Chapter 116

I wake in the early morning light entangled in Jake’s limbs and bed sheets, my body aching and heavy from everything he’s done to me through the night. I can’t help but smile at the memories, a warm blush traveling over my sensitive skin.

If I had thought Jake had a high sex drive when dating his string of floozies, I have severely underestimated him. Last night, he’d been addicted to my body, barely giving me time to recover. He’d been true to his promise and brought me to dizzying heights of orgasm more than once with his expertise and confidence in pleasuring me. There is not a single inch of my skin he has not kissed or licked or massaged softly and I finally passed out from exhaustion, rather than his wavering libido. My brain too confuddled to function anymore. My Casanova is truly a master in the bedroom, with the confidence of a man who has no sexual inhibitions. I am literally glowing all over.

Old Emma has been reborn.

I manage to free myself from his arms and slide out without waking him, standing by the bed in all my glory to gaze at him for a moment. His beautiful body sprawled out, possessing the bed in the way he possessed me over and over. My heart swells to almost bursting and I know I’m smiling like an idiot. My heart swelling to bursting.

I love him more than words can ever express.

His almost black hair messily ruffled, his dark lashes closed on flawless tanned skin and that designer stubble, sexily hot against crisp white sheets. He looks like the cover of an erotica book, naked torso, and tattooed shoulders, carved in perfection and yet, he is all mine. It takes my breath away.

How did I ever manage to get him? To win his heart? I must be dreaming.

My head is still reeling over the fact that I’m here, that I’m with him. I’m in his apartment after sharing his bed all night and that he told me so many times already that he loves me.

Jake Carrero loves me … Emma Anderson, a nobody PA from a nothing existence. Jake Carrero … Infamous playboy heartbreaker, actually fell in love. With me…

Ti amo.

Maybe I should learn Italian, just to understand the many pet names he bestowed on me now, I might understand just what he’s calling me. I giggle inwardly to myself.

I go to the bathroom to shower, so that I’ll look fresh when he wakes up. The downside to a specimen like him is it makes me feel a little like an ugly duckling in comparison, especially when last night’s make-up was first cried off and then sweated all over me through vigorous pursuits. I’m sure my hair has seen better days and the fright awaiting me in the mirror is so not worthy of someone like Jake. I’m tired and I should be asleep, but my body is hyper actively awake. Still tingling from his touch, his mouth, and his love making.

I stand under the water, my head tilted up to the jets, so it blocks everything out. Noise, thought, bodily aches and just revel in the heat and pounding massage it gives me. For the first time in my life my thoughts are completely blank and there’s nothing. No doubts, no niggles, and insecurities, no memories or anything of the sort. I just feel at peace. Peaceful and something else, a small lifted weightlessness deep inside of me I can only describe as contentment.

Who is this new person?

There’s a small draft behind me of the shower door opening and a grin spreads across my face immediately. I know his presence; I could feel him feet away without even trying. His hands come around me from behind, his hard, chiseled body against my back as he joins me under the huge water jet, his mouth instantly on my neck teasing me gently as I surrender body and soul.

“Hey there, beautiful. Mind if I join you?” He sounds hoarse and tired but utterly adorable.

“Bit late for asking, don’t you think?” I wiggle my butt into his groan, and he responds with vengeance, a hardening I cannot ignore. Despite the amount of times he’s had me already, I also react, my insides clenching with desire as a heat rises within and I turn in his arms to capture his mouth, feeling brave, letting my hands run over him then push him back hard against the tiles and launch myself at him. He seems momentarily shocked then grins, his pupils dilating almost instantly. He picks me up under the thighs, so my body wraps around him, every naked inch to every naked inch, walks me forward so my back is against freezing tiles and water is pouring over both of us.

“Better hold on, mio amore.” He sounds low and gruff, almost threatening. “This is going to be memorable.” His eyes heavy with longing as I bite his lip and suck it in response and lose myself in his low groan.

* * *

We’re laid out on his bed once more, loosely held in his arm as we both stare at the ceiling in companionable silence. For the first time in my life, I’m content and truly happy. We’re saying nothing, just laying side by side, his hand twirling a strand of my hair and gazing up, finally sated and it feels like perfection. It only took half a dozen times, in as many hours, to stop him wanting to have sex every moment we stilled to catch our breath. My body is tingling in ways I never knew it could, embarrassment at being naked with him is gone, just sheer euphoria and exhaustion in its place. Months of pent-up frustration finally being realized and now here we are, comfortably silent and entwined as we recover.

I can hear Nora in the kitchen making us lunch, it’s late morning and the sounds of her clanging pots and the low mumble of the television she has on somehow seems homely. The blinds are shut, the room still dim but everything feels right, like I’m finally where I belong. Like I waited my whole life to find myself exactly here in this time and place with him.

“I can’t imagine anywhere else I would rather be right now,” he says softly, as though reading my mind, his eyes coming to rest on my profile adoringly.

“Not missing your big-busted, casual sex then?” I tease, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He watches me, a smile moving across his mouth as he shakes his head.

“Not one of them compares to you in any way, Emma …they never did, amante. Besides these are pretty big if you ask me.” He cups my breast, leans forward so our noses touch with a wicked gleam in his eye and brushes them together softly. I giggle and slap his hand softly. “You’re my everything,” he soothes with serious intensity.

“No, Jake, you’re mine,” I answer tenderly, my eyes filling with moisture at just how romantic my Casanova can be, he knows exactly what to say to me. That tugging ache going off inside of me again which I am starting to recognize as love pangs.

“Do you want to come somewhere with me today?” he asks, his eyes still locked on mine, unmoving. Our bodies linked at the legs and torso. Arms casually intertwined.

“An adventure? With you? How could I resist?” I smile genuinely, the longing to wrap myself around him again already rising in me as he leans in and kisses me on the mouth. Gently yet seductively enough to fill me with heat again.

I’ll never tire of this, never tire of his need to feel my lips on his, it’s as though they were made to fit mine perfectly.

“I need to be with you. All of this seems like a dream … I’m scared I’ll wake up … I just want to take you out, away from here, away from a bed.” His eyes glint sexily. “I want to feel like we’re actually real … Not just sex.”

“You want to spend a day not having sex? Are you ill?” I laugh in disbelief, feeling his forehead for a temperature check. He slides a hand down under the sheets and cups me at the apex of my thighs to prove he’s not sick. Then pulls away with a dirty look and a smirk.

How he could even have anything left after the last few hours performance was beyond me.

He seems shy and awkward suddenly, not a Jake trait at all as the humor drops away.

“I know it sounds stupid … But this whole serious thing … It’s a long-forgotten memory, I need some practice at having a girlfriend. I’m worried I may just keep you naked in my bed indefinitely, bambino.” He grins again, coming to lay on top of me, his weight pressing me into the bed and he gently kisses me again, his fingers playing in my hair. “I’ve never really had to evaluate what a real relationship was like; I have no idea what I’m doing.” He leans his chin on my chest and looks up at me cutely with a face that could melt the most frozen of hearts. I am so besotted with his face.