Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty Two
Vito
It’s nearly dinnertime, and Teresa still hasn’t shown up.
I glance at the clock again as if it might tell me something different the second time. It doesn’t.
The kitchen is already washed in that late golden light that comes just before sunset, warm and soft through the windows, and the steaks I seasoned and set on the counter to reach room temperature are still sitting there waiting for me to do something with them.
She should be here by now.
Not because we made some formal arrangement. But after the last few weeks, patterns settle in whether you mean for them to or not. She appears by dinner, like clockwork.
Tonight, nothing.
The last time I saw her was on the beach.
Flat on that chaise, half-hidden under that ridiculous big hat, pretending to read a book while doing a terrible job of pretending she wasn’t staring at me in the water. Even from a distance, I could see the color high in her cheeks. The heat getting to her. The sun getting to her.
Me getting to her.
I had tried not to push.
Tried being the operative word.
After I left her with the sunscreen bottle, I went straight to the workout hut because apparently that is my life now.
Lift. Run. Swim. Anything physical enough to burn off what she does to me.
It feels like that’s all I’ve done for weeks—find new ways to wear my body down so it stops wanting hers for ten goddamn minutes.
It doesn’t work.
It just makes me sweat out the edge of it for a little while before it comes roaring back.
And that was a couple of hours ago.
Long enough that she should have come in by now. Long enough that even if she’d showered and taken her time and decided to make herself scarce on purpose, she still should have crossed my path somewhere in this house.
I look at the steaks again.
Then I let out a breath through my nose, pick up the plate, and slide it back into the refrigerator.
Fine.
I’ll go find her.
Not because I’m worried.
Not exactly.
More because I know she was getting pink out there, and if she’s fallen asleep like an idiot in the middle of the hottest stretch of the day, she’s going to be miserable later.
And because the house feels wrong when I’m expecting her for dinner and she doesn’t appear.
That part I don’t examine too closely.
I start with her room.
The bed is made. No sign of her. No discarded clothes on the floor, no damp swimsuit hanging in the bathroom, no evidence she came back in and settled. The room smells faintly like her—something clean and warm and feminine that shouldn’t be in my head as often as it is—but she’s not there.
Next, the study.
Empty.
No notebook left open. No pen on the desk. No Teresa, with her legs curled under her in one of the chairs, writing away in that little notebook of hers.
I check the sitting room too, though I know better. Then the kitchen again, because maybe she passed through while I was gone. Nothing.
The house is too quiet.
I head outside.
The first thing that hits me is the change in the air. The worst of the day’s heat has started to loosen.
The sun is dropping lower now, softening from white to gold, throwing long shadows across the sand and lighting the palms from behind. The island gets breathtakingly beautiful at this hour, and I know she enjoys watching the sunset.
I go down the deck steps and onto the beach.
The sand is cooler than it was earlier, but still warm under my feet. The surf rolls in and out in that steady hush that never really stops. Her lounge chair is still where it was this afternoon, angled toward the water.
And as I get closer, I see her.
Still there.
Lying on it exactly where I left her.
The big hat is pulled low over her face, covering her eyes, and she is very clearly asleep.
For a second, I just look at her.
The setting sun washes everything in amber—her skin, the pale cushion beneath her, the edge of that oversized hat, the line of one bare leg stretched out along the chair.
She must have shifted in her sleep because the book is gone from her lap, one arm is draped loosely at her side, and the other rests over her middle as if sometime in the last couple of hours she simply gave up and let the sun and the sea air take her.
Jesus Christ.
She really did stay out here all afternoon. At least she had the sense to move under the umbrella so she wouldn’t fry.
The hat keeps most of her face hidden, but the rest of her is right there in that swimsuit, and I take one long, silent second to appreciate the sight before me.
The curve of her hip, the slope of her shoulder, the smooth line of her throat. The faint dusting of freckles across her skin that you don’t always see unless she’s been in the sun.
And there it is again.
That ache.
That low, heavy pull in my gut that is always there when she’s near, but worse like this, when she’s unguarded and unaware and beautiful enough to stop a man’s breath.
I could let her sleep.
I should.
But that would be a coward’s move. An excuse to keep looking. An excuse not to deal with the reality that she is my prisoner and my psychologist and, somehow, the only thing that seems to quiet the noise in my head.
I walk the last few steps to her chair.
The sand is soft, my footsteps almost silent. She doesn’t stir.
“Teresa,” I say quietly.
Nothing.
I say her name again, a little louder this time.
Her brow furrows faintly behind the brim of the hat. Then her nose wrinkles, and she makes a small, sleepy noise deep in her throat.
The sound sends a jolt through me.
I kneel by the side of the chaise, bringing my face level with the edge of the hat.
“Hey,” I say, my voice lower now, closer to her ear. “Wake up.”
Her eyelids flutter.
She murmurs and sighs, snuggles back into the chaise.
“Mmm.”
It’s an admission of content. It’s so unguarded that I have to clench my jaw against the sudden, fierce impulse to touch her.
“I'm about to make dinner,” I say softly. “If you want any, you need to wake up.”
She shifts again.
Her arm slides off her middle and brushes my knee as she moves.
My whole body tightens.
The contact is so light, so brief, but I feel it all the way to my bones. The soft, warm skin of her arm against my knee, and for a split second, my mind goes to a dozen other places that same skin could be, a dozen other ways it could feel against mine.
Stop it.
I pull back, just an inch, just enough to break the contact.
She’s starting to surface now.
Her head lifts, the big hat tilting back, and her eyes blink open. They’re hazy and unfocused, soft with sleep, and for one long, beautiful moment, she has no idea where she is or who I am.
Then recognition hits.
A slow, sleepy smile spreads across her face, and it is so genuine, so unguarded, that it makes my chest ache.
“Hi,” she says, her voice husky with sleep.
My throat goes tight.
“Hi,” I manage back. “You were out for a while.”
She stretches, a long, slow, languid movement that is painful to watch.
Her back arches, her arms go up over her head, and her whole body seems to come alive under the golden light. The swimsuit pulls taut across her breasts, the fabric a whisper-thin barrier between my gaze and the soft skin beneath.
My eyes are drawn to that dip, that shadow between her breasts, and my cock, which has been in a state of low-grade arousal for weeks, goes hard as steel.
I have to look away.
I force my gaze up to her face, and I see that her sleepy smile has faded, replaced by something else. Something more awake. More aware.
She sees it in my eyes.
She sees exactly what I'm feeling.
The air between us goes from soft and sleepy to charged in a heartbeat.
“Vito,” she murmurs, her voice almost a moan.
My name on her lips, whispered like that, is the most erotic thing I’ve ever heard.
I can’t help it.
I lean in.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Her eyes darken. Her lips part slightly. Her breath hitches.
She wants this.
She wants this as much as I do.
I’m going to kiss her. Right here. Right now. On the beach, with the sun setting behind us, a picture so perfect it feels like a lie. My hand comes up, my fingers tracing the line of her jaw, my thumb stroking the soft skin of her cheek.
Her eyes flutter closed.
My own follow suit.
My world narrows to the feel of her skin, the scent of her, the heat of her body so close to mine.
My lips are a breath away from hers.
And I stop.
Because I told myself I wouldn’t. Because I promised myself I would give her space, that I would respect the boundary she drew in the kitchen. That I wouldn’t be the one to cross it again.
I pull back.
But she doesn't let me go far.
Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt. Her eyes are slitted, but they are blazing with a need that mirrors my own, a desperate, hungry, aching need that has been simmering between us for weeks.
She is the one who closes the distance.
She is the one who pulls my mouth to hers. Her lips are soft and full, and they open under mine with a sigh that is pure surrender.
I part her lips with my tongue, sliding into her mouth, tasting her. Her tongue meets mine, shy and tentative at first, then bolder, more demanding.
I kiss her deeply, slowly, savoring the taste of her, the feel of her. I want to memorize every detail, to burn this moment into my memory so I can revisit it again and again.
But it's not enough.
It's not nearly enough.
My hands are on her, pulling her up from the chaise, my body pressing against hers, my tongue dueling with hers in a hungry, desperate dance.
I can feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her swimsuit, the soft curves of her breasts against my chest, the frantic beat of her heart against mine.
Her hands are in my hair now, her fingers tangling in the strands, holding me to her as if she's afraid I'll disappear.
I won't.
I could never.