Chapter 7
CLEO
I chose to ignore Alessio and his presumptuous yet oh-so-tight ass.
I made dinner, avoiding his eyes, face, and presence like the plague.
Irritated by how his essence flipped me from unease to arousal and back again in an ever-ratcheting cadence.
His fever appeared to have subsided, replaced by his restlessness.
While I worked, he prowled my sanctuary like a caged animal seeking an exit.
He also pulled a gold coin from his trousers and ran it over his knuckles, rolling it so fast it was a blur.
He jammed into his other pocket with his free hand, reaching for something inside it as if twirling an object to channel his energy .
It was curious; it was fascinating.
I had to admit he was intriguing.
Despite his golden looks, he had a soul of unruly wildness, the spirit of a brawler.
His hair was tousled like a lion’s mane, framing a strong jawline and piercing eyes. His broad shoulders and muscular frame exuded strength, like a warrior from ancient times.
His presence was majestic and predatory, potent as he prowled through my surroundings with a sense of ownership and dominance.
Like a caged beast, his muscles rippled beneath his skin with each step. His essence was a mix of elegance, danger, and a primal, untamed energy.
It was clear Alessio was a mess of torment and sensuous ardor, his nature hinting at a tortured soul who’d broken the hearts of many.
I wondered what made his heart so black and his expression so ascetic in one moment and sultry in another.
I checked myself, unable to afford to fall prey to the temptations of rescuing a tragic, sensual hero with baggage who needed to be rescued from himself.
Ever so often, I sensed the scorching burn of his gaze, and under the cool, frightening menace was an indistinct emotion.
I tossed onion, garlic, and tiny diced carrots into the sizzling pan.
The aroma of cooking food began to fill the room, but it did little to soothe the tension that knotted between my shoulder blades.
It curled around me, invasive as smoke, as I stirred the stew with mechanical precision, helping to calm my frayed nerves.
He paused by my bookshelf, fingers dragging along the spines of well-thumbed novels and limited-edition hardcovers.
My eyes flicked toward him, watching as he plucked out a paperback and a second and flipped through them, sliding both back into their place, out of order.
I bristled.
My rare editions were my world; anyone who touched my exclusive print editions might get a bullet in their heart.
His wanderlust continued, his shadow dancing across the walls as he paced, a caged animal in a too-tight space. Restless energy personified, he flipped through more spines of books on my shelf.
Next, he riffled through a stack of old postcards I’d collected in another lifetime.
Causing my focus to splinter, undoing my concentration as I chopped vegetables with more force than necessary.
‘Would you just sit still for five minutes?’
The words left my lips sharper than I intended, echoing off the timber surfaces of the cabin.
He raised his eyebrows, adding an almost imperceptible shrug, lifting his wounded shoulder before he winced.
‘Scusa, I’m not very good at being idle,’ he rumbled.
He found my music corner and whistled under his breath.
The gentle strumming of my guitar came next.
One-handed and awkward yet somehow melodic, each note vibrated through the floorboards, up the legs of my chair, and straight into my core.
‘You play?’ I murmured, setting the wooden spoon down with a clatter.
He only glanced over, a slight curve playing on his lips—unruffled, unapologetic.
I raised my brows and turned to the stove, stirring the pot as if the simple action had the power to stir away the irritation inside me.
He knew his way around the strings, albeit in a mangled sense, given his injury.
His fingers danced over the cords, eliciting a discordant melody.
Most days, I loathed any stranger’s intrusion into my peaceful, quiet, and sacred silence.
Yet Alessio’s presence and his strumming gave me a certain peace.
I relaxed into it, let the chords soothe me, a sensation I’d not experienced in months.
‘Dinner is ready,’ I announced in time.
He joined me at my humble table with a gruff grunt of thanks.
Still unable to meet his gaze, I served him a rich vegetable and meatball stew and a fresh loaf I’d baked the day before.
The butter was sourced from a farm down the mountain, and the herbs, carrots, and broccoli came from my garden.
Our food was consumed in silence for the most part.
I kept my eyes on my plate.
He asked about the food, using spare words.
I noted how he listened to me when I used halting words to share my one passion: my recipes and the ingredients from my garden.
His appreciation of the fare came in murmurs in Italian, no less.
He was not a conversationalist. He didn’t say much about himself, unaware—or perhaps well aware—of how his raw yet timbered, deep, rough, gravelly growls and concise responses turned me on.
Because, hell, was he intense.
His entire attention fixed on me on me through the meal, assessing me, raking me, breaking me down.
When he’d cleared his plate, he leaned back in the chair, spreading out his arms, wincing as his shoulder twisted.
‘Promise me Guilia is safe?’ I blurted, fighting the invisible shackles he had on me.
His gaze flicked over me, his tongue playing with his inner cheek. ‘You’ve nothing to fuckin’ worry about, bella.’
His delivery was crude, but when I glanced for a moment at his face, my instinct told me his word was bond.
While my eyes danced away, he kept his leonine stare on me. Rolling his gold coin over his knuckles and licking the corner of his lip in a freakin’ sensual habit.
My face heated.
With a deep inhale, I gathered the used cutlery and plates.
He reached his free hand to me when I part rose from my seat.
‘Grazie,’ he growled, reaching for my cheek, cupping it, and stroking a finger on the edge of my mouth. ‘For dinner.’
I tilted my head at him, eyes flashing with warning.
‘You’re impossible.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he rasped.
I left the table in a huff, retreating to the kitchen basin under the long, expansive window.
I fussed with clearing the plates, not quite seeing the darkening sky beyond the glass as my skin pulsated where he’d touched it.
Alessio lingered.
I sensed his eyes on me, probing and unrelenting, as if he sought to unravel the layers I had wrapped around myself.
It was unnerving, this scrutiny, this intrusion into the fragile boundaries I had erected for my protection, his never-ending regard breaking through the room’s peace.
I offered my silence as a shield against his persistence, but unable to resist, I sliced my eyes toward him.
Only to find the last rays of sunlight bathing his features in a warm glow, softening the hard angles of his face and casting long shadows behind him.
His profile was one of a god, and I hissed at the jolt it sent through me.
Fuck, I had to escape him.
‘I’m going to wash the dishes outdoors,’ I declared.
His head whipped toward me. ‘Why? No running water?’ he growled, his brow canted in disbelief.
‘Nope,’ I clipped, easing away with my burden of plates.
I made for the door, seeking refuge in the crisp night air.
The freedom of being away from him was a welcome relief.
Outside, the fiery hues of sunset painted streaks of orange and pink across the horizon, contrasting the shadows creeping over the landscape.
I marched towards the creek, just a few hundred meters from the cabin.
I knelt at its edge and scrubbed the remnants of our meal from the dishes.
My breath formed little puffs, and above, the stars blinked down through the skeletal branches, indifferent to my need for solitude.
But seclusion proved elusive.
Pebbles crunched underfoot, betraying his approach before his shadow fell over me. He crouched on a rock nearby, thick thighs bunching under his jeans in casual nonchalance as if he’d been invited to join.
He glanced up at the sky, eyes narrowing on the gleaming moonscape.
Silver light outlined his silhouette, and his features stood out. Carved in hardness and darkness, they evoked a timeless deity of vengeance.
I followed his gaze, blurting, shattering the quiet, needing to release the nervous energy building up in me. ‘It’s so full tonight it hangs like a coin tossed by some cosmic gambler.’
His timbered huff was laced with amusement. ‘A poet, cara?’ he drawled.
Embarrassment and irritation flared in me, and I shot my eyes to the ground, rinsing off a plate. It clattered as I flung it onto the pile with more force than necessary.
I exhaled, trying to rein in the frustration simmering beneath my skin. I sensed his gaze following me as I moved about, assessing me, breaking me down.
The nerve of this man.
I ignored him, pressing my lips together and focusing on my cleaning.
He turned his attention to the darkness, head tilted as if listening to the night.
I sneaked a glance as he nodded to himself, content there was no danger.
My pussy rippled as his thighs once again bunched when he executed a smooth ruse.
Without a word, he dusted off his trousers using his freehand with a nonchalance that made me clench my jaw.
Without a word, he strode back toward the shack.
The screen door creaked and slammed shut behind him, leaving me alone at last with the gurgle of the creek and the sigh of the wind.
I finished the dishes in silence, trying to shake him out of my freakin’ mind.
When I slipped back inside, I found him in my bedroom, the door open, where the lamps cast a soft glow over the interior, throwing his figure into sharp relief.
He lay sprawled across my bed, under the sheets and a duvet to the side, his chest bare and gleaming.
My shake-off plan detonated.
Damn him and his sleek golden, muscled physique that had my clit pulsing in ways it had never done in years.
I averted my eyes from his beauty, nabbing my pajamas and socks from my wardrobe.
‘Socks? How can you bear it? It’s too hot in this one-room shack,’ he declared from behind me, his timbre languid, lazy, so after midnight.
‘Find a cooler shack then for yourself,’ I shot back, my hands balling my nightclothes.
I swept past and caught sight of his lips curling, his heated gaze weighted like a physical touch.
Swiveling from the bedroom to the kitchen, where he had a line of sight, I stored the dishes and banked the fire.
Using the entryway to change, where I was hidden from his view, I slipped on my nightwear, shivering.
Unlike Adonis in my bed, I felt the cold, even more so when I was agitated.
The fireplace embers glowed a soft orange as I pushed them around, the poker clinking against the stone hearth. The flames subsided with a final flicker, resigning to a gentle smolder .
Shadows stretched and yawned across the room, reaching for the corners as I turned off the battery-powered lamps and plunged the cabin into near darkness.
A bold shaft of moonlight spilled through the window, casting a silver radiance into the room.
Settling on the couch, I wrapped myself in a thick blanket that did little to ward off the cold and restlessness gnawing at me.
All the while, I cursed him for imposing on my space, for being so undeservedly comfortable in my bed.
The room was shrouded in shadow, save for the faint glow of cinders dying in the fireplace.
Silence hung heavy, punctuated only by the occasional hoot of an owl from somewhere in the dark woods and my muted curses.
The sofa groaned beneath me as I shifted for the umpteenth time, trying to find a sliver of comfort on the cushions.
‘Scusa,’ his timbre cut through the stillness.
I half sat up, eyes slicing to his moonlit silhouette across the cabin.
His sheets rustled with his movement. ‘Woman, take the fuckin’ bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.’
I squinted through the darkness towards the form brazenly sprawled over my mattress.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, my intonation more a growl than intended.
‘Doesn’t sound fine, with all that tossing and turning,’ he observed, the amusement apparent even without seeing his face.
‘I’m good,’ I insisted, pressing my back into the sofa to prove its sudden transformation into a haven of comfort.
There was a pause, a moment where I sensed his mocking disbelief.
I pictured the smirk likely tugging at the corner of his lips—smug and knowing. My fists clenched onto the blanket over me, imagining my hands around his corded neck, squeezing the air out of his freakin’ muscled chest.
‘Suit yourself,’ he growled. ‘But you’ll be by my side soon enough, bella.’
What an ass, I thought to myself, but the ache in my lower back and the constant shifting to find some semblance of comfort wore me down.
In time, however, the couch transformed into a small boat in a sea of restlessness, each toss and turn a wave threatening to capsize me into wakefulness.
After many long minutes, pride lost out to exhaustion.
Exasperation became my north star, guiding me to rise in defeat. The floorboards were cool under my feet as I tiptoed toward the inevitable—my bed.
I saw him lever one of his leonine eyes open and use his free arm reach to rearrange the duvet for me.
‘Don’t you dare say it,’ I warned with a growl.
‘Wouldn’t dare it,’ he rasped, but I tagged the smug look on his face.
I climbed in with my pajamas and thick socks, his brow cocked, ‘Quite the ensemble.’
‘Thank fuck they’re not for your benefit.’
‘Still, they’re -,’ his lips curled, ‘sensuale.’
His voice was a timbred rumble in the dimness, laced with that damnable cocksure attitude.
I grabbed the sheets at the foot of the mattress and pulled them over me. ‘Just shut up. For a man who says little during the day, you’re hella chatty at night,’ I muttered .
‘That’s because we’re in bed, and I’m always filthy when horizontal,’ came the raw, graveled drawl.
I hissed, and he chuckled, his chest rumbling.
‘Go to fuckin’ sleep,’ I shot back, tugging the blanket to my chin despite the heat.
‘Damn, she’s just as dirty as I am.’
This man was undaunted by my iciness, which only heated me more.
The sheets rustled as I adjusted myself, my back turned to him.
The room’s silence was punctuated by the rhythmic pulse of cricket song outside and the occasional hoot of an owl.
I wriggled, trying to find my spot.
‘Uncomfortable?’ His voice was softer now, above a whisper.
I remained mute, bristling because he was in my usual spot.
Instead, he shifted, and the mattress dipped with his movement.
The bed realigned under his weight as he moved flat on his back.
I shivered.
In this small space, every inch counted, and our arrangement now required a closeness that set my nerves aflame.
‘Slide over,’ he murmured, his arm lifting, making room in the only way the cramped quarters allowed.
It was a gesture that called for compromise, a silent agreement that we were two beings trying to rest in a shared patch of night.
I edged closer with great reluctance, aware of the heat emanating from him even before our sides touched.
The air thinned, and I held my breath as I tucked into the space beside him, our bodies aligned yet separate. It was a dance of distance within closeness, the careful choreography of sharing a bed without partaking in anything more.
‘Better?’ he asked, a note of genuine inquiry softening his gruff bravado.
‘Fine,’ I lied, the word bitter on my tongue.
‘Fine’ was a world away from the truth, but it was the only option to offer to avoid betraying the turmoil within.
His steady breathing was like a metronome, piercing the cabin’s silence.
That and the scent of his cologne sent my senses spiraling from annoyance to unbidden lust.
Each rise and fall of his chest was an inexplicable pull—a gravitational force that both unnerved me and set my blood to simmer.
I wished it was a chasm to put all available distance between us.
So I’d escape all this shit sensation I was experiencing.
There was no contact, not the slightest brush of skin against skin.
Yet the atmosphere appeared charged with his presence, vibrating with an energy that crept along my nerves, teasing them into reluctant arousal.
I closed my eyes, willing away the sensations, focusing instead on the darkness behind my lids.
A sigh escaped me, misting in the air before dissipating like a wisp of unspoken dreams.
It’d been too long since I’d shared any bed.
Since I’d allowed someone close enough to break through the barriers of my solitary existence.
I cursed the heat, the sweat that clung to my brow, and above all, him for being there, for breathing, for existing so with such ease in a space that was mine.
Yet, I was unable to ignore the pull of his body heat, fighting the pulse of desire between my legs.
I fought the gnawing in the pit of my stomach, a yearning I had long suppressed was powerless to disregard—a hunger for warmth, connection, and the basic comfort of another’s touch.
It was more than just the bed—it was the principle, the invasion, the casual disruption of my solitude, and the realization that living alone fucking sucked.
It ate at me, this grudging acknowledgment that Alessio was making me feel, want, and yearn despite my resentment.
I hated that he’d been my rescuer those years ago and, as a result, held some perverse power over me.
I loathed that he had my Nonna under his control, effectively placing me in his.
I detested how sensual he was, how freakin’ sexy when I had no time for his brand of problematic entanglement.
Damn, I despised everything about him, I thought with fierce annoyance.
The resentment swirled in a bitter cocktail of anger and longing.
I balled my fists, digging my nails into my palms, hating him for the ease with which he occupied my bed and my turbulent thoughts.
Turning to my side, I squeezed my eyes shut, willing sleep to claim me and quell the storm of emotions brewing within.
‘Cleo,’ came the quiet rumble from behind me. ‘Calma. I’ll watch over you.’
I froze, as, to my freakin surprise, my limbs relaxed, and my breathing slowed.
I realized with a jolt that the relief in my body came from having someone else beside me.
It’d been so long since I’d shared my space and life with anyone.
Too long since I’d experienced the paradoxical mix of irritation and intrigue that another human being in my domain provoked.
Years since I’d allowed myself to feel anything but self-imposed isolation.
Too fuckin’ long.
Despite my annoyance at his intrusion, Alessio’s presence permitted me to surrender—to allow someone other than myself to provide me with a measure of security, to let some other soul share my unseen load.
I breathed in his musk, my heart settling, my mind resting, and my spirit falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.