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I lifted her legs and positioned her on the bathroom counter before I dropped my pants and thrust myself inside her.
“God…” She breathed into my mouth, her lips immobile after the violent way I’d forced myself inside her.
“I’m not your god.” I watched her reaction in the mirror as I fucked her. “I’m your man.”
I was behind the wheel of the truck while Vanessa sat beside me. Her long legs were sexy in the cutoff shorts she wore. Yellow was a perfect color on her, especially with that gorgeous Tuscan skin. My hand gripped the inside of her thigh, feeling the tight muscle of her slender leg.
We drove through the fields of Tuscany, approaching the house where she grew up. The last time I was there, I screamed at her father. He said he would take the memory to the grave—and I believed him. I had serious dirt on him, the kind of dirt that would make Vanessa look at her father in a whole new way.
I didn’t like him, but I didn’t want her not to like him too.
She had both of her arms wrapped around mine, her hands resting in the crook of my elbow. One single arm of mine was bigger than both of hers put together, but her slenderness didn’t undermine her strength. She might be small, but she was resourceful. It was one of the things I loved about her, her fiery combustion.
“So, what did you and my father talk about for two hours?” She kept pressing this topic, her curiosity impossible to withstand.
“You.”
“Be more specific.”
With one hand on the wheel and the radio playing lightly in the background, I kept my eyes on the road. “I can’t remember.”
“Bullshit. Why won’t you tell me?”
“It was a conversation between two men, baby. That’s all.”
“I like the idea of you two having your own relationship, but I’d like to know the context.”
“He said he wanted to get to know me better, to try having some kind of relationship with me.”
“Really?” she said, her voice suddenly quiet. “That was sweet of him.”
Sweet or not, I still didn’t like him.
“It means a lot to me that he’s trying…it really does.”
A part of me was touched that Crow Barsetti was trying to move forward with me, and me alone. He wasn’t bringing Vanessa into it. He had the courage to face me head on and look me in the eye while he told me how he felt. He was honest, never apologizing for what he did but admitting he wanted the future to be different. At any point in time he could have walked out of that bar and abandoned the attempt, especially with the harsh things I said, but he stayed.
I didn’t think we could move forward and have any kind of relationship.
Just tolerance.
But he seemed to want more.
I didn’t want to tell Vanessa how I really felt, that I disliked her father as much now as I did in the beginning. He took her away from me when he had no right, and as a result, she could have ended up with that perfect painter. How could I forgive a man for interfering with my life so much? It’d been over six months of cold brutality from the Barsetti clan. A simple apology and a glass of scotch couldn’t erase all of that.
She turned her gaze up at me, watching me for a moment. “I appreciate that you’re trying too.”
I kept my eyes on the road, refusing to let the guilt suffocate me. She wouldn’t be happy if she knew I stormed onto her family’s property and insulted them after peace had been established. I could have ignited her father’s wrath all over again.
But I wouldn’t have let him take her away from me again.
I would have kidnapped her if it came down to it.
We pulled into the driveway a few minutes later. I parked in the gravel of the roundabout, taking the same spot I always took. I still remembered the day I showed up here and handed over the fully loaded shotgun. Maybe to Crow, it seemed like a lifetime ago, but for me, that just happened yesterday.
Yesterday, he called me trash.
Yesterday, he called my mother a whore.
We got out of the car and walked to the front door, the sweltering heat apparent the second the engine was turned off. It was humid on a clear day, and the summer breeze wasn’t enough to combat the scorching temperatures.
Vanessa led us inside, and we greeted her parents in the entryway.
Pearl’s eyes softened the second she looked at me. Instead of greeting her daughter first, all of her focus was on me. She looked at me differently from the way she used to, respecting my presence every time I stepped into the room. She used to regard me with a cold and guarded expression, anticipating an attack at any point in time. She was always stuck between disdain and contempt. But now, she didn’t look at me that way. Her expression was warm and inviting, the same look she gave when she saw Vanessa or Conway. “Hello, Griffin. It’s so nice to see you.” She extended her arms to me and hugged me, holding me for an extra second like I was another son to her. She patted my back before she pulled away, her blue eyes full of friendliness. “How are you liking Florence?”
