Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BIANCA
I have an almost primal awareness of Giovanni. I want to touch him, to skate my fingers across his chest. I want to kiss him and taste him and—
“You shouldn’t have waited this long to have sex,” I tell myself in my bathroom mirror. “It’s made you a real pervert.”
I leave the bathroom and head downstairs.
Giovanni’s waiting for me downstairs, his “Smut Slut” hat on, and he’s still wearing those sweatpants. God, those sweatpants.
The scent of autumn hangs in the air—sweet and slightly crisp, with undertones of cinnamon.
“I need to try those graham crackers,” I say abruptly, the air between us seeming to crack with the statement.
“They’ll definitely be hard enough now,” he replies with a crooked grin, telling me he’s very much in on the joke.
“So, let’s do it.”
I lead the way into the kitchen, completely aware of him behind me—the tread of his feet, the warmth of his body. The heft of such a big, fit man.
Once I’m in the kitchen, I come to a stop next to the crackers cooling on racks and turn toward him. “You should do the honors first. They’re your creation.”
He shakes his head, his lips pulling upward. “I made them for you.”
His words seem to reverberate through me, the wave of sound caught within my body. My lips part as he breaks off a small piece of graham cracker and lifts it toward my mouth.
His fingers glance off my bottom lip as I lean forward, eyes holding his, and bite off half of it. He pulls his hand away, his finger grazing my lip again, and pops the rest into his mouth.
We taste the graham cracker at the same time, the flavors of apple, cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla exploding through my mouth—as if autumn is infused into each molecule. A moan escapes me, and a look of raw need fills Giovanni’s eyes.
“You like it,” he says, his voice low and throaty. “It’s good for you?”
“Jesus Christ. That hat is doing something to you.”
He shakes his head and takes it off, then sets it on the counter beside the cooling racks. His dark hair is mussed, and I let myself run my hand through it, luxuriating in it, so thick and smooth between my fingers.
“No, cara, it is you who are doing something to me.”
I think of all of the nights I’ve had to take out my vibrator since he’s arrived—it was an unusual occasion before. Now, it’s a necessity. I trail my hand from his hair down to his strong, stubbled chin. His scruff abrades my hand in a delicious way that awakens the slumbering nerve endings.
“You’re doing something to me too,” I admit, feeling almost resentful about it.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this way about him. I wasn’t going to. He’s too good-looking, too slick, and I was supposed to stay angry about the fact that Miles sent him here instead of coming himself. I am angry about it, but I’m grateful too. Grateful that he came, and even more so that he stayed.
A part of me knows that he didn’t do it for Miles, or at least not just for Miles. He also did it for me.
He crowds a little closer, his hands finding the counter on either side of me. I feel engulfed by him. His spicy scent, now suffused with sweetness from baking. His intense, dark gaze totally focused on me.
“How’d you like the graham crackers?” he asks. “They were hard enough for you?”
I can’t help but throw a challenge his way. Grinning, I say, “I’d give them a seven out of ten.”
“Dio mio, how does a man get a better rating from you?” He leans in a little, but it’s not close enough, not yet.
I trace my hand up his shirt, then grab the neckband and pull him in until our lips are a whisper apart. “If I gave you a ten, you’d stop trying.”
He leans in, his hair brushing my forehead. “No, if you gave me a ten, I’d want to earn an eleven. And if someday I were lucky enough to earn an eleven, I’d aspire to a twelve.”
My lips part. My hands flex, loosening my grip on his shirt, and I’m seized by two at-odds desires—to take every single thing this man is willing to give me, and to push him away forever before something terrible can happen.
For a second, I stand stock still—completely immobilized—but then he’s whispering my name like a prayer, and I pull his neckband closer until his lips brush against mine.
And, oh, it’s a ten. It’s maybe even a twelve, but I don’t want to admit that to myself, because it will feel like I’m admitting an uncomfortable truth.
His kiss is soft at first, soft and sweetly gentle, and it tastes like those apple graham crackers.
If that cracker made me moan, then kissing the man who made it makes me cry out in pleasure.
Already I’m tugging him closer, pressing my body into him, ready to give myself to him with a need that I’ve never felt with anyone else. Ever.
He murmurs something, and then he’s kissing me harder, his mouth and tongue claiming me. He pauses only to shove the cooling rack aside and lift me up onto the counter, the movement effortless, as if my weight is as inconsequential to him as a container of those graham crackers.
I spread my legs, and he makes a pained sound as he steps between them, his hand skating up my thigh as he presses closer.
I lean my head back as he lowers his head to my neck and kisses me, his hand lingering on my thigh, nudging my legs open wider to make space for his big body.
He kisses his way up my throat, along my jaw, and then his other hand cups my face as if I’m precious.
He looks at me in a way that makes my heart stutter inside my chest before he leans in and kisses me. He pours himself into it, and I know I’m already wet for him. Embarrassingly wet and needy—especially with the pillar of him standing between my legs, so close. So attainable.
I think of what Luanne said. How it couldn’t be simpler to be sleeping with the man who’s in the room next door. I could have been indulging in him all along, every night, and no one would have had to know.
It’s a stupid thought, given everyone already thinks we’re sleeping together, but it’s a thought that clings.
Would it really be so bad, enjoying him while he’s here? It wouldn’t have to mean anything. It could be a stolen moment—that one fall when I had a fling with Mr. October.
His strong hand continues to stroke my thigh as he leans in, tasting me with his mouth, and in a fit of desperation, I guide his hand to where I need him.
He makes a sound that echoes into my mouth as he finds the place between my legs where I’m aching for him—the place that knew what I wanted from him before I did.
“Bianca,” he murmurs, pulling away.
“It seems pretty unfair that you gave the shirtless experience to millions of people on the internet, and I only got a glimpse last week.” I barely recognize my voice.
Hell, I barely recognize the room. I feel as if I’ve been thrust into a heavy fog, and nothing makes sense except for the two of us, right now.
There’s only me and him and his beautiful face, the ridges of his body, and the bulge in those maddening sweatpants.
“You liked what you saw?”
“Of course I did.” I trail my hand over his chest, tracing the muscles. “I’d like to see more of it.”
“Only if you take your shirt off too,” he says hoarsely.
“And you were so eager for me to keep it on.” Still, I don’t hesitate. I pull off my shirt over my head and let it drop to the floor, my gaze on Giovanni.
He reaches for me, but I shake my head.
“Take it off.”
“You’re bossy,” he says with a cocky grin that indicates he likes it a lot.
“You know what? I’d like to do it myself.” I slide off the counter, then grip the hem of his shirt and lift it up.
It’s like unwrapping a present. His perfectly toned abs are speckled with dark hair, and as he takes over, lifting his shirt the rest of the way over his head, I lean down and kiss them, then run my tongue along them, the way I’ve fantasized.
He swears under his breath as his shirt joins mine on the floor. He presses his hand to my bare back, his heat engulfing me as he presses me closer and lowers his mouth to the tops of my breasts, kissing me there and running his mouth across the thin fabric of my bra.
He murmurs into my breasts. “You’re even more beautiful than I’ve imagined.”
“You’ve imagined?” I ask, smiling, as I lift up on my toes, pressing his mouth closer to my flesh.
“I’ve done nothing but imagine,” he says into my breasts.
I reach for the band of his sweatpants, but he stays my hand.
“Bianca…”
“I want this,” I say without hesitation. “I want you. I don’t have any doubts about that.”
He bows his head, feathering his hand up my back to find the clasp of my bra. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, Bianca. I don’t know what I’m doing next. And Miles—”
“Please, God, let’s not talk about my brother. Honestly, Miles should have known better anyway. I always stole his Halloween candy.”
He laughs a little, then presses a kiss on my neck. “I want you too, dammit,” he whispers into my ear. “So bad.”
“We don’t have to talk this out, or figure out what it means. It doesn’t have to mean anything we don’t want it to.”
There’s a glimmer in his eye, gone before I can interpret it. He runs a hand over my butt, then squeezes it.
“You want to fuck me in this kitchen, Bianca?”
“Yes.”
In fact, that’s exactly what half of my fantasies have been about, with Giovanni frozen on my computer screen—and also splayed out in the bed on the other side of the wall between us.
“This is probably a bad idea,” he murmurs.
“A terrible one,” I say, already pushing my pants and underpants down.
He swears again as he dips his hand between my legs, then grunts with pleasure as he feels how wet I am for him, how completely lost to need.
“Get back on the counter,” he says.
“Not before I touch your dick.”
“You want to make sure it’s hard enough?” he asks, amusement dancing in his voice, as he slides his hand between my legs, finding the spot that makes me arc toward him. “Because it’s fucking hard enough to put a hole in the wall.”
“You’re better at the show-don’t-tell thing in your videos. I need proof, Giovanni.”