That text from Ferro came just as dawn started breaking over the ocean.I could just picture him in his study, smoking one of his cigars, swirling a whiskey in his hands and growing madder and madder.
Goldie slept peacefully behind me.Hopefully her sister is sleeping just as peacefully back at the mansion since he’s been sending me angry texts all night.
I promised her I would save her family if I could.If I give Ferro the number she called, that promise is as good as broken.
I can probably still save her mother and her other sister.But old man Codelli never did much for me and mine.He’ll probably have to go, and she’ll have to live with that just as I had to.This is war and she’s on the wrong side of it.I won’t be any help to anyone if I join her there.And I swore a blood oath to avenge my family.Swore it on their graves.
I text Ferro back, explaining what had happened and giving him the number she had called.
And once that’s done even a long shower—hot and cold—doesn’t chase away the nausea in my stomach.Or the pounding headache.Or my shaking hands.
That only happens as I lie down beside Goldie, kiss her sleeping cheek and hug her close.
“I’ll do my best for you,” I whisper in her ear.
She’s still sleeping, she couldn’t possibly have heard, but she moans softly anyway and burrows closer to me.So maybe she did hear.And maybe she told me it was fine, that she understands.
That’s the hope, anyway.And it’ll have to do.
Chapter27
GIANNA
Soft kisses wake me.His lips are touching every bit of my face and neck.As he sees me open my eyes, he plants his lips on mine, his tongue demanding entrance.My mind is screaming, telling me to stop him, to turn away, to push him away.But my body needs this.Needs his lips on mine, needs his kisses, which still bring all the warmth of the summer sun, just like they used to.
He tugs on the belt of the robe and I let him open it, revealing my nakedness.Which is immediately covered by his warm hands, his touch soft at first but growing more and more insistent as I refuse to kiss him back for real.
My body may want him.The part of my mind that would like to pretend everything is exactly as it should be, now that I have him all to myself with no one standing between us, wants him too.But that’s not the reality.
The reality is…
My mind drifts away on the waves of pleasure as he finally stops insisting on the kiss and his lips trail down my neck instead.My breasts.My nipples.Back to my neck.
His hands are busy too, kneading my breasts, the soft parts of my stomach, pinching my nipples.Eliciting moans and whimpers that I wish I could stop.That I try to stop by biting down hard on my bottom lip until it hurts.He stops kissing me as I whimper in pain.
His eyes are like two green lasers as he runs his thumb across my lips, smoothing away the pain.
“Stop that.”
“Why should I?”
He runs his thumb across my lips again, even softer this time, taking away the last of the pain.
“Because you want this,” he says.“And there’s no point fighting the pleasure.Especially when everything else is pain.Trust me, I know.”
“Oh, do you?”I snap and try to sit up, but he pins me down on the bed, his hands gripping my wrists tight.“You’re the one bringing me all the pain.”
“And all the pleasure,” he says, smirking at me.
He keeps my wrists pinned down as he kisses my neck again, then sucks first on one nipple and then the other.I can keep the moans in on the first go.Not the second and third as he repeats the process.
He smirks again, then trails soft kisses right down to my clit.And the surge of white-hot pleasure has my hips rising to meet his lips without any input from my brain.If he wasn’t holding my hands down so tight, I’d probably be running my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer.
Or strangle him.
Both are viable options.Both are things I want.And they keep pulling me in their opposite directions as his skilled tongue and lips bring me to the edge of an orgasm then pull back.I fear the pleasure.I welcome the pleasure.I crave the pleasure.I hate him for giving it to me.I hate him for denying it.I hate him…
The moan that escapes my throat as I finally come is more like a roar.Because I love it and I hate it and it’s tearing me apart.
