Chapter 44
LUCA’S MANNING’S APARTMENT, THE brONX
The red might have been gone from his body and the sullied clothes were set on a washing cycle of the hottest available, but everything was still on Luca’s mind and not just the situation with his father and the family business, but how he had responded to it.
Furious. Feral even. It was everything he tried to disassociate from, everything he had walked away from.
His hand shook as he picked up the glass of bourbon from the coffee table and took a swig.
Now the aftermath was hitting him. Marching into one of the bars that all the people he loathed frequented.
Threatening and bullying the bullies. It was so in opposition to who he wanted to be. But it had been necessary, hadn’t it?
There was a knock on the door. Firm. Urgent.
He stood up, tightened the belt of the bathrobe around him and walked to the door.
He looked through the spy hole, expecting to see someone with vengeance on their mind.
Instead, he saw Gabriella. Well, after tonight and the incident in the market, perhaps repercussion wasn’t out of the question.
He paused, his hand on the door, slowing his breath.
He seemed to be fighting all kinds of emotions when it came to her…
He stabilised himself, externally and internally, as much as possible, and then opened the door.
‘Hey,’ he greeted. And then, uncharacteristically, he was caught completely off guard as she pushed him inside, and he moved with her momentum as she drove forward, shrugging off her coat that landed on the floor.
‘I got your address from Sybille. Don’t say anything yet,’ she ordered him as she advanced and, for some reason, he let himself retreat up the short corridor into the living area. ‘And don’t let me stop talking until I’m done.’
Her eyes were on fire, but he couldn’t decide what was making them burn as her hands slipped inside his robe and her fingers met his shoulders. He felt every inch of the contact on his skin.
‘Say something,’ Gabriella breathed, face moving closer to his.
‘You told me not to let you stop talking until you were done.’
‘Right,’ she said, her breath seeming to quicken as she backed him up against the table. ‘I did. God, why did I say that? Why am I doing this?’
‘Doing what?’ His breath was catching in his throat.
‘I need to do, Luca. I want to do. It’s what I do when I can’t think anymore.’ Her fingers grazed his skin a bit lower.
‘What do you want to do?’ A zillion tiny fireworks were starting to be lit inside him.
‘You,’ she said firmly. ‘I want to do you.’
Her tone was guttural, confident yet also completely delicate, as if both burning and breaking were possible in this moment.
As her hands moved lower, tracing a trail across his chest, skimming along the length of his abdomen, he caught hold of her wrist, took it hard and held it away from his body.
‘Not like that,’ he ordered her.
She tried to squirm her hand out of his control but he held tight. ‘Let me go.’
‘Is that what you want?’
There was no hesitation in her reply. ‘No.’
He brought his face closer until their foreheads were almost touching. ‘We both know this shouldn’t be about “doing”, Gabriella.’
‘I can’t do anything else. I don’t know how to.’ Now the tone was losing some of the bravado she had stepped in here with.
‘I can’t do just doing,’ he whispered.
‘Why?’ It was a soft plea.
‘Because I need to feel it,’ he said, pressing their heads together and letting his lips touch hers with the lightest brush. ‘And I want you to feel it too.’
She reached up with her free hand and palmed his face, closing the small gap between their bodies, her hips meeting his and sending a direct message that needed no translation.
‘Show me,’ she said, voice coated with a heat that scorched his insides.
He squeezed her wrist a touch tighter and heard her exhale as he dropped his forehead, moved his mouth to hover over hers. And that’s where he waited, focussing on this connection, but also not overthinking it.
‘Luca.’ She breathed the word, his name, the heat from her exhalation meeting his parted mouth. There was no more waiting to be done.
He captured her mouth with his, assured, a little rough, heading deep as he felt her fingers slip into his hair, clawing at his scalp.
He let go of her wrist then, cradling her head in the palm of his hand and, with his other hand he used his index finger to snake a path down the bare skin of her arm.
‘Do you feel that?’ he asked, taking his mouth from hers.
She shivered in his arms. ‘Yes.’
‘And this?’ He kissed her mouth again, this time dragging his teeth over her bottom lip, his libido giving him the biggest head rush.
‘How about this?’ she asked.
Before he had a chance to react, she had jumped up, her lips leaving his, her legs wrapping around his midriff and her teeth grazing his neck. He closed his eyes as all his thoughts rolled down to his penis.
‘Gabriella,’ he moaned.
‘Say that again,’ she breathed as he held her in place at his waist. ‘In the bedroom.’
He pushed her up a little in the air, his hands at her ass. ‘How about the shower?’
‘Take me,’ she told him. ‘Just take me.’
No more words were needed.