He drew back moments later, positioning me on the bed to plunge to the hilt, stretching me wide, and forced me to another earth-shattering orgasm as he rode us both to completion…
Afterwards as I held him, my fingertips grazed the scars on his back.
So many scars.
Emotion swelled as it occurred to me his dominance was one of the things I had come to love about him—and not just in bed. Now I knew why. A part of me, that secret part of me who was still the abandoned little girl, had always wanted someone to protect me, even though I’d learned to protect myself. That need had felt like a weakness I had to hide or ignore, but with Vito, it didn’t feel like a weakness anymore…
Our connection had always been strong physically, and all the more overwhelming because of it. But why couldn’t our connection be a part of something more, now we had the beginnings of trust?
So much had happened in the past five months—and especially in the past twenty-four hours. I needed time to process it all. But why not use the weeks ahead to nurture the bubble of hope now lodged under my breastbone?
The glimmering cloud of afterglow made anything seem possible.
Perhaps we’d both always needed someone to nurture us. To protect us. And if Vito could protect me, why shouldn’t I protect him—from the darkness he had lived in for so long?
Chapter Thirteen
Vito
A month later
‘We have Dante. He arrives tonight.’
My muscles tightened as I read the text in Italian on my phone from Lorenzo, followed by a skull emoji. The text I had been waiting to receive for over six months.
I gazed out the bedroom window of the historic home I owned on Via Torino, Milan’s luxury shopping street.
Aware of Mia in the bed behind me, my groin pulsed, reminding me of how she’d responded to me in the hours just before dawn, when I had woken her, hard and aching.
We’d spent the day yesterday shopping in a series of exclusive boutiques, her expression wary at first, her insistence she had never intended for me to spend so much money on her new wardrobe both captivating and amusing. After all, she had been badgering me for weeks to honour the promise I’d made to her a month ago to let her off the island.
I had wanted to forget the rash promise, had tried to make her forget it too. Because I hadn’t wanted to trust her, and I had also enjoyed keeping her dressed in the clothes I’d had ordered for her online—which were more my style than hers, she’d pointed out several times. In other words,revealing. But eventually I had been forced to admit the truth. She had held up her side of the bargain, so I must hold up mine.
But always in the back of my mind had been the concern about Dante. What had disturbed me more, though, when I had whisked her to Milan in the jet and set about buying her whatever she desired—which turned out to be much less than I wished to give her—was admitting my fears for her safety were about a lot more than just the baby now.
Thank God my men had finally captured the son of a bitch. And were bringing him to Isla Donna as I had ordered.
I dialled Lorenzo’s number. Keeping my voice low so as not to wake Mia, I spoke to him about what would happen next. But as I ended the call, the relief I wanted to feel didn’t come. Instead dread settled like a block of ice in my stomach.
‘Who’s Dante?’
The sleepy whisper had me spinning round to find Mia standing behind me draped in a sheet, her round belly more pronounced now than a month ago. Devoid of makeup, her heart-shaped face was still groggy with sleep and her hair even wilder than usual from our early-morning lovemaking.
Even though we had fucked less than an hour ago, I felt the familiar wave of arousal sink into my groin…and pound in the pyjama pants I had put on when I’d received the text.
When was I going to tire of her, and why did she captivate me so? Was it simply that she carried my child, as I had tried so hard to convince myself since bringing her to Isla Donna? Or was it her live wire responses, her silent strength, that intoxicating combination of determination and pragmatism and innocence which had made me start to trust her, to become addicted to her presence, more than I should?
I clicked off the phone and dropped it into the pocket of my pants, then clasped her neck and drew her towards me to press my face into the soft mass of her hair. I inhaled the intoxicating aroma which clung to her, that unique perfume of spring flowers and sex.
‘Nobody,’ I murmured—angry that Dante had intruded onto our time here together.
We would have to return to Isla Donna a day early. Perhaps I should leave her in Milan, I thought as I pulled the sheet aside to cup her naked bottom. It would be safer for her here while I concluded my business with Dante.
But a part of me knew, as she let out a sob against my neck, signaling her arousal, that it wasn’t just her safety I wanted to insure. I also wished to keep her away from the darkest side of my life.
Dante was a dead man, and once he was gone, the threat he posed would be dead too. But while I’d been waiting for him to leave the Malvini estate near Sicily, I had spent the past weeks indulging myself with Mia, taking a time-out on Isla Donna—allowing myself to be distracted, enjoying my time with her.
Mia’s sweetness, her artlessness, our conversations about the baby and her sister’s impending visit, and her dogged attempts to learn more about my past—which I had deflected—had been as captivating as her eagerness to explore our insane chemistry. She had been a delightful distraction, an addiction, an escape even from the demands of the syndicate—and the knowledge of what needed to happen next.
