“Cross?”
Catherine was surprised at how faint her voice came out. All it took was one look at her husband in the dimly lit room, and the anger she had felt about her meeting with Giuseppe and the trick her mother pulled was entirely gone.
Just like that.
Because of Cross.
Fixing the Rolex to his wrist, he flashed her a grin. “Evening, babe.”
Catherine blinked.
And again.
Surely she wasn’t seeing what she thought she was seeing. Cross wouldn’t have flown over an entire ocean just to come and spend a couple of days with her.
Except … yes, he absolutely would.
“You’re not dressed,” Catherine said, eyeing him.
“Just got out of the shower.” Cross nodded behind her. “Shut the door, huh? We’re not giving anyone a show.”
Catherine blindly waved at the door until she smacked it shut. She couldn’t possibly take her eyes off her husband because he might disappear. Obviously, she still didn’t fully believe that he was there.
Yet, he was.
Half naked.
Gorgeous.
Smiling at her.
She loved this man.
“This is why you kept purposely missing my calls?” Catherine asked.
She still hadn’t moved an inch.
“No, I actually was just missing them a lot of the time. Once, I knew it would have been too early here and didn’t want to wake you up. I got your messages, though.”
“Did you get how progressively worried I was, too?”
Cross flashed her another sexy smile. “How could I ruin your surprise, Catty?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Happy anniversary, Catherine.” Cross reached for the new suit dangling off the edge of the bed. “Well, tomorrow, but who cares?”
She planned to celebrate their anniversary on the phone with him as much as possible because she wasn’t heading home for another couple of days. Instead, her crazy, wild, beautiful husband had done something far better for her.
“Who else knew about this little plan of yours, Cross?”
“Everyone,” he said, not missing a beat. “You know, those that matter, anyway.”
Oh, my God.
Catherine had learned to be a much better person over the years. She still had spells of depression that came and went, but she understood how to deal with them. Sometimes, her anxiety was a bitch, but she could handle those spells, too.
The thing she had worked on the hardest beyond those things?
Being a good wife.
Loving Cross.
Giving him someone he deserved.
This man gave Catherine absolutely everything he had to give, and he never questioned it. Cross loved her stupid because he didn’t know anything different. He never hesitated to be the good man she deserved, so she figured out how to do the same for him.
Sometimes, like now, she still thought maybe she didn’t deserve him at all. He was amazing, and she was … amazing in his eyes.
He still wanted her.
She never let him go.
“You know I love you, right?” Catherine asked.
She finally tossed her purse aside, letting it fall to the floor beside a pair of high heels she had discarded earlier.
Cross wasn’t looking at her when he replied, “Of course, babe.”
He was too busy opening the buttons on the dress shirt to notice she was coming for him. It was already well after supper. If she got her way, they would not be leaving this room for the rest of the damn night.
He did not need that suit.
Catherine snatched the black Armani from her husband’s hand and tossed it to a nearby chair without as much as a thought. Cross’s gaze narrowed on his very expensive, crumpled suit before he looked at her with a raised brow.
“What—”
Cross’s question abruptly cut off when Catherine kissed him hard on the mouth. His hands came up to cup her jaw as her arms snaked around his neck to pull him closer. His body pressed into hers, making her aware he was already half-mast beneath his boxer-briefs, and making her wish they were already naked and in bed together.
She didn’t have far to go.
The bed was to their right.
Cross was almost naked.
For the moment, he seemed a bit more interested in only kissing her. Their lips moved in a familiar dance—stroking lips, grazing tongues, and blooming desire. Already, she was hot between her thighs. She had learned over the years that nothing would abate that feeling except him. No amount of rubbing her thighs together would fix that ache.
He kissed like he fucked, and Catherine loved that. Fast, hard, and now. Deep dives of his tongue that took over hers. Harsh strokes of his lips that made her weak.
“Fuck,” Cross mumbled into her mouth, “I missed you.”
“I can tell.”
His laughter lit up her soul.
“Get me out of this dress,” she demanded.
“My fucking pleasure, babe.”
His teasing, sinful mouth drifted over her neck while his hands left her face to do as she wanted. It wasn’t long before her zipper was down, and cool air was hitting her olive-toned skin. Warm palms slid over her body as he pushed the dress lower. It hit the floor and puddled at her feet in a forgotten pile of black material, but his hands were still exploring.
Cross’s gaze appraised her, moving up and down her form with slow, yet appreciative, intend. “Damn, you know I love this set on you, babe.”
His fingertips skimmed under the cup of her black lace bra, while his other hand slipped between her thighs. He stepped closer to her again. His lips skimmed her jaw and up to her ear where his tongue snaked out to flick against the shell.
“Open up those fucking legs and let me feel,” Cross uttered in her ear.
She did.
And God, there was one of the best parts of him.
She loved his cock, his hands, and his mouth. All of them were their own special kind of torture. He could level one on her at a time, and reduce her to nothing. Or, he could use two on her, and drive her absolutely insane doing barely anything at all.
Catherine supposed that was the best part of having loved this man since she was a young thirteen. He had many years to learn her body, and how to work it. He was the musician, and she was his instrument.
There was nothing he did not do to Catherine that wouldn’t produce some kind of beautiful music.
Between her thighs, his hand rubbed her pussy overtop the black panties. Firm, insistent strokes that were testing her, she knew. Checking to see if she was responding the way he liked before he pushed her a little further.
“You’re wet already,” he murmured along the seam of her lips.
Cross’s dark eyes flickered with sin and love.
“Are you surprised?” she shot back.
“Not in the slightest.”
That was all he said before Catherine felt the loss of him between her legs. She opened her mouth to complain, but only a soft yelp came out when his arms circled her waist and her feet left the floor. Catherine’s back met the king-size bed before Cross’s fingers dug into her waist with just enough pressure to make her breath catch.
“Get the fuck back here, babe.”
He dragged her closer to the edge of the bed, and yanked her panties down her legs. She didn’t see where he tossed the underwear, but she didn’t care as his body fit between her widened thighs. One of his hands came up to close around her throat while his other was suddenly three fingers deep into her sex, and his thumb driving hard into her clit.
The shock of his intrusion with no warning made her legs fall open impossibly wider, and her back arch off the bed. She was wet enough that it didn’t hurt even a little bit. She loved the way it stretched her open, and how each push and pull of his hands came a little harder than the last. His fingers curled in just the right spot with every fast thrust, hitting her G-spot over and over and over again.
Her body sang.
Her pussy clenched.
Catherine really just wanted to come, now. She loved the way his hand tightened around her throat as her cries came desperate and breathless.
“Make me come, Cross,” she pleaded. “Won’t you make me come?”
“You know it, Catty.”
“Please.”
“Damn, I missed the smell of your cunt when I’m playing with it, Catherine.”
His dirty mouth always did it for her. She didn’t care what he said, it was good regardless. Her orgasm came on like a swift wave. It took her over, under, and pulled her out before she could even think to prepare for it.
Those were the best kinds, though.
Pleasure raked through her body while her husband’s hand slowed between her thighs, and his mostly naked form leaned over hers. Her hands had clenched into the bedspread, but she let it go to drift her fingertips over his body. Taut, firm muscles met her fingertips. Cross kept in shape—he never stopped moving, really. Right then, though, his muscles were tight like coils, ready to release and break.
On her.
She could not wait.
Their night was just getting started.
“Say thank you,” he said along the seam of her lips.
“Thank you.”
Cross grinned. “My girl. You almost looked fucked out.”
“Not entirely.”
“Almost, Catherine.”
“Jesus Christ,” Catherine breathed. “God, I missed you.”
“Love you.”
“And that. Always that, Cross.”
Before Catherine could let the relaxed, lovely sensation take over her senses too much and make her want to crawl under the sheets and sleep, she rolled to her stomach. Pushing up to her knees, she flicked her loose waves over her shoulder, let her bare ass rest high, and her upper half arch low.
Catherine shot a look over her shoulder, and grinned at her husband. Cross’s gaze never once left her swaying ass. “Like what you see?”
“You know what I am.”
She sure did.
An ass man.
And a leg man, depending on the day.
But he definitely loved her ass.
Catherine slipped a hand between her thighs, ran two fingers through her slit, and smeared her wetness along her folds. Another little shake of her ass, and Cross’s jaw tightened in the sexiest way when he let out a husky grunt.
“Come on, then.”
“You are testing my control, mia donna.”
My woman.
Catherine let her wet fingers pat against her sex with gentle taps. Just enough to wake her clit up all over again, and make her pussy hot. “Won’t you fuck me now?”
“Haven’t you learned by now that teasing me only makes me insane, Catherine?”
“Actually, it makes it better. I was hoping you might gag me, pull my hair, spank my ass, and fuck me until I can’t breathe. But hey, if that’s a bit much for—”
One of his hands connected with her ass hard. The sting it created was enough to make her move a couple of inches forward on the bed with a hiss.
“Say it again,” he demanded.
Catherine laughed through the ache. “Gag me, Cross. Pull my hair. Spank my—”
She didn’t get anything else out after that. He snagged up the tie that had fallen from his suit on the bed when he picked it up earlier. The bed dipped when he climbed in behind her. She sighed, pleased, as his hard cock pressed into her ass through his boxer-briefs. She couldn’t help but back into him, to tease him just a little bit more. That tie of his was wrapped around her mouth all the way to the back of her head where he wrapped the loose ends of the material around his fist.
Gagged, Catherine smiled.
Cross tugged on the tie, gathered her hair into his fist with the makeshift gag, and pulled harder. “Fuck, I missed my wife. Say it again, Catty.”
Her words were mumbled behind the gag.
She didn’t think Cross cared.
“Fuck me until I can’t breathe.”
“That’s my girl.”
He tugged once more on that gag and her hair, she felt him shove his boxer-briefs down, and then he was pushing inside of her clenching cunt. Like earlier with his fingers, he didn’t go in easy, and he didn’t give her any warning.
Catherine didn’t care because she loved it.
The slap of his skin against hers, and the wet sound her pussy made every time he drove into her was fucking lovely. He filled her full, stretched her open, and fucked her stupid. Between measured, deep thrusts, his palm came down to tap her ass and thighs, leaving behind a beautiful sting and likely pinked skin.
Already, her body shook.
Already, her nerves sang.
He pulled her hair, spanked her ass, kept that gag tight, and fucked her so good. She wasn’t made of glass, and he never treated her like it.
Her cries were mumbled and muffled behind the gag, but that didn’t stop more from spilling out. She was back in her happy place. A place that smelled like Cross, tasted like their sex, and felt like their love.
Nothing else mattered.
“Take that cock, Catty. Fuck it good, babe.”
Oh yes, she had mostly certainly missed this man.
“Wake up.”
“Mmm, no.”
“Cross, wake up.”
“Catherine—”
“Wake. Up. Wake. Up.”
Each one of her words was punctuated with a kiss to his hard abdomen. Something else on him was hard, too, but she was working her way to that issue of his. If he would only open his damn eyes.
“Cross …”
Her husband absolutely refused to open his eyes. In fact, he was using his arm as a shield over his face to hide from her.
“Catty, we never get to sleep in. We can’t even be naked in bed at home come morning because Cece crawls into bed with us every goddamn day. Let me enjoy this, babe, please.”
“Mmm … nope.”
With that, she crawled lower on his body, pushing away sheets until her hands could wrap around his thick cock, and her lips were kissing below his navel.
Cross let a slow hiss of air slip past his lips as her grip tightened on him, stroking him even more alive and awake.
“Besides, it was you who let Cece start doing that in the first place,” Catherine told him. “Lie in your bed, Cross. You made it.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Is my mouth terrible, too?”
“Wh—”
She let go of his shaft, and took his cock into her mouth before he could finish his sentence. All the air Cross had been holding in came rushing out of his chest in a whoosh. She sucked him all the way down to the base of his dick until it touched the back of her throat. It made her eyes water, but she loved it.
Cross finally uncovered his eyes, and dark soul-deep brown found her in an instant. Lust raged there, and pleasure curved his mouth into an approving grin as he groaned out her name. His hips lifted off the bed as she started a slow rhythm sucking his dick. His fingers came to weave into her hair, and he tugged and pulled along with her movements, guiding her the way he liked.
“Jesus Christ,” he grunted. “Love it when you suck my dick, Catty.”
It didn’t take too long before Cross was blowing his load, and Catherine was licking him clean with a smile and a wink. He could go for hours fucking her, but when she sucked him off, he was weak.
She loved that.
It gave her power.
Catherine liked using it.
Often.
Kissing back up his stomach, she stretched over his form like a happy cat baking in sunlight. Given the early morning rays coming in through the window and falling across the bed, she felt just like that, too.
“I owe you for that one,” he told her.
“It’s a good way to wake up.”
Cross chuckled, and stroked her swollen, tingling lips with his thumb. “Fucking right.”
“Happy anniversary, Cross.”
Her husband’s roughened, dark features lit up with a boyish grin. “Happy anniversary, babe. So hey, how did that meeting go with Bianchi yesterday evening?”
Catherine’s happy mood fled instantly.
Cross didn’t miss it. “What happened?”
“My mother.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Catty.”
She pushed off Cross, and rolled to her own side of the bed. On her back, she stared up at the ceiling. “It does when you know what happened. She basically played me into going to the meeting alone, and then, I fucked it all up.”
“Wait, back up. How did you fuck it up exactly?”
Catherine quickly recounted the events that happened before saying, “I offended him repeatedly, and he let me know it in a not so subtle way.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is it? In this business, we all know respect rules the house, Cross.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Bottom line, he guaranteed I wouldn’t have the cocaine supplied by him from here on out. So guess where that leaves me?”
Cross sighed. “Shit.”
“Yeah. I have to go back, and let both my cousins know I have effectively screwed them out of their long-term supplier. We’ve got what, Cross, maybe a couple of months of cocaine stored between the Three Families and my mother’s supply?”
“Maybe less, maybe more.”
“Exactly. Not nearly enough. Especially if a major deal comes up with one of the Three Families, or sales pick up for whatever reason on the streets. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Well, if you feel like your mother got you into this mess, then maybe she can help you get out of it.”
Catherine scowled. “Maybe.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“I’m pissed at her, Cross.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
Catherine didn’t really want to discuss all of this right now. She was in a Four Seasons hotel room in Florence with her husband on their anniversary. The least she could do was shove her problems aside, and live in the moment.
Putting her smile back on, Catherine rolled back on top of Cross, and dropped a sweet kiss to his mouth. His lips curved into a sensual smile against her own.
“You left Cece with my dad, huh?”
Cross shrugged, and then grabbed her trim waist in a tight grasp. “Basically.”
“I bet she’s giving him hell.”
“She misses you, too.”
Catherine tried not to frown, and failed. “Yeah?”
“Don’t feel guilty. Work is work, and we knew that. We make shit work, right?”
“Right,” Catherine said.
Although she wasn’t sure if she believed it entirely.
“Oh, she’s got this new idea thanks to a friend, so fair warning.”
Catherine raised a brow. “What idea is that?”
“She wants a baby brother.” Cross tossed his head back into the pillow and laughed, adding, “Or a brudder, I guess.”
She stilled on top of her husband, and her gaze darted to his. Cross quieted instantly, matching her frozen state.
“You’re serious,” she deadpanned.
“Her little friend she plays with at Ma’s—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. And I suppose you didn’t explain that no, we’re not able to just hand her over a baby brother. Also, it doesn’t even work that way. We don’t pick a baby’s gender.”
Cross rolled his eyes. “Catty, she’s just a kid. Besides, you know what that kid is like. You can’t just tell her no. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Oh, is that what it was?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes, then.
Catherine smacked him on the chest. “It’s not, is it?”
“Ow.” Cross rubbed at the spot. His gaze narrowed. “No, that’s not it, babe, because I’m kind of on her side here.”
“Cross!”
His hand tightened to her waist, making her breath catch, and a sweet heat flood her veins.
“She’s three,” he said, “and we’re not getting younger.”
“I am only thirty-one, thank you.”
“Catherine.”
“Cross.”
“Catherine, I want another child.”
There it is …
Catherine didn’t fault Cross for his wants, nor for the fact that he voiced them. She wanted the same things, but …
“Look how busy our life is right now,” she whispered.
“Look at how beautiful it is, Catherine.”
“You don’t think that’s selfish to have a second child when we don’t get enough time together as it is?”
“I think we can make time.”
“I’ve let you be alone too much lately, clearly. You’ve had too much time to think about this and come up with good arguments.”
Cross smirked, and his hands slid up to cup her jaw. He pulled her down low until their lips were just a breath apart. “Give me another child, my sweet girl.”
Catherine shivered. “Cross …”
“You don’t even want to say no, babe.”
“Of course not.”
“Is that a firm yes, then?”
“It’s not a no, Cross.”
“So, a yes,” he urged.
“Let’s call it like we did with Cece.”
He nodded. “Comes when it comes.”
“Exactly. Also, two is my limit, Cross Nazio Donati.” Catherine kissed him again, a quick peck that made him scowl at her when she didn’t linger. “We’ve already got one child that might as well have come straight from your mouth.”
Cross’s pride was clear when he replied, “And she’s fucking perfect.”
“She is.” Catherine rolled off her husband, but kept a hand tucked in his and pulled gently. “Come have a shower with me, and then we can order breakfast into the room.”
“Mmm, the shower is a yes. Breakfast in-room, a no.”
“What, why?”
Cross climbed out of bed, and dropped a kiss to Catherine’s temple. “Because I have more surprises.”
Of course he did.
“Have I told you how much I love you lately because you’re amazing?”
Cross pulled her into the attached bathroom with a laugh, saying, “Yeah. But hey, stroke my ego again, babe.”
“Want me to stroke something else?”
He kicked the bathroom door shut.
“Nope, I owe you.”
Hell. Yes.