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She turned into his caress, feeling no animosity toward him, only gratitude. And an affection that went far deeper than that.
Far deeper than the desire she felt simply for being seated so closely beside him, his comforting touch lingering against her face.
“You’re here now,” she said, pressing a soft kiss to the center of his palm.
His eyes flickered with sparks of amber light as her lips met his skin. She only meant the contact to be one of gratefulness and caring, but she felt the jolt of awareness too.
Her chest tightened, heat spreading across her breasts, licking down to her core.
Oh, yes, she still cared for him.
She wanted him.
Memories of stolen kisses and secret, tender embraces filled her head. She’d had only one night with Ettore, naked in each other’s arms, but she had held it close to her heart ever since.
Neither the cruelty of time nor fate had diminished anything she felt for him. To the contrary, it had only made the craving deepen. It had only made her recognize how keenly she had felt his loss all this time.
And how profoundly happy she was to be reunited with him now.
Even if in a shadowed corner of her heart she dreaded that fate wasn’t nearly finished with them yet.
Chapter 7
Savage didn’t know how he’d managed to endure more than an hour in the truck, seated so close to Bella. Her thigh had rested against his the whole trip, contact that had distracted him, soothed him…aroused him beyond reason.
It sent his mind spinning back in time, to another evening drive they’d taken together on vineyard business. The one that had ended with both of them undressed and tangled together on a blanket under a midnight blue sky streaked with shooting stars.
“Come on, Ettore! Isn’t it amazing?”
She grabbed a bottle of the newest Aglianico from the wooden cases in back of the truck and started running up the side of the nearby hill. He watched her go, her long legs bare and her curvy backside clad in grape-stained, faded denim shorts. He was always in a state of arousal around her, but seeing her dance away from him under the thin moon glow turned his cock to granite.
“Bella, you’d better come back. I don’t think this is a good idea.” Nevertheless, he pulled an old wool blanket from behind the seat and jogged after her.
She helped him spread it out on the cool grass, then pulled him down next to her. “Here, open this.” She handed him the bottle and a corkscrew.
“I don’t drink wine,” he reminded her as he pulled the cork out with a soft pop. None of his kind did, but she knew that well enough.
“Do you ever wish you could? Even a taste?”
“No.” He had never craved wine, but then he watched her tip the bottle to her lips to take a sip and he knew a thirst unlike any he’d ever known. Her throat worked as she swallowed, her head tipped back, drawing his eyes to the creamy column of her neck.
He cleared his throat, searching for his voice as his fangs punched out of his gums and his vision began to fire with amber. “Your father and Sal are expecting us back at the vineyard.”
She slowly brought the bottle down from her mouth and set it in the grass. Her lips were wet, as dark as cherries from the wine. Long black lashes framed the solemn pools of her eyes. “Do you want to go, Ettore?”
He knew it as the chance it was—his only hope to stop this need for Bella before it went too far. They had been circling this moment for weeks. Hell, from the moment he first walked on to the Genova property.
Fleeting glances. Brief touches. Shared laughter. Then, later, after he’d fought his attraction for as long as he could, there had been a kiss, a few stolen embraces. Followed by heated caresses that had left both of them in flames.
But she was an innocent, just eighteen years old to his twenty-five.
Even worse, she was the Breedmate sister of his closest friend.
