Elder Tommaso’s POV
I ended the call angrily. How exactly could I have stayed calm after getting that sort of news?
The man I had sent to infiltrate the old pack house had just called to inform me that the information was impossible because the number of people staying there was too little for him to camouflage as one of them.
And he couldn’t sneak in because Luciano had kept guards in place outside the grounds on a patrol to ensure there would be no trespassers.
The patrol group was also a closely knit group that couldn’t be infiltrated.
All this just went a long way to prove what I knew to be true. Luciano was hiding something. The only problem now was the fact that I couldn’t decipher exactly what he was hiding.
This plan might have failed but I would try again. I was not fazed by failure. I would find out exactly what it was that he was hiding.
******
Arabella’s POV
I threw down my cards frustrated. Luciano won. Again.
“How can you be so good? Didn’t you say you were just a learner?”
Luciano flashed me a smile that still made my knees go weak at the sight of it and I lost all track of my thoughts.
“Beginner’s luck?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, shaking off the hold he had on me. He was lying. Obviously.
“So you are telling me that if I check you, I won’t see any implicating cards?”
“Of course not. Who do you think I am, Arabella? A cheat?”
“Among other things.”
“Careful, Arabella. You might just get yourself in trouble.”
The small hairs on my hand rose. It was uncanny how he still had this much sway over me. It had been over a week since we’d gotten fully mated. Every day was wilder than the last.
Whenever Luciano went to work, which was a lot now that Mikah was on his honeymoon, I was always anxious and whenever he got back, we practically leapt on top of each other, carried away by our mutual need for each other.
I wondered if things would get less… intense. I didn’t think so. Or at least I didn’t hope so. I wanted every moment to be this way.
The only thing was while I had said the L-word just before I passed out in the forest, Luciano was yet to say it back to me. It was fine really. It wasn’t like I had repeated it after my moment of delirium. How could I expect him to tell me he loved me if I couldn’t say it to him in my normal state of mind?
“Where did your mind go?” Luciano snapped his fingers in front of me and I came back to myself.
“I…”
It’s not like I could tell him that I had been thinking of the fact that he hadn’t told me he loved me yet. I didn’t want to seem desperate. Besides, actions spoke louder than words. He had more than proven himself with his actions.
“I was thinking about the fact that we haven’t danced since we started… you know and I wanted to change that.”
“Dance?” Luciano repeated like he knew that I was lying but he didn’t know exactly how to call me out on it. He must have gotten the hint from the bond.
I stood up and outstretched my hand to him before he would figure out exactly where my mind had gone via the bond.
“But there is no music…”
“That doesn’t matter. It’ll only make things more fun.”
Luciano didn’t look convinced but he took my hand anyway and stood upright towering over me.
I slipped my hand around his waist and embraced him in return. We swayed to the beat of our hearts alone and I tucked my head into his chest. We were silent like that for some time moving in tune with each other.
My eyes fell shut and I inhaled his scent. He smelled like cider, winter and home. I was surprised to feel tears on my cheeks.
“This isn’t so bad.” Luciano commented, sounding vaguely surprised.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak just yet.
Luciano pulled back slightly and tipped my chin up so that I would meet his gaze. My breath caught all over again as he slanted his lips over mine.
I closed my eyes slowly wanting to savour every moment. Our lips touched, our bodies melded with each other and our souls intertwined with no beginning or end between us.
We kissed softly with no sense of haste. We had all the time in the world to enjoy and explore this unique feeling between us. But like always the kiss became too heated and I could barely catch my breath.
He sent his hand searching under my tank top. I ran my hand over his shoulders, feeling his muscles bunch and ease. He tugged at it and we parted shortly just enough to get it off. I didn’t know how we always ended up in this position with me losing my clothes first but the thought went off my head once he started touching me.
His hands played around the hook of my bra and my breath came faster, a whispered pant of anticipation slipped from me as he unlatched it, his hands pulling the straps down the side, dropping a kiss at every juncture.
I was liquid with need. I wanted him so badly. I didn’t care that we were in the dining room and the cook could wander in at any time not hearing us until it was too late. How could I when he was looking at me with those blue eyes clouded with need?
I tore at his shirt ripping off more than a few buttons in haste, Luciano got the message and leaned back letting me take his shirt off. I ran my fingers across his warm chest. Goddess, he was beautiful. His muscles tensed and relaxed under my touch. Luciano dropped a kiss on my forehead, a little smile playing on his lips. It was so sweet, so unlike him that my heart lurched in my chest.
If I thought about it too much, I would do something crazy like yell at him that I loved him. That I had been in love with him for so long that I couldn’t remember the exact moment I had started loving him.
Instead, I captured his lips again with an intensity that surprised him. I bit down on his lips drawing blood and as I kissed away the blood I’d drawn, tasting the copper in my mouth, I saw his eyes lighten, turning almost silvery as his wolf rose to dominance. All the tenderness of the moment fled leaving only need.
He pushed the deck of cards to the floor and lifted me onto the table. Then his lips went to my mating mark and he tugged lightly on it sending waves of promise racing through me, settling low and insistent in my body. My head fell back as I moaned. His head dropped to my nipples nibbling on them. I gasped and pulled him closer, my legs entwining around him.
My hands dropped to the waistband of his pants and I tugged at it almost feverishly as his lips drove me half insane with desire. I touched him and felt him shudder lightly against me. He was hot, heavy and ready against my hand. He gasped lightly as I held him, massaging and tugging at him the way I knew he liked.
Our breaths intermingled as we lost ourselves in each other’s touch. I looked up at him, my lips parted with want. Luciano captured my lips again with his, our tongues duelling for supremacy. His thigh came between my legs that hung right off the table’s edge. I rubbed myself shamelessly against him as our kiss deepened, letting myself go. My body instinctively arched to his as our passion approached a crescendo.
Luciano reached for the drawstrings of my pants and my cheeks burned. How I could be feeling embarrassed now of all times was baffling to me. I got over it quickly, nearly protesting as Luciano stopped all his ministrations to pull away the last of my clothing.
I didn’t have time to feel sensitive about being naked in such an open space as Luciano touched me. He entered me with two fingers at first, exploring me, my hips jerked in time with his movements as I tried to restrain the moans that escaped my lips.
Then he added another finger making me feel stretched out, tight, so hot and full of him. I couldn’t remember how to breathe. My entire body was concentrated on reaching the elusive climax that was so close yet so far away.
“Open your eyes for me, Arabella.”
His voice was thick with arousal. I opened my eyes I hadn’t even noticed had closed in the throes of bliss.
His face was so close to mine that I could count each of his beautiful long lashes and lose myself in his eyes.
We maintained eye contact as he pulled out his fingers and finally penetrated me. Despite the fact that he’d prepped me first and I was so drenched that the table felt wet beneath me, it was a tight fit. My hands went around his shoulders, my fingernails digging into his back, marking him as I sought to bring him even closer.
The sensation of him inside me straddled the line between pleasure and pain. It was torture, it wasn’t comfortable by any means but by the goddess, I didn’t want him to ever stop.
Our gazes remained locked as his thrusts increased and lengthened at the same time. I gasped, moaned, and made sounds that would have made me blush if I had any conscious thought left in me.
His rhythm intensified, as if in response to my increasing pleasure. He bumped his pelvis
against mine with accelerating speed, his cock sliding slickly within me. The table and the sounds coming from us made a cacophony that pretty much announced what we were doing.
“Fuck, Arabella. Come for me, baby.”
Soft, sobbing sounds escaped me as I worked up toward climax. I was washed with shifting
waves of heat and cold as my vision began to blur.
Each of his tight strokes connected with that spot within me that drove me crazy. He began to grunt as he unleashed his own need.
He ducked his head down again and nuzzled my hair away from my neck. Then he bit down on
the hollow between my shoulder and throat, right at the edges of my mating mark.
My vision went white as I came so hard that I couldn’t stop my eyes from fluttering shut as I leaned forward and found his own mating mark with my teeth.
Either from the way my walls clamped down on him or the bite, Luciano’s thrusts became uncontrolled and erratic as he came inside me.
His body tensed and softened above mine and in that moment of shared euphoria, it slipped out of me before I could think twice and stop myself.
“I love you, Luciano.”
He stiffened slightly.
Great, I had just made a mistake and ruined this moment between us–
He gathered me even closer to himself, his lips at my ear.
“I love you too, Arabella.”
The world stopped at that moment.