Chapter 4 Giovanni #2
I carry Amber into the private elevator, and her arms instinctively wrap around my neck.
When we reach the penthouse, Meggie steps out of the elevator and freezes.
Her eyes roam the vast open-plan living space, the brightly accented walls, the elegant potted palms, the understated couches arranged around the central glass column which also serves as an aquarium. It’s my way of bringing the outside in.
A reminder of the most beautiful island in the world.
Sicily.
“You live here?” She closes her eyes briefly then blinks the room into focus before turning wide green eyes my way.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell Meggie that I live here when I’m in New York, but I’ll get no satisfaction from trying to impress her with material possessions and multiple homes.
“Yes. Do you like it?”
She smiles. “Is that a trick question?”
“Please, make yourself at home.”
I follow her down the steps to the living area, and she rushes over to the wide glass floor-to-ceiling cylinder in the middle of the room. “Are the fish real?” She places her palms on the glass and a shoal of tiny neon fish instantly dart towards her. She jumps away and laughs at her own reaction.
“I’ll show you to the guest room.”
She tears her eyes away from the fish and follows me past the kitchen, where she eyes up the coordinated blue and ivory appliances, and along the wide hallway to the first guest room. I open the door wide and step aside for her to enter first.
Meggie stands just inside the doorway and allows her eyes to roam around the room.
One wall is painted turquoise like the Mediterranean Sea, while the others are white and rough-textured to remind me of my ancestral family home.
The tops of the walls have been painted to resemble a layer of ochre roof tiles with hand-painted flowering vines trailing down to the floor.
In the middle of the room is a four-poster bed with a turquoise satin comforter and vibrant gold and orange tasseled cushions.
The furniture is white. The flooring is pale pine.
“This is stunning.” She looks at me shyly. “Can I touch the bed?”
I smile. “Be my guest.”
She enters the room, drags a fingertip across the comforter, and then throws herself backwards onto the bed, ruffling the covers with her arms and legs.
Propping herself up on her elbows, she sighs. “I’ve always wanted to do that. If this is the guest room, I don’t even want to know what your room is like.”
Her cheeks flush.
“I mean, that’s not how it sounded. I’d love to know what your room is like.” She sucks her bottom lip and grimaces. “Not that I want to sleep in your room.”
I laugh. I don’t laugh often enough, I realize, because my cheeks are aching from all the smiling that I’ve done today. Neither do I tell her that nothing would give me greater pleasure than her sleeping in my room.
Preferably naked. With her hair fanned across my pillows, and her legs spread wide inviting me in.
My cock agrees with me.
I cross the room, pull back the comforter, and settle Amber onto the pillows.
The child’s eyes instantly open wide, and she says, “I thought we were getting fries.”
We sit upstairs on the penthouse rooftop eating salty fries, pulled pork, and hamburgers filled with cheese slices, pickles, and tomatoes. The night is balmy, the moon casting a silver glow across the surface of the pool.
I’ve never eaten up here before.
I can’t remember the last time I swam up here. Or drank a beer. Or simply kicked off my shoes and sat back to enjoy the solitude.
“Why do you have a swimming pool on your roof?” Amber asks.
I think about it. “Because there’s no room on the ground. And because up here I can pretend that I’m on an island.”
“I’ve never been on an island.” She slurps her vanilla milkshake through a straw.
It’s been a long day, and her eyes are starting to grow heavy.
When she goes to bed, Meggie and I will be left alone without the buffer that her sister provides between us.
For the first time in my adult life, or at least for as long as I can remember, I’m not entirely sure how the evening will pan out.
I want her. I want her more than I care to admit.
The kiss in the studio… It was supposed to be a demonstration of passion between two people coming together for the first time.
And okay, so it was a dick move, but made with good intentions.
I thought she was an extra. One of the thousands of actors who struggle for a spot on the big Hollywood screen.
But I got a whole lot more than I bargained for when I kissed Meggie.
The problem is, I’ve no idea if she feels the same way, and knowing what I know about her now, the last thing I want to do is make her feel uncomfortable. I want her to come to me. Because if—when—she does, I’m going to make fucking certain that she never forgets me.
“Perhaps I’ll take you to my island one day,” I say.
Meggie’s eyes flash a warning at me.
But Amber has already curled her legs up on the couch and placed her head in my lap. Within moments, her breathing grows steady, and her body is limp.
“Oh, to be a child again.”
I wait for Meggie to hint that she’s tired too, willing her to tell me, instead, that she could stay up here all night.
With me.
“It’s late, I should take her inside,” she says.
I hear the words, but I sense Meggie’s unwillingness to end the day.
Something shifted between us when she talked about her mom on the aircraft.
She lowered her barriers just a fraction, enough for me to glimpse the real Megan Walsh.
Then, when I gave them a tour of the city, we drifted in and out of easy conversations.
We laughed. We held Amber’s hands as if we were a family.
But tomorrow morning, we’ll wake up to a new day, one in which Steve Barone still exists, and the private jet will be waiting to take us back to LA.
Meggie will remember that the video of us kissing was on YouTube for a short while, and panic will set back in.
I’ll be the enemy again. The man who abducted her and brought her to New York for the breakfast date that never was.
And I will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.
“I’ll carry her.” I’m already on my feet.
Back in the apartment, I settle Amber into the guest room, and face Meggie. She holds my gaze. It would be so easy to close the distance between us, cup her face in my hands and kiss her again, but this has to be on her terms.
“I’m going to get a nightcap.” I keep my voice low so as not to wake Amber. “Will you join me?”
My cock bobs inside my pants when she says yes.
I open a bottle of Nero d’Avola and fill two wide-bowled glasses, handing one to Meggie.
She sips her drink and peers at me above her glass. “Shall we go back to the roof? It’s so … peaceful up there.”
I nod and lead the way.
We sit facing each other on the couch. Her knee brushes mine, and a thrill of excitement shoots down my spine.
“Thank you … for today. Amber loved it.” She pauses. “I did too.”
“It was the least I could do.”
She turns away and gazes at the pool. “I didn’t think about him today. Amber’s father. After I told you about him, it felt as if I could let go, just for a little while, and pretend that we’re like other people. Normal people.”
I place my glass of wine down on the low coffee table and shift closer to her. When I smooth her hair away from her face, and my knuckles brush her cheek, it feels natural, as though we’ve been doing this all our lives. And she doesn’t pull away.
“There is no fun in being normal, Meggie.” I move my lips closer to hers and hold her gaze. “If you were normal, I would not have kissed you this morning.”
“Was it only this morning?” Her voice is husky. “It feels like a lifetime ago.”
“I meant everything I said. I will protect you, Meggie.” My lips brush hers. “You and Amber. I will protect you both with my life.”
“Why?” Her breath mingles with mine. “Why would you do that for us?”
I ask myself the same question.
I wind her warm honey hair around my fingers and pull her to me.
Then I kiss her.
Meggie kisses me back. She doesn’t fight it. She doesn’t tense up with surprise the way she did the first time around. Her tongue meets mine, and nothing has ever tasted sweeter.
Her kisses go straight to my head like the bubbles in a champagne glass. I can think about nothing else.
I want her.
I desire her.
I need to make her mine.
So, when she straddles me on the couch, her hands gently cupping my face, I reach for the hook at the back of her dress and snap it open. The straps come loose. I tug them down, exposing her breasts, the delicate pale skin, the pink areolas, the nipples that are soft and pliable between my fingers.
I pull my lips away from Meggie’s.
I want to explore every part of her. Placing both hands over her breasts, I feel the nipples hardening beneath my palms, and my cock twitches in response. I suck on one nipple, teasing it between my teeth until it is dark and swollen. Then the other.
Without realizing it, I have made it my mission to taste every part of her.
Inside and out. To claim her, brand her, to bind her to me with unbreakable knots of desire and passion.
I want everyone to see in her eyes how much she wants me when we’re together.
Because that is how desperate, how all-consuming my desire is for her.
Meggie arches her spine, thrusting her nipple deeper into my mouth, and tilts her head back to stare at the night sky. “It’s so beautiful,” she breathes.
“Sei bellissima.” I trace my tongue between her breasts and upwards to her neck that smells of delicate dewy flowers in the early morning sunshine. “You are beautiful.”
I nibble her earlobe. My tongue slides inside her ear, and it is like coaxing a tune from an unused musical instrument.
But she pulls away from me, her arms instinctively crossing to cover her nakedness.
She doesn’t believe me.