The hotel had towels folded nice and neat in the bathroom, but Tino and Brianna didn’t use them.
Instead Tino jerked the comforter off the bed, and then the two of them fell into it, still wet, a little too cold, but he didn’t bother to notice anything other than Brianna under him. Her long hair clinging to her neck, her pale skin beaded with water and prickled with goose bumps as he leaned down and sucked on one pink nipple peeking out through wet red strands.
Brianna threaded her fingers into his hair, holding him there as she arched and moaned. The sound ricocheted through Tino like lightning, because he had almost forgotten this feeling, had tried really hard not to think about it once Brianna was married, to keep himself from taking a long walk off a tall building.
On good days sex had become something that made him useful. He couldn’t love another woman. Brianna had been gone to him forever, but maybe he could make another woman feel desired, appreciated, if not adored. Beautiful, if not loved.
On bad days, he reverted to his youth, letting himself be used and hurt and abused.
Tino wished he could say there were more good days than bad, but he always had a special gift for finding women who were good at reminding him of why he was here.
As an outlet for others’ sins.
There’d been times when he’d tried to convince himself it wasn’t true. He tried to believe he was more than that, but reality usually showed up and put him in his place pretty fucking fast.
And as sick as it was, he’d come to terms with that. They could hurt him to control Nova. He could lose all sense of dignity to keep Romeo and Carina safe. They could do just about anything to him, and it was all right because he was the expendable brother.
Not smart like Nova.
Not famous like Romeo.
Not insanely talented like Carina.
He was just Tino.
But there had been one thing.
One perfect, beautiful thing that made him feel like life wasn’t quite so mean.
Brianna made Tino feel like he mattered.
He surged up and captured her lips because he couldn’t resist, not when the emotion was welling up inside him, making him feel like he might collapse under it. He cupped her face with his hands so that they were chest to chest, naked and exposed without anything between them when everything in the world had tried to keep them apart.
“Ti amo.” He said it solemnly, like the prayer of a man who was taught to appreciate sovereignty when it was in front of him. “I love you so much.”
She pushed his wet hair away from his face and stared at him with soft green eyes. “I love you too.”
He had this urge to break down, not just over her pain, but over his too. Everything that happened in Miami came back and hit him in the heart. Instead he kissed Brianna’s neck, softer, more reverently, looking for atonement for his sins, because the church hadn’t helped.
So he worshipped at his real altar.
His only true altar.
And thank God Brianna let him, because he had never needed her more than he did right then. Having her in his arms again was a fucking miracle. It almost gave him a reason to hope that maybe he hadn’t been abandoned after all.
That somehow, somewhere, there was someone above still on his side.
He sucked on her tits again, loving the way Brianna completely surrendered to it. Knees bent, thighs wide on the bed, leaving her open to his indulgence. She threaded her fingers in his hair as she arched under him, wild and untamed like they had both been at eighteen, because this high wasn’t something that could be powdered and sold.
Now he appreciated her in a way he hadn’t when he was younger, and he had always appreciated being able to touch her. His cock was already hard and aching again as he ran his fingers over her smooth * and watched the way she responded to him.
Most dancers waxed, Brianna included.
She’d done it since she was a teenager. Everything about her was so smooth and gorgeous. She wasn’t one of those women who spent their lives trying to be beautiful. She’d never been particularly vain, but what she did in life showed, and her toned body had always been his ideal.
Though he’d loved her for so long, he suspected for years that it was ideal because it was Brianna and not the other way around.
Tino liked Brianna’s shape because it was hers.
High, firm tits, cut arms, and a smooth, muscular stomach. Feminine. Powerful. Strong. Tall, with those legs that seemed to go on for miles. He ran a hand down one thigh. Then he raised his gaze to meet Brianna’s as he lifted her leg and draped it over his shoulder. She used her hold on his hair to pull him forward in response, digging her heel into the center of his back as she offered herself to him.
He groaned before he tasted her. Rubbing his thumb over her was enough to turn him on, feeling her wet and swollen from fucking him in the shower, and knowing she was indulging him made him rock hard.
This wasn’t just eating *.
This was worshipping *.