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“Are you?”
We were two peas in a pod. Perhaps that was why we clicked so seamlessly. “I asked you first,” I countered with a sly smile.
I expected a pithy answer but he came back with genuine honesty. “I used to think I was. Now I’m not so sure. Italy has made me question many things about my life that I was unaware were even issues.”
“Such as?”
But that was as much as he was willing to share. He grabbed his jeans and slid them on, grinning with the shake of his head. “If we stay down here much longer, either we need to fuck again because I can’t be around your naked body without needing to be inside it, or we will die from dehydration because it’s hot as hell down here.” He reached out his hand to help me up. I slipped my hand in his and he pulled me straight to his mouth. A long, lingering kiss nearly sent us at each other again, but he was right. It was too hot and I needed to return to work, no matter how reluctant I was.
We dressed in companionable silence but as he turned to climb back up the stairs, I tugged at his hand and we detoured to my private chambers within the manor.
I undressed again, shedding my clothes as quickly as possible, and he did the same as I drew him toward the shower.
His grin was everything I’d come to crave without even realizing I needed it.
Standing beneath the cool spray, our slick bodies sliding against one another, senses alive at every touch, returning to the office had become a distant thought but I no longer cared.
Honestly, at this point, I no longer cared about anything but the pleasure between us.
And I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dante
I WAS ACCUSTOMED to wealth. I grew up surrounded by privilege—private jets, mansions, high-end resorts—but there was a different kind of money exhibited by European old money.
This castle, for example, was something out of a storybook. I wasn’t too proud to admit that I was impressed and a bit in awe.
“What was it like growing up here?” I asked, lounging on Alessandra’s bed, snacking on grapes and cheese. “You literally grew up in a castle.”
Alessandra shrugged as if it were no big deal. “The same as anywhere I guess. Except we had more rooms to hide in when we played hide-and-seek.” She snorted in memory, adding, “We actually lost Enzo once. Took a full day to find him. Our mother nearly had a heart attack.”
I laughed, imagining a young Alessandra and her twin running like heathens around this massive place. “Did you have a nanny?”
“No, our mother was very hands-on. She didn’t believe in handing off her responsibilities to someone else. We were very close.”
“She’s passed?”
Alessandra nodded. “Not long after Enzo died. I’m told it was a coincidence but she died a year after Enzo. I say it was from a broken heart but the doctors said it was an aneurysm. Extreme grief will do terrible things to the body.”
I sobered. So much loss in her family. My brothers pissed me off and were annoying but losing either of them would devastate me. Alessandra had lost her twin and then her mother. I couldn’t imagine how much that must’ve changed her in such a short time. “What was she like?”
Alessandra closed her eyes, a small smile playing on her lips. “Beautiful,” she answered, reopening her eyes. “I look like her. Sometimes I think my father’s grief is cracked open all over again when he sees me. He says each passing year I look more and more like her.”
“Are you close with your father?”
She hesitated. I identified so hard with her. Parental relationships were complicated. At least they seemed that way for my family. She wiped her mouth with a napkin before answering carefully. “I love my father very much. He is a good man but he is resistant to change, and change is inevitable if you want to stay relevant in this economy.”
I understood her answer. I’d had the same argument with my own father but it’d taken Luca pushing him out to make change happen. “Powerful men become powerful by doing things their way, but sometimes their way becomes outdated and they’re unwilling to bend.”
She nodded in agreement and seemed to frame her next question cautiously. “You seek to please your father yet he’s not happy with your efforts, but you continue to try?”
“Isn’t that the endless cycle of dysfunction that we all endure?” I asked, feeling philosophical.
“True enough.”
I sighed. “At least your father trusts you to run the business.”
Alessandra chuckled ruefully, admitting, “Only because I was the less offensive option. The business had always been Enzo’s legacy until he died. My father was loath to let a stranger run the company so it fell to me. I was the lesser of two evils.”
I sensed fear of inadequacy tugging at her words and it bothered me. She was a force of nature and if anyone couldn’t see that they were fucking blind. “You’re an incredible woman,” I told her, leaning over to brush a kiss across her lips. “Don’t let anyone take that from you. Not even your father.”
“My father loves me,” she returned with a smile, but she couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes. “Although, I know he would’ve been more comfortable with Enzo at the helm. It’s not his fault, it’s his generation.”
I chose my words with care because I knew how much Alessandra loved her brother. “I didn’t know Enzo, but I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job than you’re doing right now.”
I wasn’t blowing smoke up her ass—I truly believed what I was saying. For a full moment, I was stunned at my own earnestness. Where had that come from? Why did it matter how Alessandra’s heart ached at her father’s blind stubbornness to see what was right in front of him? I didn’t have a ready answer, at least not one that was honest, and that was disconcerting. What was happening to me? I swallowed the odd lump in my throat and rose to put some distance between us on the pretense of getting two bottled waters from the fridge. When I returned, Alessandra had composed herself and I was relieved.
Too much emotion swirling around was threatening to replace my testicles with ovaries. I needed to lighten the mood. Dropping back onto the bed, I smiled and said, “So about that walking tour...”
“Fuck off with the walking tour.” Alessandra laughed and tossed a pillow at me, which gave me an excellent window in which to tackle her to the bed, pinning her with my weight. She smiled up at me, blinding me with her beauty. I couldn’t imagine ever tiring of that exquisite view. My cock stirred at the promise of action, thickening against her thigh. She giggled as she glanced demurely south, where I was quickly hardening to stone. “Again? You’ve the stamina of a horse.”
“Hung like one, too,” I quipped with an exaggerated slant of my brow. Her
peal of laughter warmed the dark places of my soul that I thought light would never penetrate. Who was this woman and where did she come from? Maybe in another life, we were married and happily growing old together. I rather liked the idea of waking up to her gorgeous face every day, even to the point of being wrinkled old raisins together. I kissed her again, framing her face with my hands, content to feel my lips against hers. I lost myself in the joy of her mouth moving against mine, our tongues exploring with abandon, as if we had all the time in the world to discover what made the other tick.
But we didn’t have time. The clock was doing the ticking...
Fuck it, I wanted this moment for myself.
I’d spent my life hungering for my father’s approval and the time would come fast enough where I had to deliver—and I would deliver—but I was claiming this time as my own.
Time with Alessandra.
It might be the only golden moment of true happiness I’d ever known, and I was going to be selfish about holding on to it for as long as I could.
I rolled Alessandra on top, my cock prodding with an urgency that I felt in my bones. I needed to be inside her. Her expression split into pure pleasure as she slid down on my cock, her body absorbing my length inch by inch. “Dante,” she groaned, music to my ears. “Oh God, yes...”
I pushed up, burying myself as deep as I could go, but I wanted to touch her soul. I wanted to be so deep inside her that where I stopped and she began was hard to determine. There was a desperation to my thrusts as I flexed my hips while she ground on my pelvis, taking her own pleasure. Her beautiful, proud breasts rose high with rose-tipped, pebbled nipples, begging for my hands and mouth. She fucked me with abandon, groaning as she chased her orgasm, demanding everything from me. Watching her come was an arousal in itself. Her fingers curled into my chest, leaving tiny scratches as she lost herself in the ecstasy etched on her face. Tensing, her walls clenched around my cock as she went rigid. Her head fell back as her mouth fell open on a soundless scream locked in her chest, before she tumbled forward in a heap. I gripped her hips and thrust against her hard and fast to find my own savage release.
