Page 287 of Alessio

“I don’t think you want me to.”

A laugh answered that back. And God, he sounded and looked so fucking good doing it, too. Except in her distraction at enjoying the sight of him carefree and sexy, she didn’t realize he’d crossed the gym floor and came to stand in front of her until he was right there.

Right fucking there.

Brown eyes bore into hers.

He was close enough for her to touch.

Ginevra stared up at him, words catching in her throat as that heat shot through her nerves all over again. Electric. It really was the only appropriate way to describe what she felt whenever this man was near. Like something was buzzing around them—something different and important and amazing.

He seemed willing to ignore it.

She wasn’t.

Not anymore.

“Tell me how you know, then,” he said, his head dipping lower so that she could feel the warmth of his breath whispering along her lips. “I’m waiting, Ginny.”

Her gaze dropped between them.

And then, it came back up.

She couldn’t manage to feel embarrassed about the heat staining her cheeks as she whispered, “You’re hard.”

And he was.

Under the thin, satiny fabric of the gym shorts, the ridge of his erection was plain to see pushing against the material. She didn’t think he was wearing anything else under the shorts, not that she minded. It gave her a good view.

It proved something, too.

She affected him.

Corrado blinked once, slow and considering, his stare drifting over her face, down her throat, and then back up again where his eyes lingered on her lips. The action alone was enough to make her wet her lips, and swallow hard.

“You shouldn’t poke a monster,” he murmured.

“I only see a man, Corrado.”

“It’s what’s hiding in the man that might scare you, amour.”

“Just how many languages can you speak?”

Corrado’s mouth edged higher at the corners. “That’s the question you want to ask right now.”

“Why not?”

“Surprising me again, Ginny.”

She finally figured out what he meant when he told her that, too. Everyone else would ask the obvious question, and she didn’t. She asked the things he wasn’t expecting, and it constantly kept him on his toes.

“How many?” she asked.

“I grew up speaking three,” he replied. “French and Italian from my father’s side of the family—French from the Quebecois side, and Italian from … well, we’re a touch more Italian than French. And also English, of course.”

“Is that all?”

“I know a bit of Russian, enough to get me through a conversation. Some German, but not nearly enough. And I might take on something else, if it interests me.”