“I’ll give you get in, which room?”

“I don’t care.” I gasped when his fingers slipped into my panties and cupped me, his thumb pushing against me just so. “Oh! Dio mio.”

He smiled against my neck, the prickles from his scruff tickling the sensitive skin there. “I can’t wait,” I insisted, wiggling my hips to prove my point.

He shook his head and repeated, “Which room?”

“Last door on the right.”

My heart skipped as he carried me into my bedroom. He looked around the room before settling me on the tufted club chair in the corner.

Smiling down at me, he smoothed my hair off my face before reaching for his pants button.

I moved forward to stop him. “Let me.”

My hands trembled, not from nerves but anticipation. Maybe he sensed my struggle, or maybe he was just as impatient as I was, but he brought his hands up and over mine to help. Together we unbuttoned his pants and slid them down before he kicked them off into the corner.

Marcello played soccer all his life and his legs showed it. Toned, strong, and just the right amount of muscle. He must still play because he was just as fit as I remembered.

I toyed with the hem of his boxers, sliding my hands up and under, teasing. I loved the tightening of his muscles, the slight buck of his hips when I just barely brushed him.

“Tesoro, how you tease,” he purred, reaching out to slide my bra strap down. He repeated it on the other side before tipping the bra cups forward so my breasts spilled out.

His fingers lightly brushed over my nipples, between my breasts, and down until he edged along the top of my panties.

“Do you remember our first time together?” he said, settling down on the hardwood to kneel between my legs. His hands rested on my knees, thumbs brushing along the sensitive skin.

I nodded, inching my body slowly down toward his. Judging by the wry smirk on his face, he was relishing my eagerness.

Marcello kissed my knee before slowly dragging his lips up my inner thigh. I was so tightly wound that it was taking everything within me not to snap. To push him down to the floor and sink down onto him.

“With the moon behind you like that? You look so much like that girl,” he said between kisses against my thigh. Up, up higher with each kiss. “Wild hair, fiery eyes, and lips that would tempt any man,” he whispered against me, just there. Just when I thought he couldn’t stretch out the delicious torture anymore, he dropped one kiss against the silk covering me.

“Please,” I begged, pushing forward against his lips.

With his hands under my bottom, he lifted me to his waiting mouth.

Mumbling against me, he stood quickly, picked me up, turned, and tossed me onto the bed.

I propped myself up on my elbows, quirking a finger for him to come closer. A wicked sparkle flashed in his eyes.

Leaning back along the bed, I loved the way my muscles stretched and drew his eyes, keeping him focused. He didn’t care that my hair was wild or that my makeup wasn’t perfect. Marcello only saw me.

“What do you want, Avery?” he asked, leaning forward to kiss one hip bone. Once, twice, three times before his lips danced across my stomach to the other. Strong fingers flexed and pressed. No thought, daydream, or fantasy compared to the feel of his callused fingers on my heated skin.

Sitting up, he smoothed my hair behind my ear and picked up a lock. Twisting a curl between his fingers, his eyes flickered to my mouth. “Tell me.”

I swallowed, desperate to find the words. “You know what I want.”

His chest rose and fell, fingers twirling the curl once more.

Pushing myself up, my fingers slid inside the waist of his boxers and down. His hips bucked. Hurry.

“I need to hear it,” he said, smoothing his hands over my shoulders. Everywhere his fingers brushed, fire erupted over my skin.

“You. Just you,” I said between peppering kisses over his stomach muscles. “Please.”

With a tug, the panties were torn in two and tossed to the side. He laid his hand flat against my pubic bone, fingers spread wide with his thumb smoothing over me in maddening circles. Now keeping his thumb still, he dipped a finger inside me slowly, lulling me into a rhythm before thrusting in faster. One became two and his thumb just pushed and held.

He wasn’t speaking. Just heavy breathing, small grunts here and there. I wanted more.

“Talk to me, Marcello,” I asked, reaching up to touch his face.

“Say my name again,” he whispered, kissing my fingertips.

He nibbled down my arm and across my chest and held on to me while he used his teeth along my breasts. His muscles were shaking as he kissed my belly.

“Marcello.”

“Again.”

Each time I repeated it, he’d ask for it again.

Until he confessed, “I missed hearing you say it when I made you come.”

My head thudded back against the mattress when he hit the right tempo. Every fiber in me seized up and exploded around his fingers.

“That’s my tesoro,” he said tenderly, leaning up to kiss me again.

Tesoro. I remembered the word from our time together in Barcelona.

The moonlight slanted into the windows, the beams dancing across the bed over us. He just stared and smiled. “Avery,” he said between kisses across my breasts. He placed his lips directly over my heart and spoke reverently just one word, “Tesoro.”

“What does it mean?” I asked, holding his face and my breath, wondering what he would confess.

“Treasure.”

To have him repeat it again, after all these years. After all the mistakes, it meant something. When he said it in Spain, there was a palpable shift in the relationship. It moved from summer fling to . . . Hope ballooned in my chest and I wondered, was history repeating itself?