Smut warning. Enjoy!

***

the counter, I study Nero's perfect form as he finishes loading the dishwasher. Something about watching a man do domestic chores puts me in a good mood. Or, maybe it's just him, in all his darkness, the lean muscles stretching beneath his t-shirt as he moves.

He wipes his hands with a cloth and comes to lean over me, a sparkle in his eye. His face rests above mine, close enough that I can just feel the warmth of his breath fanning my cheeks. "I've been thinking," he begins, his voice low and rough and sending me into a haze, "that even though you say you forgive me, I still have a lot of making up to do." His eyes melt into mine, and he brushes a gentle finger against my cheek.

A little intoxicated by the heat coming from his body, my eyes flutter shut for a moment. "Oh?"

Slowly, he presses the tip of his nose to the tip of mine, ever so softly, and I sigh. After the story he just told me at dinner, the secrets he shared, I feel a warmth, an affection towards him. And his touch still turns my skin to flames.

A rough hand comes to rest against my hip, and the skin under my shirt (his shirt) itches for his bare touch. It's like, even after spending the day with him on me, in me, my body still wants more. Lots more. From the way his tall form arches over me, I can tell he wants more too.

"So, Rosalina." Through the fabric covering my torso, his fingers trace small circles, light as a feather. "Just how many orgasms do you think I owe you before we can call it even?"

I was not expecting those words from that perfect mouth. I meet his eyes, and they smolder, with laughter and with something much darker. My small hands come to rest on the hard planes of his chest. The challenge in his expression is unmistakable.

I pretend to think hard about it. "Let's see." The idea of him paying for all the grief that I've experienced at his hands over the last two years... in orgasms, makes my heart beat fast in my chest. It's absurd.

I bring my head up beside his, and my lips brush his ear when I speak, my arms propped against the counter behind me as I lean into him. "There's that first week when I moved in, when I became an unwilling accessory to violent crime." My cheek presses lightly against his. He listens intently to what he must know is going to be a very long list. "The terror from when you threatened to slit my throat." Just the thought of it is almost comical, considering where are now. "The months I spent worrying about it." I pause.

A trip down memory lane is going to hurt.

Nero's hand brushes the skin at the hem of my shirt, making me dizzy, but I'm determined to continue. "The confusion and frustration from when you were flirting with me and threatening me at the same time." I remember the courthouse, the elevator, my back to a wall as he gripped my hips and whispered heavy warnings into my ear. It seems like a lifetime ago.

"When they threatened my dad and Daniel at the fundraiser." The memory of that first kiss is still almost fresh in my mind.

I think back, to seeing him in the hall outside his apartment, leaning against his doorframe, shirtless. "And, all the times that you made me want you even when it was wrong." His fingers press into my waist.

My voice is heavy from the weight of it all, but we were different people then. "And, you made me lie to everyone I care about. All the time." Family dinners, laying in bed with Caleb, all the truth that I kept from them. "And, you kissed me, when I had a boyfriend."

"You kissed me back," he mumbles against my neck.

I bury my head in the crook of his shoulder. "I know I did."

His lips are a flutter against my skin when he says, "I couldn't stop thinking about you the whole night after that. For weeks, dolcezza. You haunted my dreams."

My arms wrap around his neck, and his warmth is comforting even with the heaviness of the past enveloping us. It haunted me for weeks too.

The next thought makes my mind go dark. I swallow. There's a long pause before I can even say it. "And, Marco." His grip on my hips stiffens, and I can feel the guilt from his skin and in the tenseness of his muscles. I melt into him, let his arms surround me. There's a comfort in it, for both of us.

The last memory is just a whisper. "And Caleb."

My eyes close and we both take it in. It's a lot of history. It's heavy, it fills the space around us for a long moment, but I don't feel any resentment or blame or anger towards him, not anymore.

Slowly, I lean back from his grasp, the marble island against my lower back. I look up into the darkness of his eyes, and he stares back at me. There's a kind of awe in his gaze, and there's the guilt. He looks at me with so much emotion that I can feel it seep into me. It makes me want to curl up into his arms, be engulfed in the warmth of his embrace.

I bring a finger up to his pink lips, brushing them ever so gently. My voice is just a whisper. "So how many orgasms do you owe me?"

He shakes his head a little, running a hand through his dark hair. "I can't believe that you're still standing in front of me, Rosalyn." There's amazement in his voice. His fingers nudge my chin up slightly as he leans in, his nose brushing against mine like countless times before. "I owe you more than just an orgasm, dolcezza." His voice is low, remorseful.

My fingers thread themselves gently into his hair. "How about, many orgasms?"

He tugs me towards him so our chests are flush, bringing his lips to my ear. "How many do you want?"

The roughness of his voice sends a pool of heat low in my stomach, and my skin shivers in anticipation of everything that's coming next. "Mm. Let's start with... three?"

He chuckles a little at that, gripping my hips against his, the tip of his nose brushing lightly down my cheek. "Is that all you can handle?"

My hands slowly slide beneath the edge of his shirt, lingering at his waist, traveling up the warmth of his chest. Close to his lips, I mumble, "Why don't you find out?"

And slowly, ever so slowly, his head tilts to the side, and so does mine. Our lips find each other, they press softly together in the sweetest, heaviest kiss we've ever shared. I want to be consumed. I want him to consume me, tenderly.

With strong hands on my thighs, he lifts me onto the cool counter, and I wrap my legs around him and know that he can feel the heat between them, even through the fabric of his sweats. He sighs into my neck, fingers pressing into my hips. As he trails wet kisses down my jaw, my collar, my fingers tangle through the waves of his hair, holding the roughness of his face against my skin.

I think that he's going to lift me up, take me to his bed, but I feel his warm hand trail up the inside of my leg, pushing the t-shirt aside gently, his palm against my thigh.

I clutch his shoulders and feel his smooth fingers brush the dampness of my panties, and I can't help but let out a soft moan. "You're so beautiful, carina," he whispers into my ear.

His fingers hover over me, ever so lightly, and as I grip him against me, a breathy "Please?" spills from my mouth. He brings a hand to hold my face, oh so softly, and, with those dark eyes holding mine hostage, he slips two fingers beneath the fabric into my wetness, and my eyes flutter shut, and I sigh his name.

He curls his fingers inside me, his thumb rubbing my sensitive, swollen flesh and his lips nipping at mine, at my neck, whispering sweet confessions into my ear. "You mean everything to me," he breathes against my skin, his hand quickly, skillfully, agonizingly causing that familiar climb low in my gut, creating a knot of desire and need and tension in my belly. And when he mumbles, "Come for me, dolcezza," with his fingers buried deep between my legs, pressing into all the spaces I need him, I fall to pieces against his hand, and the strangled sound that escapes me lands like a prayer onto his lips.

My chest rising and falling, I grip his face so he leans his forehead onto mine, and his hands come to rest on my hips, setting my skin alight even through my shirt.

His eyelashes flutter against my cheeks, and when his eyes meet mine, the richness of them, the specks of gold, the clear adoration, makes me weak everywhere. "I could do that all day," he mumbles against me, and the thought exhausts me, makes me laugh with delight.

"I..." Leaning into his embrace, I sigh. "You are... so good at that." All I did was sit there, and he's already tired me out.

A small grin lights up his face. "I'm not done with you yet." He brings a finger to his mouth, one that was just in me, and watches me closely as he licks the taste of me off him. It's so dirty but it makes every inch of me hot. Leaning in so our lips almost touch and my legs wrap themselves around him, he teases, "You taste really good, Rosalina."

The glimmer in that dark gaze somehow makes me wet all over again. I don't think I'll ever get enough of him.

Because I can, I kiss him again, open-mouthed, the feeling and taste of him the same but I could never grow tired of it.

He picks me up and carries me gently to his room, and my lips on his don't stop, they stay soft and tender and wanting, and so do his. There is no doubt in the way he holds me, in the way he looks at me, that he cares for me.

It makes me hot everywhere. I want him and I'm not scared of it anymore.

***

A/N:

Soo much sex. But you guys have been waiting a long time for this (at least I have!). It's not my fault just can't keep their hands off each other.

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