5. Giulia
Renzo!
I turned, grabbing my robe that was resting on the foot of my bed.
What is he doing here?
I’d have to wait to ask. He was quick to drop and hide at the sound of Beatrice waking up. Facing her now, I hurried to comfort her.
After I left my parents down the hall, I came to my room and found my youngest sister curled up on the chaise where she liked to read. Just to be near me, she always said. With the fright from earlier, I wasn’t surprised that she came into my room wanting some sense of security. It was the middle of the night, though, and she hadn’t lasted long with her e-reader. It lay on her lap as she sat up, happening to wake right when freaking Renzo entered my room.
“Shh.” I rushed to calm her, reaching out to her and hugging her.
I didn’t need her screaming in fright, scared by the sight of a man in my room.
“I saw?—”
I held her close, urging her to stand. “A dream,” I cooed. “It was just a dream.”
She nodded, furrowing her brow as I led her away from the chaise. Making sure to block any view of Renzo on the floor, I held my robe out and hustled her to the door. “You’ll feel better in your own bed, not that little chaise.”
“I know,” she admitted before she yawned, blinking with her eyes still half sleepy. “I just wanted to wait up for you to come in your room. I don’t like it when they fight.”
Neither do I. I walked her to the door and kissed her brow as I opened it.
For all I knew, Renzo could be gone again by the time I returned from seeing Beatrice back in her own bed. I kissed her brow, eager to go back and see why the hell that man had snuck into our house, let alone into my room.
His brother had only been dead for mere hours. So, as I walked back to my room, opened the door, then closed it behind me, I wondered why . Was he here to seek comfort? Was he eager to finish what we started and couldn’t finish, resorting to intimacy to avoid reacting to his brother’s death?
“Renzo?” I whispered as I crept over the carpet, my bare feet silent.
Was it all my imagination? No. Beatrice saw him too. I felt every ? —
He stepped out from around my dresser, stalking toward me. At once, I revisited that instant connection and flare of heat that his heated stare incited in me. Feeling his gaze rove over me lit me up inside, fraying my nerves into a mess. I hadn’t dreamed this up. This was twice now that I was suffering from the tension and awareness of his smoldering stare.
“Renzo,” I repeated, scolding him the best I could in these conditions. Like being nearly naked. And us alone. In my room. That he was even here.
“What are you doing here?” I wrapped my robe over myself, vainly trying to cover up and at least look like I was attempting to be modest. Alarm registered in my mind, dulling the immediate arousal he’d stoked by looking at me like that.
“Fuck, Giulia,” he rasped, reaching me and trying to grab my waist.
I sidestepped his hands, glaring at him the best I could while resisting my desire to lunge at him and pick up where we’d left off.
He wasn’t some new, shiny thing. We’d known each other since we were children, always near but never friends. The longstanding antagonism between our Families prevented us from ever becoming more than mutually loathed acquaintances, but we’d always been aware of the other lurking in the background.
Only now, since he’d found me wanting a moment of peace while I hid at that party, did I feel this sweeping, all-consuming need to be near him.
To feel him.
And kiss him until he growled and clutched at me tighter.
He was just as conflicted as I was. His gaze turned hotter, and his face went taut with more grooves on his brow. Scowling and narrowing his eyes, he silently warned me not to shy away or fight back again.
Too bad.
“Why are you here?” I asked again, crossing my arms to hold my robe together.
“I came to see your father,” he said, setting his hand on my waist.
His touch burned me. This thin robe did nothing as a proper layer of protection. I didn’t dodge away, too thrilled with the unique excitement from having his fingers on me again.
“In my room?” I challenged, refusing to show him how much his rough hold got to me. I shivered, hating my body’s reaction, and he placed his other hand on my back. Within his embrace, I was trapped. Under his hot gaze and caught between his big hands, he had me right where he wanted me, looking like he was eager to resume where we’d left off.
“I saw him drunk and asleep at the other end of the hall,” he explained, stepping closer as he breathed quicker. Tension built between us, hot and sizzling as we stared each other down. His hands didn’t leave me, and I kept my arms crossed.
He brought his left hand up my side, almost massaging me, and his right hand at my back lowered until he could bunch up the material of my robe in his hand. Those skilled fingers curled against my ass with the motion, and I faltered in my determination to resist him.
“Why?” I asked, sounding too breathy to really appear defensive.
He reached my shoulder and nudged my robe over it. As the fabric slid free, it tickled my skin.
“I think he killed my brother.”
I frowned at him. That comment jarred me, snapping me out of this reverie of lust he was too damn good and quick at causing.
“He didn’t,” I sassed, shaking my head.
He pulled me closer, lowering his hand to my upper arm. Pressure from his fingers built there. I felt no pain, but I refused to be kowtowed into lowering my arms like he suggested.
“You know that?” he challenged. He had a whole fistful of my robe bunched in his hand. The flimsy fabric pulled at my skin, and with the sleeve stuck at my elbow, he took advantage.
Tugging down, he forced the robe to pull my arm back. As soon as I lost that crossed-arm stance, he snaked his arm around me.
The contact of his muscled, hairy arm against my bare flesh fueled me with potent need. With a craving we’d had to pause earlier.
It returned in full force now, taunting me to give in again.
“Because I’m pretty sure you were otherwise preoccupied when someone murdered my brother.” He demonstrated a replay of how busy I’d been at that moment—with him. He slammed his lips to mine, kissing me without mercy as he tossed my robe to the floor.
Wrapping my arms around him, I reveled in the press of his lips, hungry and demanding against mine. Arching up into his kiss, I pulled myself flush to him, grinding over his hard body.
I had no restraint. I didn’t want any. Kissing Renzo in my room was just as bad of an idea as it was to kiss him in a secluded spot on that patio. And like those blissful short moments, this time was no less drugging and magical.
My pussy was slick once more, aching for his touch to fill me and tease me. I breathed so fast, dizzy with this deep desire. No matter how I reached up to cling to him, I couldn’t appease the tense sensation of my nipples, hard and trapped behind the cups of my bra.
I was lost to exploring this forbidden lust with him. As he rendered me weak and needy, chasing after his lips when he pulled back for air, I didn’t care.
“He didn’t kill Luka,” I repeated. It was a crime to be kissing and wanting him, but it was a worse grievance to do so with the thought that he’d come here to accuse my idiotic father.
“You know that?” he growled, dipping to kiss me harder.
When I reared back for air, panting and staring up at him, I implored him to understand. “Why would he have? My father has no reason to kill Luca.”
“We’re enemies,” he reminded me.
I pulled him lower for a hard kiss. “We are.”
Even though we’re not acting like it at all.
“My father had no reason to care about that wedding, about Luka. At all.”
He didn’t seem to believe me, but he didn’t look prepared to fight the issue. Gripping my ass, he lifted me in his hold. Kissing me and carrying me, he moved me to my bed. We fell together, and before I could reach up to cling to his neck fully, he snapped the elastic band to my thong and tugged the scrap away.
“He was right there,” he argued as he slid his hand lower to my pussy. “Your father was right there when it happened.”
I groaned at his slow drag, wishing he’d get his fingers inside me faster. Parting my legs, I gave him easy access. When he teased me, stalling with his fingers over my mound and almost tracing my entrance, I whined a helpless whimper and guided him lower.
I pushed his hand down, and once he curled a finger inside me, I let my eyes close at the tight intrusion.
“Nickolas.”
He stopped moving. “What?” he bit out.
Shit. I hadn’t completed my thought, already so overwhelmed by his touch. His hard tone implied that he didn’t want to hear me speak of another man while he was touching me.
“Nickolas must have killed Luka,” I added, breathing shallower as he sped up and rubbed against my clit.
He hadn’t asked me for my opinion, but if he was here and open enough to tell me his suspicions, then I should be too. This couldn’t be normal. Discussing who might have murdered his brother was a weird topic, but debating while he fingered me and kissed down my chest was even stranger.
No. Being able to speak with him—a Mafia man—about “important” matters was an oddity in and of itself.
“Why?” He slowed his fingers, kissing harder as he angled toward my breasts. “Why do you think that?”
“You care what I think?” I tried to keep the smile out of my tone.
He bit the edge of my bra cup and tugged it down. My breast popped out. That hard tip of my nipple pointed at him, and he didn’t waste a second to lean closer and suck it into his hot mouth.
“Oh!”
He looked up, glaring at me. “Not so loud.”
I replied by reaching for his face and pushing it back to my breast. He resisted, looking up at me. “Why shouldn’t I ask you? You’re always at the same things we are. You live in this world. You’re not an outsider.”
He had no clue how much that vote of confidence meant to me. Living with my controlling mother and indifferent father had me assuming I was literally good for nothing, but Renzo wasn’t that dismissive.
“Nickolas likely killed your brother because of that old score. I don’t remember the details, but they fought over that one whore.”
He stared at my breast, watching it sway as he pushed his hand against me, driving his fingers in so deep. “And she ended up dying when she was with Luka, at one of our properties.”
I moaned as he sucked my nipple into his mouth again. “Maybe… maybe Nickolas wanted that whore for good and was bitter that he’d lost her to Luka.”
“My brother didn’t kill her,” he argued. “I don’t think he did.” Then he tugged the other bra cup down, freeing my other breast. Back and forth, he alternated the agony of teasing with his mouth and tongue. Leaning on one elbow, he slanted over me as he pushed me closer and closer to coming. That buildup of tension couldn’t last for long, and I reached toward him to get there faster.
“I’m sorry,” I got out between quick breaths. “I’m sorry you lost your brother.”
He growled, moving up to kiss my mouth soundly. It seemed he didn’t want to hear pity. Or sympathy. All he focused on was this intoxicating intimacy we had no business trying to have.
“I wish I could lose it. With you. I want to fuck you hard, Giulia,” he growled against my mouth. His dark-blue gaze locked with mine, and I couldn’t look away as he pumped and stretched his fingers faster. “I don’t want to think about Luka fucking dying.” He kissed me harder. “Or that I have to step up to all this bullshit.”
I gasped at his thumb circling my clit. “Please.”
“I don’t want to think about any of these problems. All I want is this,” he whispered. “Proving that I can pleasure you and make you come so hard—” He slammed his lips over mine as I did.
I came. With glorious, freeing waves of relief, I lost the fight with that tension. It snapped. I fell apart, splintering under the euphoria of an intense orgasm that I was glad he’d had the foresight to cover my mouth for. He swallowed my loud moans and screams. His lips sealed the sounds I would’ve unconsciously emitted. If he hadn’t muffled me, the guards running through the hallways would’ve heard and knocked on the door. A lock was never an option here, and Renzo would’ve been found.
As I caught my breath, staring up at him, he glowered at the closed door.
He might have come here to interrogate my father, but he’d ended up finishing what we’d started.
And he was overstaying his stay.
“Giulia.” Francis, one of the lead guards, knocked on my door. “Giulia.
Still glowering at the closed panel of polished wood, Renzo got up smoothly. His fit physique aided him in moving like a ninja, silent and quick. As he lowered to get my robe and thrust it to me, he kept his stare on the door.
“Giulia.”
“In a moment,” I replied, “I’m indecent.”
Renzo smirked at me as I hurried to get my robe on.
“Giulia, open the door before I do,” Francis ordered. He wasn’t mean about it. I knew he was only doing his job. Even still, I couldn’t hurry. My fingers trembled. I felt the fading waves of my orgasm. My pussy was so sensitive, and on my thighs, my cum stuck to my skin.
Renzo took over, pulling the robe over me and tying the sash quickly.
“Giulia,” Francis warned.
Renzo dropped to his knees, hiding at my feet on this side of the bed where I stood.
Once he lowered out of sight from the doorway, Francis entered.
I huffed an indignant breath, flustered and alarmed. “What is the meaning of this?” I demanded. My heart raced with Renzo hidden in my room. If they found him, he’d be taken away. If he said a word about accusing my father of murder, he’d be dead.
With a funky sense of déjà vu, I hid him from the guards at the doorway. Francis narrowed his eyes, roving the room, and I crossed my arms and cleared my throat.
“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded.
“Patrol concerns,” he replied. “Someone alerted us to a potential intruder.”
Too late for that. “Don’t you dare wake my sisters.”
Francis nodded, still suspicious but appeased enough to leave the room.
I pulled on Renzo’s hair, tugging him up.
“Fuck,” he hissed at the sting. Catching my hand, he yanked me close for a hard kiss. “You'd better keep your mouth shut about your accusations.”
“About Nickolas?” I smirked. “You too. You can’t go around telling everyone my father killed Luka.”
He growled, kissing me once more. “He’s my enemy. You’re my enemy.”
“Yeah, which is why I need your word that you won’t tell anyone I was with you outside at the wedding.”
He arched one brow, glancing at the bed.
“And that.” I bit my lower lip. “Don’t tell anyone you were here.”
With a final grunt, he kissed me once more. “Why the fuck would I announce that I broke in here at all? I intend to get answers, and I won’t be sidetracked by an easy lay.”
I shoved at him, annoyed all over again. This hot-and-cold routine was gnawing on my nerves. “That wasn’t an ‘easy lay’. I’m still a virgin, and that’s the way it has to be.”
Glowering at me, he shook his head. “I mean it, Giulia. Don’t butt into this business about my brother. You keep your thoughts to yourself and don’t talk about it.”
Is he trying to… protect me? The idea of Renzo wanting to keep me safe felt foreign.
Rushing toward the balcony doors, he left without giving me a chance to demand his silence.
“Renzo!” I hissed, chasing after him as he flung himself over the railing and climbed down.
Spotting guards in the distance, I retreated to the relative security of my room.
One glance at the bed suggested that I’d never feel the same here again.