Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty Seven
Bianca
The door closes behind us with a soft click, but Gio doesn’t steer me toward the bed.
He keeps my hand and heads for the double glass doors covered in sheer curtains. He turns the handles, pushes them wide, and cool night air moves through the room, lifting the hem of his shirt on my thighs.
Beyond the threshold, the balcony stretches under the moon. Vines roll away in neat rows, silvered at the edges. To the right, tucked into the stone corner for privacy, a round hot tub churns, steam lifting in thin ribbons.
He looks at me over his shoulder. “Come on,” he says, voice rough in that way that goes straight through me.
I step out with him. The stone is cool under my bare feet. The night smells like rosemary, damp earth, and clean water. Somewhere down in the rows, an owl calls once.
Gio turns the tub’s controls down a notch, and the surface calms to a steady shimmer. He reaches for me, palms warm at my hips, and kisses me slowly, like we have all the time in the world.
His mouth is warm and certain. When he licks into me, it’s lazy and deep, and I forget about the moon and the vineyard and every obligation waiting in the morning.
And all the reasons I shouldn’t be doing this.
His hands slide under the hem of his shirt where it hangs on me.
The fabric lifts; his thumbs explore bare skin at my waist. He opens the next button without looking down, then the one below, mouth finding my throat.
I tilt my head, giving him room. The night air moves over the skin he uncovers; his mouth follows and turns the air to heat again.
“Gio,” I say, because I like what it does to him.
He answers against my collarbone. “Mia.”
Mine. It sends a thrill through me.
I should be scared, right?
Of what it means, of who he is, of how fast we’ve moved. The sensible part of me raises a hand. The rest of me lowers it.
“Say it again,” I murmur, because apparently I like playing with matches.
His mouth brushes my jaw. “Mia,” he says, low and possessive, and the floor inside me shifts, sending me off balance.
The word is a breath and a claim. Sexy and dangerous.
I work at the zipper on his pants while he kisses down the line where my pulse runs. His heart beats faster; his palms are steady on my skin. They slide, firm, mapping the curve of me like he’s learning my body by touch.
He shoves his pants down enough for the night to cool his heated skin, and I watch his jaw go tight, then ease when I drag my nails lightly over his hip.
“Inside,” he says, glancing at the tub. His hand settles at my ribs. “Now.” It comes out fast.
He peels the shirt from my shoulders. I let it slide down my arms, gather the fabric, and drape it over the back of a chair. He watches me do it, eyes dark, hungry, but not rushing.
The cool air hardens my nipples, and his eyes go dark as they skim down my body.
I imagine those dark eyes looking up at me while his mouth destroys me. I fight the urge to squirm as the pressure between my legs intensifies. My thighs are going to be soaked if he watches me like that any longer.
He doesn’t say anything. He just holds out a hand and waits.
Swallowing, suddenly nervous, I take it and step to him.
I’ve been skinny-dipping before. At a lake with friends. In a pool at night. But this is different. There’s an intimacy here that doesn’t have anything to do with nudity or the fact that we’re about to have sex.
It’s the way he looks at me.
Like I’m an answered prayer.
One kiss, slow and deep, and he helps me up the steps and into the water. I gasp as the hot water swirls up my legs, over my hips, kissing every inch of my cold skin. The jets bubble against my back. It feels decadent.
My body sings, every nerve alight with the promise of pleasure, the electric heat of this man whose world is so far from mine, whose touch is so perfectly right.
Gio follows, water sluicing over hard muscle as he lowers himself into the tub opposite me.
I watch a bead of water trace a path down his chest. He settles, and our legs find each other in the dark water.
His calf brushes my ankle. We stay like that for a minute, the hot water loosening muscles I didn’t even know were tight.
He reaches across the small space, palm up. An invitation.
I put my hand in his.
He pulls gently. I glide over the water toward him, letting him direct me. I end up facing him, straddling his lap, my knees on the bench on either side of his powerful thighs. My chest brushes his, and the friction sends a jolt through me. My hands find his shoulders, bracing.
His hands are on my waist, holding me just above him. I feel the hard press of his cock through the water. I can’t stop looking at his mouth, wanting it again.
He tips his chin up. His eyes are serious. Soft.
I lean in.
His hands slide to my ass, squeezing. A moan escapes me before I can bite it back. He grins—smug and devastating—and thrusts his hips up, grinding against my aching clit. The water moves around us, a warm, liquid caress that only adds to the friction.
I brace one hand on the rim of the tub behind him, the other curling into his hair. The jets push against my back. The night is quiet except for the hum of the water and the sound of our breathing.
He looks up at me. The moonlight catches the line of his jaw, the dark fringe of his lashes. He looks up at me like this is the only place he’s ever wanted to be.
He slides one hand up my spine, the other up my stomach, between my breasts, until he’s cupping my jaw. His thumb strokes over my pulse.
“Tell me what you want, mia.”
The question is a physical thing.
I press closer. I can feel my heart beating against my ribs, a frantic, hopeful thing. I can feel him, hot and hard, sliding between my lips. I’m so close to the edge of the tub that the water laps at my breasts. He’s holding me there, poised, waiting.
Everything inside me is tightening, coiling, a spring wound so tight it’s about to snap.
“You,” I say, the word a raw, honest thing. “I just want you.”
His control snaps. He hauls me flush against him, kissing me like he’s been waiting for this for a thousand years.
The kiss is deep, hungry, a claiming. I kiss him back just as hard, taking as much as I’m giving.
My fingers tighten in his hair, pulling just enough to make him groan into my mouth.
His other arm bands around my waist, lifting me just enough.
He lines himself up at my entrance, and I start to sink down.
The stretch is intense. I’m soaking wet, but he’s big. He knows it too. He watches me, eyes dark with concentration and a kind of reverence that undoes me. Even having done this already, it's like starting all over again as he stretches me, fills me in one slow push.
I breathe through the initial burn, through the intensity of being so full, I can feel it in my lungs, in every breath I take. He fits inside me like he was made for me, every inch of him a claim. He’s holding me still, letting me adjust. My body trembles.
“Take it,” he growls, voice rough with control. “All of it.”
I nod, unable to speak.
He’s watching me so intently, seeing everything. I lift my head, meet his eyes. The moonlight is in them. I rock my hips, a small, experimental movement. He sucks in a breath. The friction sends sparks skittering through me.
I do it again, and this time, I move more purposefully, taking him deeper. The water moves around us, a warm, liquid caress that only adds to the friction. Pleasure licks up my spine, hot and sweet.
I set a slow, steady rhythm, rising and falling, my hands braced on his shoulders, my eyes locked with his.
The sounds I make are half-swallowed by the night.
The slap of skin is muffled by the water, but it’s there, a primal beat.
The jets bubble against my back, a constant, tingling sensation.
He starts to move with me, lifting his hips to meet my downward strokes, pushing deeper, hitting a spot inside me that makes stars burst behind my eyes.
“Gio,” I gasp.
He knows.
His name from my lips is a trigger. He grabs my hips, takes over, and the rhythm breaks. He pounds into me, fast and hard, and the pleasure builds to an impossible peak. My vision whites out. My body clamps down on him, wave after wave of release so intense it’s almost painful.
He follows me over, a deep groan against my neck as he shudders and empties himself into me.
We float like that for a long time, the warm water holding us, the night sky a blanket of stars above. His forehead rests against mine. Our breathing is the only sound.
I feel sated. Peaceful. Boneless.
And also utterly terrified.
I’ve let him in. Not just physically. He’s right here, embedded in the center of everything, in the quiet spaces I’ve guarded for years.
Giovanni brushes a wet strand of hair from my cheek, his touch firm, less comforting than claiming. “Don’t drift away from me,” he says, his voice low, rough. “Tell me what’s in that head of yours.”
The command—so direct, so impossibly cutting—nearly unravels me
“Us,” I whisper before I can stop myself. “I’m thinking about us.”
He pulls back just enough to study me, his gaze sharp, unshielded in a way that steals my breath.
“Good,” he says, like it’s an order, like it’s the only answer he’ll accept. “Because I’m thinking about us too.”
Then he kisses me—slow, deliberate, a kiss that doesn’t soften him but stakes a claim. Something solid. Something that feels inescapably real.
The fear recedes, just a little.
And in its place, something far more dangerous begins to bloom: hope.