Chapter Twenty #2
“No,” I say and pause before continuing. “It’s not cheese.”
“No, it is, though!” Her eyes widen like she’s offended. “Stracia… whatever. It’s totally cheese!”
“Yeah, it’s also egg soup,” I say.
Her brows furrow.
“What?” She looks in the container, considers. "Hmm. I don’t know. This doesn't look like soup. Or eggs."
She looks at me, biting her lip.
"I think I know what I'm talking about here, Erica." I tap my spoon against the lid again. "This is egg soup."
I tap my spoon against the pistachio. "This one is the cheese."
She fights a smile and taps her spoon on the third one. "What's this one? Bread?"
"Don't be ridiculous," I say, keeping my voice even. "It's obviously gelato."
"Oh, good." She reaches for it and pries the lid off, revealing a pale yellow base with darker yellow swirls mixed in. She frowns at me. "Are you sure this isn't the egg soup?"
She’s teasing me.
She’s teasing me. And I will take every single second of it.
“Maybe,” I say, and I let her dip her spoon into the lemon gelato. “Why don’t you find out?”
I take my own spoon and dip it into the stracciatella, getting a little bit of chocolate with the vanilla cream.
Erica takes a bite of the lemon, and her eyes widen.
“Okay, so maybe it’s not egg soup,” she says, her lips pulling into another small smile. “But it’s good. Really good.”
I hold my spoon out for her to taste.
She opens her mouth and gently slides the bite off my spoon.
Her lips brush the metal, and the contact is barely anything, but I feel it on my skin.
I hear the soft crunch of chocolate as she samples it, then her eyes roll up toward the ceiling in reluctant surrender.
“Oh,” she says, soft and annoyed. “Okay. That one’s… really good.”
She stretches the last two words out, so she’s nearly moaning them.
“Yeah,” I say, and my voice has gone husky.
Her gaze flicks to me for half a second, and there’s a question there she doesn’t ask.
She looks away and takes another bite of lemon, running her tongue over the spoon lightly.
I watch her do it.
I watch the way she keeps her eyes on the TV like the paint samples of the home renovation show are suddenly fascinating, like if she stares hard enough, the screen will save her from the fact that she’s sitting under a throw blanket with me, in this empty house, eating gelato out of containers as if this is normal.
My body doesn’t care that it isn’t.
My body registers her mouth, the slow drag of her tongue over the spoon, the soft sound she makes when she takes a particularly good bite.
And my first instinct is to lean in.
To take. To lick the gelato off her tongue, out of her mouth.
To test how far she’ll let me go right now.
It’s a bad instinct.
So I clamp down on it.
I force my gaze off her mouth and onto her face instead, and the reality of the day is right there. Puffy lids. Raw skin around her eyes. That blotchy flush that doesn’t come from heat or embarrassment—it comes from hours of crying.
She’s an emotional wreck.
She’s barely holding herself together, and she’s relying on me to help her.
The last thing she needs is me adding my dick to the whole mess.
Or my tongue. Licking her like she’s licking that spoon.
Control it, Conti.
I drag in a slow breath through my nose and make my voice steady again.
“Try the pistachio,” I tell her, holding out the container, trying not to think about how there’s one flavor I can think of that’s better than all three of these.
And it’s sitting barely a foot away, between her legs. Ready for the taking.
Erica huffs a small laugh without looking at me. “You have some sort of obsession with feeding me, don’t you?” she says.
Feeding my dick between those lips, little by little, until it’s too much. Until she’s begging me with those big blue eyes for mercy.
I shift on the couch, trying to get comfortable without giving away the fact that I’m currently as hard as steel.
“Somebody has to,” I say, and my tone is rougher than I intend. “You forget to do it yourself.”
A beat of silence hangs between us.
The TV is on. A woman is talking about kitchen islands with waterfall countertops.
I’m trying not to think about putting Erica over my countertop.
Her spoon makes a soft click against the side of the container as she sets it down. Then she picks it up again, like she forgot what she was doing.
The scent of her shampoo drifts over, and it’s all citrus and clean and something uniquely her.
And it’s not helping. At all.
I don’t move. I breathe through it. I hold my own spoon steady and watch her out of the corner of my eye as she finally dips her spoon into the pistachio.
I want to bend her over the back of the couch and make her beg for my cock. I want to hear the word "Sir" on her lips, and not at the office.
Her lips close around the spoon.
Her brows furrow in concentration, and I watch her swallow.
Her throat works, a delicate line of muscle against pale skin.
I want to close my hand around her throat while I pound into her. Hard.
I can see it so clearly, I can feel it.
The heat of her.
The tight grip of her hands on my shoulders.
The breathy little noises she’d make when I hit just the right spot.
I can feel the phantom ghost of her hair wrapped around my knuckles, and I curl my own fingers into a fist against my thigh, digging the nails in hard until I can feel it. Until I can feel something else besides this overwhelming, all-consuming urge to claim her.
All it's doing is reminding me of her nails digging into my back as I take her to the edge over and over until she's begging for permission to come.
Permission I will only give her when she's ready. When she's completely and utterly mine.
Then, I'll grant it.
And watch her fall apart for me. A screaming, sobbing mess.
This isn’t working.
It’s not working at all.
She licks her lips. A tiny flick of pink tongue.
And I have to physically stop myself from groaning out loud.
I can't do this here. I can't do this now.
She’s in a fragile state.
One that I helped cause.
No one has ever accused me of being a good man. Ask a dozen men and women, and you'll get a dozen answers. None of them good.
But I’m not this. I’m not the guy who takes advantage of a woman when she’s vulnerable.
Even if I want to be. Desperately.
“It’s… good,” Erica says, pulling me abruptly out of a fantasy I shouldn’t be having. “I don't know if I've ever gone for pistachio before. That was obviously a mistake."
I force my mind back to the present, however painful it is to leave that fantasy behind.
“Of course it's good," I say. “It's— gelato."
Abruptly, my lust slips away.
The words "it's Bianca's" were on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. After what happened earlier, I don't want Erica to feel bad. Even just having the gelato feels like I'm parading my family in her face.
Hearing her cry about having no one in her life, no one to care for, no one to lean on, no one to call when things were good or bad. I never want to hear that tone in her voice again.
Instead, I just eat another spoonful and watch her.
But she’s setting the spoon down, and the smile she’d been wearing slips away.
I set my spoon down, too, as she shifts to face me.
“Erica?”
“Don’t do that,” she says quietly.
“Don’t do—”
“You were going to say Bianca’s,” she says dully. It’s tired and sad. “You stopped yourself. Because of me. Because I freaked out earlier.”
I hold her gaze for a beat longer, then look away. I picture Bianca shoving the extra container of gelato in the bag because she thought I’d want it, loading up our dinner with extras and sides because it makes her happy to feed people.
I think of Elena rallying us up for Sunday dinner. Giovanni checking in on everything and counting heads at every event.
Even my sister Lucia hesitantly walking back into our family home, twelve years after helping put our father in prison, with a family of her own, to try to mend fences.
Family. Noise. People who show up, even when we’re not on the best of terms.
And sitting across from me is a woman who spent the day alone in a hospital waiting room, then came home to an empty house and broke down on her living room floor.
Alone.
I don’t want to shove that contrast in her face like it’s some kind of flex.
“Whatever I was going to say—”
“Now who’s the one lying?” she says. “Are you going to spank yourself for that, Nico?”
My mouth twitches before I can stop it.
“No,” I say flatly. “But you’ve got one coming for even suggesting it.”
Her breath hitches.
Just a tiny catch.
But I hear it.
I see the flicker in her eyes before she smothers it.
“Don’t distract me from the topic.”
“I didn’t bring up spanking, sweetheart,” I say, my voice husky.
“I’m just saying,” she continues, speaking deliberately to keep her mind on the topic.
“I don’t want you censoring yourself or walking on eggshells because I had a meltdown.
Like you have to pretend they don’t exist so I don’t feel…
whatever the hell I’m feeling.” Her throat bobs.
She swallows it down. “That’s not what I want. ”
I stay still under the throw, forcing my hands to remain on my own thighs, because the urge is to reach for her again, to stop the tremor in her voice before it turns into something worse.
“Don’t make yourself smaller because I’m a mess,” she says, softer now. “You’re allowed to be proud of your family and talk about them.” She exhales. “In fact, I insist on it.”
I hold her gaze for a beat, then nod once.
“Fine,” I say. “No censoring. No eggshells.”
Her shoulders drop a fraction.
“Okay,” she whispers in relief.
I lean back into the couch, take the remote, and turn the volume of the TV up.
After a moment, I say, “Let’s see what shade of beige these people chose for their house.”
Erica leans back, brushing my arm with hers.
“I bet they chose eggshell.” There’s a moment of silence between us, then she pokes me with her elbow. “Get it? Eggshell?”
I heave out a huge sigh. “There’s no one else here, and yet I’m still embarrassed.”
“No, it was a good one. Admit it.” But she can’t hide the wide smile on her face.
“Not on your life,” I say, deadpan.
She lets out a laugh—a genuine laugh. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard one of those out of her.