together in some capacity.”

“But why? What did they have to gain by kidnapping me?” She propped herself up on his chest to look at his face. “Do you think they were trying to get Primo to turn over his territory to them by using me as leverage?”

He had to swallow the fury in his throat. After everything Primo had done to her, she still believed in him. There was no way she was ready to hear that he had allowed her to be locked up, not for territorial gain but simply to keep her from Damian.

To teach her a lesson. And Damian too.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re still sorting out the details. We have to do some more digging on Anastos’s activity over the past two months.”

She trailed a finger over his chest, gently touched the area around his healing gunshot wound.

“I thought maybe you’d died,” she said.

He kissed the top of her head. “Not a chance.”

She propped herself up, looked in his eyes. “Seriously, I thought I lost you that night.”

His eyes darkened. “I would have come for you on the terrace if I could have. You know that, don’t you?”

“I would have come for you if I could have,” she said, laying back down on his chest with a sigh. “I missed you so much.”

He tightened his hold on her. “I missed you, too. More than you know.”

“I thought about you every day. Every night.” She drew in a deep shuddering breath. “Sometimes I think you were the only thing that kept me alive.”

“No.” He tipped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You did that all by yourself. You’re strong, Aria. Stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

She smiled a little, the first one he’d seen in almost two months. “Well, it didn’t hurt to think of you. Let’s put it that way.”

He returned her smile, felt the chuckle spread from his stomach up through his chest, the first time he’d laughed in almost two months.

“Touché.”

She stretched to kiss him, lingering over his lips before returning her head to his chest. “Just promise me we’ll never be apart again,” she said.

“I promise.”

He held her closer and tried to ignore the feeling that he was making promises he couldn’t keep.