Chapter 27
Giovanni
Ithink I broke Tessa. She’s murmuring unintelligible words, inching along behind me like a tired, heavy-breathing shadow.
I’ve been swiveling my head around every five minutes to make sure her current state is due to biking and not something allergy-related.
I tap the EpiPen in my pocket. She only brought one with her, but I brought the other one just in case.
Both of us roll our bikes across the grass-covered path of the lush park on our way to the woodsy area slightly beyond it.
I know she needs to rest, and I used to come here all the time when I was a child.
Tucked away behind the park is a small, cool, grassy clearing halfway enclosed with rocks.
It’s almost reminiscent of a large grotto.
I grin when I see it’s remained unchanged after all these years.
“You wanted somewhere cool with ‘all the shade.’ Here it is.” I gesture to our surroundings.
Not paying me any attention, she’s still rolling her bike along at a snail’s pace and grumpily muttering. “I’ll tell you one thing, Italy has some things figured out, but errands attire isn’t one of them. Dressing business formal for a liquor store isn’t right. It’s fucked up.”
“Tessa.”
“The hills are not alive with the sound of music, that’s for sure. The hills are alive with the sound of my pain,” she mumbles.
“Tessa.”
For the first time since we’ve arrived, she raises her eyes to mine and smiles. “Wow.” She scans the lush area, spinning around for a full view. “It’s so much cooler back here, I feel like I can breathe again.”
I knew she’d love it.
“It’s all downhill from here. We’re only about a ten minute ride back to my house, so it’s a very short last leg of the trip.”
“I’ll take any leg I can get. Both of mine are currently useless,” she jokes, shifting uncomfortably on her feet.
A smile finds its way on my face, and I like how it feels.
Smiling at her. This bike ride has been really…
pleasant. Last night, fresh off the photoshoot, I wanted to talk about what it meant to us.
But in the light of day, I’ve decided to trust my intuition, which is screaming at me to pause.
Tessa will talk to me when she’s ready, and I won’t pressure her into it.
On a long sigh, she sits on the patch of grass underneath the cave-like rock structure. “I’m feeling drier already. This. Is. Luxury.”
I sit next to her, our shoulders almost touching.
Tessa glances at me, eyeing my shorts and fitted shirt. “Are your clothes even appropriate for an Italian bike ride? Shouldn’t you be wearing a tuxedo?”
I chuckle. “Are you still talking about the wine shop attire?”
“It’s either that, or we go back to how you were a second away from making sweet love to a stranger in front of me.”
I roll my eyes. She’s so American. “You seem really obsessed with me having sex in public. I didn’t know voyeurism was your thing.”
Her already-reddish face turns about two shades darker on a deep crimson blush. “It’s definitely not my thing.”
“So, what is your thing?” I ask casually.
“Huh?”
“What is your thing?” I emphasize “thing” with an eyebrow raise.
Her voice lowers. “I don’t have a sex thing, other than an orgasm. They’re not always guaranteed with the male population, unfortunately.”
Leaning her head against one of the stones behind us, she winces. Her face contorts into a pained expression when she extends her legs. Flexing her feet, she blows out a hiss of air in clear agony. “God, my legs are killing me.”
I frown. “What would you do if you were at home to ease the soreness?”
She shrugs. “I’d probably do a warm bath to loosen up my muscles, followed by a massage.”
“Okay. We’ll do that.”
I don’t know what exactly has gotten into me, but all the blood in my body rushes to my cock, and I don’t fight it.
Lately, I’ve been seeing beyond the walls built between us.
The antagonism might just be pent-up emotion that we didn’t know quite what to do with, and the animosity is contrived from a source I’ve yet to figure out.
“We’ll do what, exactly?” Her eyebrows almost reach her hairline, surprise written all over her face.
“What you said, but just the massage.”
She starts coughing, which is not ideal given the fact that she already drank all the water. “You’re going to give me a massage?”
I give a quick nod. “Yes. You’ll feel better.”
Tessa hasn’t taken her eyes off mine, the deep, rich brown of them glued to my light blue.
I pause, blinking a few times. And she stares back at me, unblinking.
After a few moments, I dare to inch closer. “Yeah?”
There’s responding fire in her eyes, a dark flash of lust. Since we arrived in Italy, I’ve realized that she isn’t immune to me. Her lingering glances, the way she reacts to my touch. The sleepy kiss we shared… Her desire from this morning still feels tangible to me, like I can hold it in my hands.
Slowly, we both lean forward, drawn to each other like magnets. Neither of us breaks eye contact.
She makes a noncommittal humming noise in response to my question. That won’t do.
“Words,” I demand.
“Yes, Gio,” she says immediately.
Gio. Not Giovanni. Gio. I imagine it escaping from her lips later as a moan.