Francesca
After getting my brains fucked out, I was exhausted. I knocked out for a while, maybe an hour or two, and when I woke up, he was in bed beside me, the sheets at his waist, his arm tucked underneath his head. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or just relaxed.
I gently slipped out of the bed, trying not to let the floorboards creak underneath my feet.
“Don’t worry, I’m awake.”
I stilled, standing there naked at the foot of the bed.
His eyes opened, and he looked at me, a slight smirk on his lips.
“I’m gonna hop in the shower…so I’ll see you around.”
He sat up slightly. “See me around?”
“Just figured you would head out.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Do you want me to head out?”
“Well…” It was a one-night stand. I’d had a lot of them. Knew how they worked. “We don’t need to do the dance, you know?”
“The dance?”
“You know, where you kinda linger so you don’t look like an asshole. But you wouldn’t be an asshole if you left. I just don’t want to make it weird.”
“Well, you’re making it weird by trying not to make it weird.
” He pulled back the covers and got out of bed, a Roman god at his full height, his arms the size of my head.
He cocked a smile as he headed into my bathroom.
“I’ll take a shower with you.” He helped himself to the walk-in shower and turned on the water.
He stepped inside without waiting for the water to heat up, which usually took a couple minutes.
I followed him and stared for a second, seeing the water drip down his perfect physique, his hands sliding into his hair as he tilted his head back to let the water stream over his face.
I was lost in my stare for a while, but once I noticed the steam rising toward the ceiling, I knew the water was warm, so I opened the door and joined him.
He turned to me when he knew I was there, his arm circling my lower back and pulling me into him, his hand moving to my cheek and giving it a hard squeeze.
He pressed a rough kiss to my lips before he pulled away and grabbed the soap.
Then he started to lather it into me, making soap bubbles form over my skin, particularly over my chest. “You have incredible tits.”
“I guess that answers my question.”
“What question?”
“If you’re an ass or a tit man.”
He smirked. “I’m a Francesca man, because you’re the whole fucking package.” His arm returned around the small of my back, and he pulled me into him and kissed me. Kissed me the way he had in bed, hard and soft at the same time, squeezing both of my cheeks in his strong hand.
One thing led to another, and he lifted me onto him and fucked me like that in the shower, bringing my body up and down like I weighed nothing, the water running down on us both.
Watching him hold me so effortlessly turned me on just as much as his fat dick inside me.
When we were done, I headed into the kitchen downstairs to rummage for food. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch because my stomach had been in knots waiting for him to come over.
I was looking in the fridge when I heard him enter the kitchen behind me. I assumed he was dressed and ready to head back home since it was almost midnight and he had to be at the vineyard in the morning.
I shut the fridge and turned back to him, but he was in just his boxers, like he had no intention of leaving.
He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to stick around longer than he needed to, so this was a surprise.
But then an explanation clicked in my head.
He had to work down the road in the morning, so if he drove an hour and a half back to Palermo and then drove another hour and a half back to the vineyard, that would be three hours of driving when he had to be at work in six hours, so it didn’t make sense for him to leave.
That made me feel better.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“Always.” He sat on a barstool at the counter. “What do you have?”
“I made some chicken pomodoro last night.”
“You cook?”
“Damn right I cook.”
“Then I’m definitely not saying no to that.”
I took the casserole dish out of the fridge and plated the chicken and the pasta before I microwaved everything.
I carried the plates to the dining table along with a bottle of wine and a carafe of water for us to share.
I was in a black crop top and little pajama shorts with my slippers, my hair still slightly damp because I hadn’t dried it all the way.
And obviously, I didn’t have any makeup on, so I might look completely different to Wolfe without it.
Wolfe eyed the hot plate of food I placed in front of him.
“Ooh, this looks good.” With his arms on the table, he scarfed down his food, slicing his fork through the chicken because it was tender enough that it didn’t need to be cut with a knife.
He spun the fork around the strands of pasta and shoveled it into his mouth.
I took a few bites of my food while I watched him eat like he was starving. “You really do like it, huh?”
“It’s so good, it turns me on.”
I chuckled like it was a joke.
“A home-cooked meal from a beautiful woman…that’s sexy.”
“Spoken like a true Italian man,” I said. “Imagine if it were fresh.”
“Hopefully I won’t have to imagine for very long.” He put a piece of chicken in his mouth and stared at me as he chewed it.
The tightness in my stomach was so substantial, I felt my entire body go rigid. All the muscles in my core ached.
We ate in silence for a while, sitting together at the kitchen table sometime around midnight. I was an early bird, usually in bed by ten and up at seven. I spent every day at the vineyard helping my father run the family business—the legal and illegal parts of it.
“I want to know you.” He finished his meal and left the dirty fork and knife on the surface. His elbows were on top of the table, his arms crossed.
I stared at him, unsure what that meant. “What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you want to share.” With unblinking eyes, he stared at me, stared straight into my soul.
“Um…” When he put me on the spot, I didn’t know what to say.
“Are you close with your father?”
“Pretty close, yeah.”
“And your brother?”
“He’s an idiot, but yeah, we’re close.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Yeah…thanks.” I didn’t tell him she skipped out, but it was easy to deduce. “What about you?”
“Parents are dead. Only child.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
He gave a shrug. “My dad had it coming. Mom didn’t.”
I wanted to know more, but it felt wrong to ask about it when we hardly knew each other. “How are you liking the winery?”
“Very fucking boring,” he said. “But you’re a pretty nice perk.”
I smirked then looked down at my pasta. I spun the noodles onto the fork and took a bite. I ate so slowly that my food had turned cold. I hadn’t had much of an appetite in the first place. I felt him stare at me while I looked down at my plate.
“You’re really fucking beautiful, you know that?”
I stilled when I heard what he said. It took me a moment to lift my eyes and meet his.
He’d already fucked me countless times, so there didn’t seem to be an angle to his words.
Just honesty, without a filter, without an agenda.
“Thank you.” I wore no makeup and my hair was a mess, so I was a bit self-conscious… but he didn’t seem to care.
My phone started to ring upstairs. It was quiet from all the way down here, but I could hear it.
And since it was past midnight, the call must be important.
“Excuse me.” I left the table, headed upstairs, and found my phone somewhere on the floor where it had landed.
Leo’s name was on the screen, so I quickly answered. “What’s happened?”
“We were fucking robbed,” he snapped over the phone. “Our shipment came from customs. It was logged, but when we went to grab it, it had been swapped for kitchen tools. Jace says it was an innocent mistake, but I don’t fucking buy that.”
I processed all this in silence for a moment. “Does Dad know?”
“Oh, he knows. And he wants to know whose head needs to get blown off.”
“Cristo…” I stood in my bedroom, my arm crossed over my chest as I stared at the rumpled bed.
“It’s just one thing after another, over and over. And everyone is laughing at us, Frankie.” He screamed into the phone, “They’re fucking laughing at us. It’s the fucking Lombardis or the Gallos or fucking Cosa Nostra.”
“Let’s figure it out first before we start a witch-hunt.”
“In what universe did anyone think they could fuck with us?”
“We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
Click. Leo hung up.
“Everything alright?”
I gave a small jump when I turned to see Wolfe standing there in nothing but his boxers, sexy as hell when he didn’t even try. “Leo just called, and…” I was about to tell him, but then I realized I probably shouldn’t. “Yeah, everything is fine.”
He stared at me with discerning eyes, like he could read the lie on my face as easily as words on a page. “It’s late and I have a long day tomorrow, so I think I’m going to bed.” I walked to the nightstand and plugged my phone into the charger before I got into bed.
Wolfe didn’t ask any questions about the phone call with Leo. He moved to the other side of the bed and got under the sheets before he hooked his arm around my waist and dragged me into his chest, spooning me from behind.
I didn’t expect that.
“Goodnight, Francesca.”
“Goodnight.”
Wolfe and I arrived at the vineyard separately.
He started in the warehouse at the crack of dawn and I went into the main villa a couple hours later, so he left without waking me.
I was sad our night was over, but I had been ready for it to end before it started.
And I was also grateful because he’d scratched an itch that I couldn’t reach on my own.
Made the yearning aches in my body fade.
When I arrived at the villa and went up to my father’s office, I could feel his wrath before I even set foot in the room. He stood with his back to the desk, looking out the window at the vineyard. It was a beautiful day, but he fumed hotter than Mount Etna in the distance.