Chapter 18
Luca
FOR DAYS, VIVIENNE became my shadow. If I was up at dawn, so was she, insistent on accompanying me to the gym on the other side of the house.
My little bird focused on sculpting already toned muscles.
I was forced to look at her ass in spandex and some tiny scrap of fabric with a hundred straps crisscrossing her back.
They were designed to hold her giant tits in place—a complete failure.
So I was the miserable dick who followed them as they swayed and bounced and enticed.
I growled through my sets, adding more weight just to tame my lewd thoughts.
I wanted to haul her across my knee and punish every inch of her with pleasure, yet I had no right to her body, mind, or soul. That didn’t stop me from thinking about every complicated piece of her every damn minute.
If she wasn’t working out, she was swimming. I walked the beach, keeping pace with her stroke for stroke, my gun at the ready. Paranoia prompted me to command a team to patrol the water by boat. There could never be too much protection.
I preferred it when she climbed, quivering and weak, from the ocean and into my arms, where I had a towel ready.
I wasn’t surprised when she shivered as I wrapped it around her shoulders, but I was amazed when I did the same.
Her nose was nearly buried into my neck—the closest we ever came together.
Days with Vivienne weren’t long enough. When the sun fell and we were separated by six inches of drywall, time dragged on in an insomniac’s nightmare.
On top of the mattress, arm bent, hand beneath my head, still dressed but with bare feet, I listened for her words.
They always came in a litany of prayers, my name mixed in the bunch.
Minutes later, the chatter was replaced by a low moan that pushed a button somewhere inside me.
Instantly tense, I closed my eyes while my imagination ran wild.
Vivi flat on her back, legs spread, and her hand working over her hard, swollen clit.
And those tits. Jesus fuck. In a frenzy, I reached for my belt, tugging it and the zipper open, pushing the fabric down just enough for my cock to spring free.
It was as if she could see me and my crown, which was already weeping from the tip.
Her sweet, needy groan melded with mine as I fisted my already straining shaft.
Relief hissed through my teeth, and I had to release the pressure of my hand.
Vivi was inches away, and I didn’t want her to hear my need.
She couldn’t know I longed to cage her in and hold her captive for a lifetime.
But the serpent tempted, and I was merely a sinful man ready to eat from the tree.
As my determination for separation slipped, so did my fingers to my base.
I squeezed, held in a groan, and doubled down on my efforts.
I saw Vivi as if it were her hand, her mouth, and her throat opening to take me whole.
Sweat trickled from my skin. My T-shirt clung to my chest, so I ripped it off and imagined shoving it in her mouth to force her silence.
Or using it to restrain her wrists, keeping her bound while she squirmed against my control.
I’d fuck her everywhere in this godforsaken apartment. The counter would be first. Bent over and on the tips of her toes, I’d kick her feet apart and plow into her from behind. She’d beg. The pleas mixed with the clang of my belt and the obscene slapping of my tight grip on even tighter flesh.
Her muscles tensed. I felt the contraction of her body as if it were wrapped around mine when she came in a rush.
When I came in a rush. I choked. The sound scraped past my throat, and I bit my lip to hold it inside.
Cum laced my chest, slicking my palm and making my skin slippery while my stokes turned lazy and long.
Christ. I scrubbed a hand over my face and laughed.
The little vixen got me worked up. It took a minute to catch my breath, and then I used my T-shirt to clean myself off.
Finally, sleep came, only for the sun to rise and demand we repeat the day.
This time it started with furtive glances that said we both knew how the other spent their night.
Vivienne escaped the thick air in the kitchen to swim.
When she walked from the bay in a suit that was both too revealing and too fucking perfect, too Vivienne, my heartbeat centered in my dick, and I nearly shot Marco.
He was a nobody. A guy who’d been with the family from birth.
A guard she never looked at once in her life but who stared at her in a way that ignited a fire in my veins.
Vivi saved him by moving past me without a glance. She didn’t stop for a towel or to catch her breath. All she did was walk away with water dripping from her ivory skin, and I followed. Of course, I fucking followed all the way to her suite. Gesù Cristo. I had lost my mind.
I scrubbed my face, then leaned on the counter while she showered.
The urge to join her burned as hot as the compulsion to kill Marco.
I fought against the impulse to do both, focusing on making her a goddamn latte just the way she liked, with vanilla and a dash of cinnamon.
For the love of Christ, I didn’t go so far as to swirl the foaming milk into a leaf pattern, or, God forbid, a heart.
Fanculo la mia vita. Fuck my life.
I closed my eyes, dropping my forehead against the cupboard just in time for her to return.
A little smile curled the corner of her lip.
Her cheeks flushed into a pretty pink, amusement lighting up her eyes, but she said nothing.
My gaze followed her to the hearth, where she flicked a switch.
Flames ignited immediately, and then she wrapped herself in a thick blanket, snuggling into a ball on the couch.
Wet, sloppy hair piled on top of her head didn’t ease the tension in my muscles. Neither did the puzzle she worked on in the silent moments that filled her free time.
I stood behind her, steaming coffee in hand. “Sudoku?” I asked, handing her the mug.
“A different game.” She murmured her thanks, setting the handwritten note on her drawn-up knees. “Mama and I played to help my brain.”
“Explain. Per favore,” I prompted as I sat on the opposite side of the couch.
She thought for a minute, biting her lip as if she didn’t want to part with the secret. Finally, she blinked her eyes to mine.
“I’m dyslexic. That means a lot of things for me.
Words and numbers look different. It’s part of the reason why I have trouble with cooking.
” She laughed. “Mostly I’m just terrible.
I don’t have the patience or timing to get everything right.
Add to that measuring anything that has to be exact, and oh boy.
” Her smile twisted my organs into new placement.
“I can do it, but it takes time. My mother tried to help, as did a swarm of therapists, but my brain is stubborn.”
I wasn’t an expert on the subject, but I knew a disability would’ve made Vivi’s upbringing doubly hard. Vigo expected perfection. He demanded it of his children, as shown by Stefano’s Yale education and Dante’s Princeton.
“What college did you attend?” I asked.
A brittle sound stuck in her throat. After washing it down with a sip from her cup, she stared at it rather than me. “You know I didn’t go. Wasted money.”
“Those are your father’s words.”
She shrugged. “They’re true, though. I had special teachers who taught me a lot, but I was never a good student. I’ve just learned to live with how my mind interprets things. Mama said I was special.”
“She was right.”
Her cheeks went pink, and I fought the urge to inch closer and feel the heat flushing her skin. I stayed where I had to.
“Anyway.” She picked up the scratch pad, scanning over the page. “Mama created games for me to decipher, like tricking my brain into understanding. I found one in her things that she must have made before she died.”
My pulse spiked. This was the note she clutched when Dante and I interrupted her days ago. The information someone had killed for, and Vigo wanted.
It was exactly what I needed to finally end this charade.