Chapter 349: DIMITRI! Leave The Poor Girl Alone!

"I love you," she whispered, and meant it with a completeness that terrified and thrilled her in equal measure.

"I know," Dimitri replied, and kissed her like that was the most important thing he’d ever heard.

The pace gradually increased. What had started slow and intimate was becoming more intense, more urgent. Eve could feel herself building toward another climax, could feel the tension coiling through her body, could feel Dimitri getting close to his own edge.

He shifted position, angling deeper, his movements becoming almost desperate now. Eve was right there with him, her nails digging into his back, her body arching to take him as deep as possible.

"Come for me," Dimitri commanded, his voice rough. "I want to feel you...."

"DIMITRI!"

The voice came from the hallway, loud and insistent and completely unavoidable.

"DIMITRI! Leave the poor girl alone! She needs breakfast, not more of you! Come down now, both of you! I made your favorite! Eve needs to eat properly, she is still too thin!"

Nonna’s voice was unmistakable, that particular blend of scolding and concern that only an Italian grandmother could manage, delivered at a volume that left absolutely no room for argument.

Dimitri froze mid-thrust, his entire body going still above Eve’s.

For a moment, they just stared at each other in the morning light.

Then Eve started laughing, her shoulders shaking with it, her entire body convulsing beneath him in a way that was absolutely not helping his current situation.

"She knows," Eve gasped between laughs. "Oh my God, she completely knows what we’re doing."

"Of course she knows," Dimitri said, and there was a note of frustrated amusement in his voice now. "Nonna knows everything. She probably stood outside the door for five minutes debating whether to interrupt."

"DIMITRI!" Nonna’s voice came again, louder this time if that was even possible. "I hear you laughing! This is not funny! You come down now before the food gets cold! And Eve! Cara mia! You need real food, not just... what is happening in there!"

Eve buried her face in Dimitri’s shoulder, completely unable to contain her laughter now. The ridiculousness of being interrupted mid-sex by his grandmother was somehow perfect.

Dimitri groaned, a sound of pure frustration, and pulled out of her with clear reluctance. He rolled over onto his back, one arm thrown across his eyes.

"This is not how I wanted that to end," he said flatly.

"I know," Eve said, still giggling as she sat up. "I’m sorry, but your grandmother is officially the cockblock of the century."

"Don’t let her hear you say that," Dimitri said, and despite his frustration, there was definitely humor in his voice now.

Eve climbed out of bed and stumbled toward the bathroom, her legs still unsteady from pleasure and laughter mixed together. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror....flushed, happy, thoroughly loved, and almost didn’t recognize herself.

"DIMITRI! Eve! Now!"

"We’re coming, Nonna!" Eve called back, then dissolved into giggles again.

She threw on a robe and headed for the door, where Dimitri was already pulling on a shirt, his dark hair completely disheveled from her hands. He looked like he’d just been thoroughly made love to, which, well, he had been.

They made it halfway down the hallway when Nonna appeared at the top of the main staircase, her hands on her hips, her eyes taking in their appearance with the kind of X-ray vision that only a seventy-year-old Italian woman possessed.

"Look at you both," Nonna said, shaking her head with a mixture of exasperation and fondness. "Hair like you’ve been in a wind tunnel. Eve, cara, your robe is on backward. Dimitri, you have a hickey on your neck. A hickey! Like you are teenagers! And it is not even 7 AM!"

"Good morning to you too, Nonna," Dimitri said, kissing the top of her head as they passed her on the stairs.

"Don’t ’good morning’ me," Nonna said, following them down toward the kitchen. "I made ossobuco for breakfast. Real food. For people who need energy because they are wasting it in bed instead of doing something useful."

Eve could feel her face burning, but she was also still trying not to laugh.

"Nonna," Dimitri said, "it’s 7 AM. You made ossobuco for breakfast?"

"You need to eat properly," Nonna said firmly, gesturing them toward the dining room where an absolutely obscene spread of food had been laid out. "Eve especially. Look at her....she is still too thin. All this running around and kidnapping and you not feeding her properly. I am fixing this."

"Nonna, ossobuco is a dinner dish," Dimitri said.

"I know what ossobuco is," Nonna replied with the tone of a woman who would tolerate no arguments on this subject. "Sit. Eat. Both of you. And Dimitri..." She fixed him with a look that could have stopped traffic. "Leave the girl alone for at least one hour. She needs food in her stomach, not just your hands on her."

Eve sat down and buried her face in a napkin, completely unable to contain her laughter anymore.

Dimitri caught her eye across the table, and something in his expression...frustrated amusement mixed with genuine affection for his grandmother, made her laugh even harder.

"I heard that," Nonna said, but there was a smile playing at the corners of her mouth now. "Eat, you two. And Dimitri? After breakfast, you and I need to talk about respect and timing."

"Yes, Nonna," Dimitri said obediently, already reaching for the ossobuco.

Eve helped herself to some pasta and fresh fruit, trying to regain her composure. The morning had shifted from intimate and intense to something lighter, something filled with family and love in a completely different way.

Later, after breakfast, after Nonna had thoroughly scolded them both and then sent them on their way with enough food for a small army, Dimitri pulled Eve into the study.

"I’m sorry about that," he said.

"Don’t be," Eve said, wrapping her arms around his waist. "That was perfect. That was actually perfect."

"Being interrupted by my grandmother?" Dimitri asked, skeptical.

"Being interrupted by your grandmother," Eve confirmed. "Because it means we have a life with routines and family dinners and people who care enough to interrupt us. A few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever have that again."

Dimitri held her close, understanding without needing explanation that everything had shifted for her, that she’d moved from being terrified of what came next to being grateful for the ordinary moments that filled the space between the extraordinary ones.

"She’s going to keep doing that, you know," Dimitri said. "Interrupting. Scolding. Trying to feed you."

"Good," Eve said. "I like having a Nonna."