“Vieni qui,” he demands roughly, his hazel eyes searing as he reaches out his hand and motions for me to come to him.
I shiver, the beautiful lilt of his voice and its roughness gliding across my nerves.
Swallowing, I approach him and let him grab ahold of me, immediately shivering from the feel of his rough skin on mine. He directs me toward the back of the boat, where it’s an open flat ledge.
Somehow that’s even more terrifying.
“Kneel,” he whispers, his voice dipping low and reaching into the pit of my stomach where arousal is blooming.
I’m ready to question him, but then he starts to lower as well, so my body follows along without further question.
“Put your hand in the water,” he directs.
“Fuck no.”
“Nothing is going to come up and bite you. Just feel it.”
Exhaling a shuddering breath, I lean forward and brush my fingertips through the cold water.
“You’re touching an entire universe right now. A microscopic portion of a universe. It’s an ecosystem full of millions of species, some of them you couldn’t even imagine.”
His hands drift to my hips, cupping them in his large palms and squeezing, sending delicious tremors down my spine. “What you’re touching right now is sacred. It’s to be respected.”
Hot breath fans across the shell of my ear, followed by his wicked voice, “It’s to be feared.”
I swallow, my eyes fluttering when his fingers brush up my stomach, eliciting goosebumps.
A sharp gasp leaves my lips when I see something massive and gray swim beneath the surface. I jump back, bumping into Enzo, but he’s solid stone and doesn’t allow me to get very far.
“Oh my God,” I breathe when a great white shark breaks the surface only mere feet away, swallowing a large chunk of chum in the water.
“There’s another!” I squeal, noticing another great white about ten feet away.
“Mmhm,” he hums deeply, his hands wandering down to the button of my shorts. I can’t decide which to focus on—the terrifying beasts that are several feet away or what Enzo is doing.
Deftly, his fingers slip past my unbuttoned jeans and slide along the waistband of my bottoms, snagging my attention completely. Fuck the sharks, I’m more concerned about the one behind me.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, though I’m not sure if I really care.
In lieu of a response, his thumbs hook into the waistband of my shorts and bathing suit bottoms and he pulls them down as far as they’ll go.
“Take them off,” he orders, voice deeper than the ocean we’re treading on, sending another shiver rolling down my spine.
“I thought this wasn’t sex,” I say shakily.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“God, no,” I choke out, removing the bottoms the rest of the way and tossing them to the side.
“Good girl,” he purrs, sliding down his own shorts. I feel his length brush across my backside, and my body immediately tightens with visceral need.
Why can’t he be like the other men?
Mediocre, at best—if I’m lucky. They were so much easier to let go of. To forget about, until someone called me by their name.
“Can you take me, bella ladra?”
I don’t know what bella ladra means, but I’m too lost in the feel of him dragging his fingers through my pussy to care.
“Yes,” I moan, trembling when I feel the tip of his cock replacing his fingers.
My teeth clamp down on my bottom lip as he slowly pushes inside me, stretching me until the burn is as cathartic as the bruising grip around my hips.
He gives me barely any time to truly adjust and sets a quick, steady pace, pumping inside me until my eyes are crossing.
“I needed one more time with you,” he rasps. “Ancora una volta.”
Heart in my throat, a choked moan slips past. Adrenaline ignites when one of the sharks splash right in front of the boat, causing my muscles to tighten. Enzo groans in response, feeling my body clench around him.
He drives into me harder and reaches around to slip his fingers between my thighs, circling them over my clit. My head kicks back, and the world around me fades, monsters be damned.
“Do they scare you?” he murmurs.
“Mmm?” I mumble, an orgasm forming in the pit of my stomach. All my focus is on that tightening knot, so desperate for it to snap, yet never wanting it to end.
“Goddamn, you’re gripping me so fucking tight. Move up,” he demands, grabbing my hips and nudging me forward. I try to resist, but he easily overpowers me. My breath stalls as he coerces me to the very edge of the boat, where two massive sharks swim beneath.