Chapter 32
GIANNA
I don’t think I’ve ever tried on and discarded as many outfits as I did getting ready for this dinner.
By the time I was done my entire queen-sized bed was just a pile of clothes—Prada, Gucci, Versace, you name it, piled on like it was just a garbage heap.
And my shoe closet looked like it had vomited out all my footwear in a moment of sickness.
Despite all that, I’d decided I absolutely don’t have enough clothes to wear and already made plans with my sisters to go shopping this weekend.
In the end, I decided on simple, ivory silk slacks and a strappy top woven from gold and silver thread. I paired it with a gold shawl, gold shoes and a gold handbag.
“You think you might’ve overdone it on the gold there,” Chiara said as we met up in the foyer at ten minutes to eight.
“Not even close.”
What I meant when I said that I don’t have enough clothes is that I don’t have enough golden ones. I love the nickname Matteo has for me—Goldie—and I mean to live up to it in all ways.
My heart jumped to my throat as we stepped into the hallway and Matteo’s eyes locked on me, shining brighter and brighter as he took me in from head to toe.
Rafaelle, Tony, and Lorenzo were also there, all wearing black suits, the jackets not quite hiding the gun holsters.
Quite a turn out for a simple dinner. But all I saw was Matteo.
Even as we left the building and the men walked a respectable distance behind us.
He looked the best out of all of them in his black suit.
Now we’re seated in a private room of the new upscale Italian restaurant I chose, three waiters falling over themselves trying to make sure we have everything we need before we even think we need it.
The three of us are seated, the men are standing along the wall, and every time I steal a glance at Matteo, my heart rate picks up even more. Even though it hasn’t stopped thundering in my throat since I first saw him tonight.
I wish he was sitting across from me. I wish we were alone. Somewhere where we had all the time and privacy in the world. Away from anything and anyone trying to hold us apart.
I’m having trouble eating because of all the heat, emotions, and racing heart issues he’s giving me.
My palms are clammy, my heart wants to bang right out of my chest, and I feel naked under the covert looks he’s giving me.
Looks that caress my face and skin almost better than his hands would.
I’m also having trouble following the animated conversation my sisters are engaged in.
I’ve gone to the bathroom twice since we got here. But he hasn’t followed. Tony did.
Maybe the third time’s the charm.
I stand up, grab my purse, mutter that I need to go check my makeup, ignore Chiara who tells me I look as shimmery gold as when we first got here, and leave the room.
I don’t even have to look back to know he followed this time.
The heat in the small, windowless hallway went up by a thousand degrees and my back as I walk to the ladies’ room feels like I’m walking through the desert at noon.
He follows me right into the restroom, shutting and locking the door behind. The cool marble against my bare back as he pushes me against the wall feels divine after the hot tension of the past couple of hours of only being able to look and not touch him.
His kiss is like a sip of cool water on a hot day, like the medicine I needed, like the only drink I will ever need from now on.
It’s urgent and intense, sending my heart racing in a whole different way as my whole body responds.
Shivers run down my arms, my nipples rise and start throbbing, silently begging for his touch and my pussy is pulsing with stark need for his touch, such as I’ve never imagined possible.
If he were to rip my clothes off and take me right here and now, I wouldn’t protest. And I certainly wouldn’t try to stop him.
And as the kiss intensifies, I very nearly start ripping his clothes off.
But I settle for running my hands down his wonderfully muscled arms and back.
So nicely shaped. So hard and powerful. His thigh finds its way between my legs, and I can’t help rubbing against it.
The wonderful friction very nearly makes a tiny orgasm rise to the surface, and the deep moan that escapes me, mid-kiss no less, is nothing I’ve ever heard myself utter before.
He breaks the kiss and looks down at me, his thigh still pressed against my pussy, his eyes fiery and dangerously bright.
“My, my you are eager,” he says and I feel my cheeks heat up. I’m sure they’re growing red too. But I don’t care. I just need more of that kiss. That touch. That heat that only he can wake in me. And another, more powerful orgasm, please.
“I want you,” I whisper. “I want more.”
He obliges with another intense, deep kiss that leaves no space between us, not even enough for a breath.
But when I press against his leg again, he releases me and steps back leaving my head spinning and my legs unable to hold my weight.
He lays his arms on mine to steady me before that becomes a problem.
“Not like this,” he says. “Not in some bathroom. You’re worth more than that.”
Some of the intense disappointment bubbling in my chest fades at those words, but not nearly all.
“It’s better than the trash room,” I mutter.
“Not much,” he says. “Clean yourself up now. We have to get back.”
Then he leaves me alone in the cool bathroom and this time the cold isn’t welcoming. It’s scary and foreign. Is this what my life will feel like without him in it from now on?
I already miss his touch and the warmth of his kiss. But stolen moments in bathrooms, trash rooms, and deep night secret meetings is all I will ever get from him. And the rest will feel like this. Cold and empty and dark. Sunless.
I couldn’t survive that.
I can’t have that.
And I won’t.
He will be mine. Even if I have to leave everything and everyone I love behind. It’s a promise I make myself while fixing the golden shimmer on my cheeks in the mirror. And it’s a promise I will keep.