26. Gio
GIO
Holy fuck. I stare at her, mouth open, heart racing, totally and utterly speechless.
“Theoretically, of course,” she adds, fingers twisting in her clothes. She’s broken eye contact, fixed her attention on the base of my throat.
It only makes it harder to swallow. Way too fucking hard to breathe.
“I mean, I’m not suggesting—crap.” Vivi steps back.
“I’m not saying we’re having a baby. Or that you want to get me pregnant, or anything like that.
It’s just that I’ve realized that I don’t know how the mechanics actually work and that’s ridiculous.
I’m almost twenty-one. I’m married. And I’m so tired of being so totally clueless about so much. ”
She risks another glance at my face. Whatever she sees makes her look away, her blush burning even brighter. “I did try to ask someone else, but Francesca pretty much laughed at me, and I can’t ask the guards a question like that. So it just leaves…you.”
Her confession sets me reeling. Surprise waring with a surge of lust so intense my legs are shaking with the effort to stay functional.
Since that ghost of a kiss three days ago, I’ve envisioned fucking Vivi every way imaginable, across every inch of this island. I can’t close my eyes at night without being bombarded by multiple scenarios and fantasies.
But in the entire time I’ve dreamed about Vivi above me, beneath me, bent over in front of me, I’ve never thought about getting her pregnant.
Since becoming capo, I’ve never allowed myself the chance to think about having my own family.
My other responsibilities have been relentless, all-consuming, and even before my self-imposed celibacy, I’ve never been with a woman I could picture as the mother of my child. And then came Aurora, and…well, she’s as good as mine.
Two years ago, through a horrible series of circumstances, I became her father. And that’s where the subject ended.
Until now. When Vivi, in all her innocence and ignorance, detonates a grenade in the middle of my chest, exposing a longing I didn’t know I had. One that, in a blink, I can’t disassociate with the woman I’m not allowed to want and fear I’ll never be able to keep.
Fuck all good it does me.
One of Vivi’s hands subconsciously drifts across her abdomen, and it triggers a possessiveness so fierce that every warning sign in my head short-circuits, and my feet are powered by a force outside my control.
I don’t fully realize I’m moving until I’m in front of her, my hand trailing over her shoulder and down her back until I have her braid locked in my fist.
Vivi’s breath catches. Her eyes flare as I pull slowly, slowly, forcing her head back until she has no choice but to look me dead in the eyes. I don’t recognize my own voice when I say, “You want to know how to get pregnant with my child?”
“A child,” she clarifies. “It doesn’t have to be yo?—”
I tug her hair just hard enough that her voice cuts out. Surprise flashes in her eyes. Along with something that looks dangerously like excitement.
“Of course it will be fucking mine.” It falls smoothly from my tongue as fire rips through my veins. “You’re my wife, Viviana. You don’t whisper a word about a baby, dream for one second about a baby, unless it’s mine.”
Her lips part.
I tighten my grip in her braid. Pull her closer. “Do you understand?”
“Y-yes,” she gasps. There’s trepidation there, but also curiosity.
It’s tinder to the heat pulsing beneath my skin. “You really want to know, don’t you?”
Her tongue darts across her lips, her pupils getting wider by the second.
Vivi nods.
Any pretense that I can stop myself disintegrates. I pull the glasses off my face, fling them away, and I lower my mouth to her ear. Tease my lips there. “Then, bella, I’m going to do my best to show you.”
That statement knocks her out of her daze.
She must’ve put her little stone down somewhere, because her hands are free. She grips both of my forearms, nails biting through my shirt, sending my nervous system into overdrive. “What do you mean, show me?”
“A demonstration. Hands only.”
Relief flashes across her features just as a reckless hope dies inside of me. I can’t fuck her, not how I want to. I can’t fill her with my seed. I can’t get her pregnant.
As soon as Gennaro Pazzi regains consciousness, she becomes his. And Aurora is safe.
This, right now, is the purgatory in between.
I can’t have Vivi. But there’s no fucking way I’m going to let tonight end without giving us a little of what we both want.
She wants answers. I want her.
“I’m going to touch you, Vivi. I’m going to explain how I would get you pregnant with my child.” I lick the skin behind her ear. Inhale her scent until it fills my lungs. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes.” She’s quiet but clear. “Yes. I want to know.” Her nails dig deeper into my flesh. “Need to know.”
Consent received, I do the thing I’ve been dying to do for more hours than I dare count.
I kiss her.
It’s not what she expects, and she gasps into my mouth. A little breathy sound that makes my brain froth. Her lips are soft, pliant, following my lead as I advance and retreat, dragging us into a rhythm that’s as natural as it is intoxicating.
Wordlessly, I shift us across the terrace until Vivi’s back is against the high wall.
We’re three stories off the ground, but Vivi’s so short the lip of the wall hits her mid-back.
I pin her there, capturing her between the stucco and my body as I dig my fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, her braid still wrangled in my other hand.
I trace my tongue along her bottom lip. She moans.
I do it again, and she parts them for me, giving me free rein over her mouth. She tastes like honey. And citrus. Tart and sweet and there’s no chance in hell I’m not stroking deeper.
I tease our tongues together, and Vivi’s hands scramble to my shoulders, holding tight. I press against her, relishing how soft she is, how amazing her breasts and stomach and thighs feel cradling the hard lines of my body.
My cock throbs. I want to thrust, to rock against Vivi and show her how hard she’s making me, but this isn’t about me.
This is about her. What she wants to know. How she wants to feel. Opening my wife’s eyes to a world she doesn’t know exists.
The magnitude of what we’re doing hits me square in the solar plexus. For a second I lose my breath. Am forced to break the kiss so I don’t collapse and crush her.
I drag my head away, vision hazy. Vivi’s lips are swollen, her eyes unfocused. “Why did you stop?”
I haven’t caught my breath yet. Can’t answer.
Her fingers flutter nervously against my neck and down to my chest. “I-I know I’m pretty clueless about all of this, but I’m not that clueless. You can’t get pregnant from a kiss. You promised to explain. You can’t stop yet.”
“Shhh, passerotta mia. Don’t worry.” I sweep a thumb across her cheek, fascinated by the freckles sprinkled beneath her blush. “I’m just getting started.”