Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Dante
I knew I needed to take it slow, but there wasn’t the time.
Just as soon as I’d closed the priest’s door to the confessional and slipped the simple latch across to give us the privacy I understood we needed, I was aware of her, of every single part of her. And for those few seconds, the world around could have ended and I was convinced we wouldn’t have had a clue.
Trapped in a confined space, with what I knew was the most beautiful woman I had ever had the privilege of looking at, with adrenaline flooding my system, had to be the very best fucking high I’d ever felt.
So, here we were. The very position I’d been dreaming of since I’d sped away from her family home on Sunday. Her and me together, with my arms holding her, and her relying on me as though her life depended on it. The light around us was dim, but the candlelight that was managing to penetrate the decorative privacy screen appeared to pick out the gold in her hair. And I was sure it would do the same thing to those captivating hazel eyes of hers.
There was so much I wanted to say. But in the moment, I couldn’t say a thing.
Instead, I followed my need, tightened my hold over her and pulled her into my body. Like some lovesick teenager I briefly closed my eyes and inhaled as she exhaled, smelling the faint trace of mint on her breath. Feeling the way her chest rose and sank as she took in short, shallow breaths trying to gain control of her body, I realised she felt as overwhelmed with our situation as I did. The space we were confined in was small. I could have made it easier by sitting back onto the priest’s wooden bench and pulling her down onto my lap, but for now I chose not to, and I wasn’t prepared to ask myself why. I did understand one thing, that for some reason I was unable to let her go. Frighteningly, I understood the predetermined lines inside my head were beginning to blur. She was the sister of a man I hated. She was my tool to cause him the pain I so wanted him to feel at my hands. So why, when I smoothed my hand over the silk she was wearing and she snuggled further into me, did she feel like so very much more?
Stop thinking.
Slowly, I released one arm from her body and starting from her waist I drew my fingers up the side of her body, making her automatically move even closer. When I reached her long, slender neck, I trailed the tips of my fingers up her smooth skin and deliberately slowed when I reached her jaw. Carefully I applied pressure, gently coercing her to look up. Nothing could have prepared me for the way I felt when our eyes collided. In the silence of our guarded meeting, they spoke volumes. Her pain and anger were there laid out in front of me, but it was the trust, need and want that pierced my heart and, unable to wait any longer, I used my hand to hold the side of her face and lowered my mouth to hers.
‘If I forget to tell you later, you look beautiful, Giovanna.’ The few words left me on instinct. They were unprepared but full of truth.
Recognising, before our mouths even connected, that I would remember this kiss for the rest of my life, initially I slowed, not understanding what the hell was happening to me, but needing to absorb every nanosecond that passed between us. Briefly, I touched against her lips with my own repeatedly, watching her eyes flicker and close in response, until her own need unconsciously took over and her arms came up to wrap possessively around my neck. Using the hold she had on me, I released my arm from her waist and straightened my six-foot three frame up as much as our confines would allow, until I was sure she was on tip toes and every part of her body was leant onto mine.
Not wanting to scare her, I swallowed down the feral growl that was building in my throat. In that moment, her mouth opened and in the small fissure she’d created I swept my tongue inside, touching and caressing each sensitive part of the flesh she’d offered me. There, trapped in that wooden box, I taught her how to kiss and be kissed. Until the pupil became the master and she copied my every movement with one of her own. As she nipped and licked at my bottom lip my balls tightened and I felt the sort of ache I hadn’t known since I was an adolescent. With my mouth still consuming hers and bending my knees as much as the space would allow, using both of my hands I ran my fingers from her waist, up and under the top she was wearing. Finally, they encountered the lace of her bra. Using my thumbs, I skimmed over the top of her beaded nipples, until I was drawing circles over the needy buds. The moans she released into my mouth as she began to grind her hips against my painfully hard cock, I willingly committed to memory, before swallowing down the whimpers she released.
My senses were screaming to take her, here and now in the confessional.
Would that hurt him enough?
To know she’d run to me against his wishes. How would he feel when he realised I was the one she wanted to be with? That Dante Giordano was the one she had chosen to hold her and to take her virginity outside of marriage.
It wasn’t anything less than he deserved. But what about her? What about Giovanna?
Why the fuck do you care?
I asked myself the question while still pleasuring her with my mouth and hands. I had no idea why, as I already knew the answer. I cared about her and with most of my blood now residing in my cock, I hadn’t got the brain capacity to work out if I hated him more than I cared about her or vice versa.
She deserved more than that. I needed my head on straight if I was going to fuck with her life and then bail.
The sounds of the old women walking down the aisle brought me to my senses and I dropped my hands, pulled down her top and lifted my mouth from hers.
‘Dante?’ she questioned, as she moved her hands to my chest.
‘Too much, amore mio,’ I whispered, shaking my head at her. I lifted one of her hands from my chest and kissed it, making sure my eyes were in contact with hers.
‘Did I do something wrong?’ she questioned, looking up at me with the bee stung lips we’d created.
‘No, Giovanna.’ I shook my head at her. ‘You did everything well… a little too well.’ I lifted an eyebrow at her, hoping she’d get just what I was alluding to. ‘This isn’t a place we should go any further than a kiss.’ I took in the disappointment on her face. ‘You deserve to be worshipped when you give yourself to a man.’
‘I wanted to give myself…’ I pressed a finger to her lips.
‘A man has only so much restraint, amore mio.’ I closed my eyes and concentrated hard on outside the confessional box. ‘The women have left. We only have a short time before they come looking for you.’
Her face fell. She appeared crestfallen.
‘We can meet again very soon, but for now I want you to leave this space and step into the righthand confessional box. We can carry on talking, but when they come looking for you, they will find you doing nothing wrong.’
A small sob left her, and I pulled her to me quickly to place a chaste kiss against her lips. I knew we were running out of time.
‘Now go.’ I patted her backside with my hand and lifted it up to the door that concealed us.
‘Dante.’
‘Go.’ I smiled at her and stroked a single finger down her jawline, hoping it would give her the comfort she was looking for as I unlocked the door.
She nodded and did as I’d asked without further conversation, and as the door closed behind her, I felt immediately bereft.
Once I could see her kneeling beside me and looking up through the tiny vents, I spoke again.
‘You look even more beautiful today, Giovanna.’
I heard her gasp at my words.
‘Yes, I see her.’ Lorenzo’s voice found us both and instinctively she stiffened, and I pulled my gun from the waistband of my suit trousers.
Watching through the vent holes I looked on as she made a stand of her own and lifted one finger to Lorenzo to get him to leave her alone for another minute.
That’s my girl. She might be innocent and untouched by the life we lead, but I could see she had balls, and I admired her courage.
‘Yes, boss. We will be on our way back in a matter of minutes.’ His shoes made a noise as he turned on his heel to leave her be, and once again we were alone.
‘I’ll contact you later. Be somewhere you can take my call.’
‘I will.’
‘Go now, amore mio. But understand this… you belong to me, and I always take what’s mine.’
Leaning my head back against the wood, I closed my eyes to listen to her footfall as she walked away. Then, as the car drove away from the front of the building, I stepped out into the church and took a good look around me. With his back towards where he knew I was hiding I found the priest I’d bribed an hour before.
‘Thank you, Father.’ I pulled out some additional notes and pushed them into the poor box, before re-emerging into the sunlight.