Chapter Seven #3
She looked up at him, fighting the pull of reality. Fighting the embarrassed heat that was already flowing into her cheeks. “Have you had enough?”
One corded arm swung around her lower back, and he pulled her forward.
A filthy curse and a string of Italian met her ears when she thrust up in answer.
Then his mouth touched hers in a sweet kiss that stole the breath from her lungs.
Wedged hard against him, the heat and hardness of his erection branded her.
All she wanted was to move, to rub up against him until the restlessness under her skin found a destination.
But his grip was firm on her legs, keeping her prisoner.
“From the moment I saw you, standing apart from the crowd…”
Sam wanted to ask what he was talking about. But he didn’t give her a chance.
His mouth and his whispers and his kisses stole rational thought. “Wanting something so much, only…” He drew a trail from the corner of her mouth to her chin to the pulse at her neck, punctuating his kisses with words, breathing them into her skin.
And then suddenly, he stopped.
She sensed the shift in his mood as easily as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over them. “Alessandro,” she whispered, pushing that one lock of unruly hair from his forehead like she’d wanted to so many times. “What is it?”
He didn’t budge. Didn’t look up.
Slowly, he pulled the flaps of the dress apart. And Sam knew what had stopped his lazy exploration. What had frozen him.
Alessandro stared blankly, his stomach so tight with lust that it took him a few minutes to circle back to what had made him stop.
He had ripped the rest of the buttons until her ridiculous dress had fallen open, baring her chest and belly to him. The clingy material cupped her small breasts, and his palms ached to do the same.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. The edges of the dress just barely covered the tight knots of her nipples. He could see the light brown aureoles, the tips pushing at the fabric.
He’d also pushed the dress up her thighs, which were stretched wide. Her skin was silky smooth. Lips swollen, hair half out of her braid, she was the most achingly lovely thing Alessandro had ever seen. So lovely that the image of her like this would haunt him for the rest of his life.
All he wanted to do was bend his head and lick her all over. Up and down, around the swells of her breasts and below, until he could play with her piercing.
It took him an eternity to focus on the scar he’d felt under his fingertips. For a second, he’d thought he’d imagined it and stepped back.
Sunlight illuminated her golden-brown skin and the rough ridge of the scar drew a line down, starting at the top between her breasts, going lower. Deep too, as if someone had taken a scalpel and dug into her flesh not just once but multiple times.
He traced it up and down, fighting for control over his breath.
Fighting to not give into the panic inching its fingers all across him, leaving something cold and ugly in its trail.
Breath harsh, he pressed his palm against her rib cage, desperate to feel the beat of her heart.
The thud of it, the soft gasp from her lips, made him realize how roughly he’d grabbed her.
He jerked away, feeling as if he’d been hit in the head and it was still ringing.
Her throat bobbed, sending a ripple of motion down her chest, and his gaze jerked up to meet hers. For once, he couldn’t read her expression. Always so open and honest and artlessly direct—her words and her eyes. Yet now, it was as if she’d slammed a shutter down between them.
He traced the scar gently, unable to stop. “What…made this?”
“Heart surgery.”
A quiet roar reverberated within him, demanding release. “When?”
“What do you mean, when?”
“When did you have the surgery, Sameera?” he bit out.
“I had three heart surgeries between ages eleven and eighteen. The third time was due to a valve problem.” There was a forced lightness to her words that he knew was fake. It was probably the first time he’d seen her fake anything. “But I’ve enjoyed perfect health ever since the last one.”
Her words were soft as if she was determined to manage his mood, manage him.
A part of him, the rational part, warned that she shouldn’t have to manage his emotions when she revealed such private information. That the onus of his reaction shouldn’t be on her. And yet, he couldn’t pin his emotions down, couldn’t shove them away so that he didn’t discomfit her.
“That’s where you met Matteo,” he said tonelessly, remembering Matteo going to see their great-aunt who lived in California when she’d had surgery. “At the hospital.”
“In the hospital café, while I was still in my horrible ass-baring gown.” Her wide smile was the genuine thing.
“I’d snuck away from my ward. Bored out of my mind because they said I should stay overnight for a routine checkup.
I wanted chips. But I forgot cash. He bought me a bag of chips and flirted with me outrageously right there, while I tried not to flash him my ass. ”
Emotion rattled him—thick and blinding, familiarly unfamiliar, bringing images to bore down on him like an avalanche. The very thought of Sameera looking small and tiny on a clinical hospital bed stole his breath.
The image was too vivid. Too real.
He’d seen Violetta like that for so long. For four years, he’d spent hours at her side in the evenings, reading to her, playing chess with her, holding her hand.
It was diabolically cruel how easily his mind replaced Violetta with Sam… Sam in an ugly pristine white hospital. Sam with her smile faint, the light in her eyes dim. Sam with her breath thin and faint.
Maledizione! He pushed away from the table, sweat beading on his face. His mind was playing games. Triggering memories from a painful period in his life. Which was ridiculous.
Yes, Sam had reminded him of Violetta from the first. Something about the glowing spirit wrapped in steel that they possessed. But Violetta was gone. And Sam was here, vibrantly alive.
“Alessandro?”
He turned to find Sam watching him with trepidation in her eyes.
“That’s why your parents are so protective of you.” Everything fell into place, but he’d never wanted more to live in ignorance, had never understood Matteo’s love for deluding himself more. “Why you still live with them. Why…” His words became sharp, hostile. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I?” she asked in a small, baffled voice.
It was like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull. “I asked you point-blank why they were so protective of you.”
“So?” Anger painted her cheeks a reddish tint.
“I didn’t have to share anything with you.
Especially now, when you’re actively avoiding me.
” She pushed off from the table, her dress still unbuttoned to her belly button.
Her hair was in a disarray, her neck and jaw a little reddened where his stubble had scratched her.
She looked glorious. “You think I walk around showing people my scar and telling them my history?”
“Why is that wrong? What if you needed an emergency visit? How was I supposed to take care of you? How can you be so irresponsible and flippant about this?”
She flinched, and Alessandro wondered if he was losing his mind.
Chin quivering, she looked at him as if he’d betrayed her in the worst possible way.
“I’m choosing to see this as your concern for me and not…
” Her words shook, slender body trembling with fury.
“If you ever assume that I don’t know my own mind or even insinuate that I’m helpless…
I’ll never forgive you.” She swallowed, and that she had a better measure of control over her emotions than he did right then shamed him.
“I have all my insurance information, my medication prescriptions, my monthly checkups already set up. As for emergency, it’s no different from anyone else needing to be rushed to the ER. ”
“I still think you should’ve shared your—”
“Why? So that everyone can look at me the way you’re looking at me now? I can see the way you perceive me shifting in front of my very eyes…” Her words held a question in them.
But Alessandro couldn’t think beyond what it meant to him. Couldn’t get perspective. Silence had never felt like it could tear two people apart.
Hurt twisted her smile into a mockery. “Thinking this thing between us was worthy of exploration was a colossal mistake. My age, Matteo, and now my history…you’ll find something to reject this.
And that’s your prerogative. But I’ll be damned if I let you make me believe that I’m not—” Tears filled her eyes and she inhaled loudly.
“I finally understand why Matteo calls you a machine. But he doesn’t know the worst, does he?
It’s not that you can’t feel. It’s that you don’t want to. ”
She swept out of the kitchen, holding her dress together, her spine straight, head held high.
Alessandro stayed still for a long time, his mind still reeling. Suddenly, he could see all the reasons their chemistry was more than surface level: because she understood what it meant to not have power over your own life.
But her fears and her very real struggles hadn’t stopped her from wanting to live, from wanting to taste everything life offered. From recognizing the same hunger in him, even though he was everything she called him—remote, ruthless, heartless.
Only now did he realize how much more he’d lost than Violetta fourteen years ago. Grief had robbed so much from him—friends, of family, even his brother. Laughter. Simple pleasures. The ability to connect.
It had isolated him until he had gotten used to having nothing.