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“What?” She tilts her head, and I think I feel a slight shiver go through her, but she doesn’t pull away. “Don’t you want to have a little fun?”
Everything she says is just this side of inappropriate, just enough to make me wonder if she really means what she’s saying, or if I’m only interpreting it through a fog of lust, if responding to her innuendos would only result in her backing away, horrified that I heard her incorrectly.
My grip on her wrists loosens enough that she slips out of it, backing away and splashing me with a sudden movement of her hand that catches me entirely off guard and leaves me drenched. “Lighten up,” she teases, and I grimace.
See? This is what she means by ‘fun.’ Not what you were thinking.
Butgod, she makes it so hard not to get every signal mixed up. Gianna darts towards me, brushing against me as she splashes me again, clearly trying to get me into a playful fight that will only end with us far too close to each other. Her pouting is almost irresistible, those full, rosy lips pursed in my direction when I don’t respond, and when I finally give in and splash her in return, her delighted giggle makes my cock harden in a way that I know it shouldn’t.
This is wrong. It’s all wrong.But the wrongness of it all is part of what’s turning me on, part of what’s making me throb with equal parts lust and guilt as I move towards her through the sparkling water, aiming another splash at her without realizing that I’ve almost backed her against the wall.
I freeze again for one split second, just before I box her in, and as Gianna wipes the water away from her face, I see the look in her blue eyes one moment before she launches herself at me.
There’s no time to react or pull away. Her hands lock around the back of my neck, pulling me in against her, and her mouth crushes against mine. It’s an inexpert kiss, hard and clumsy, but I don’t think about that. I don’t think about the way her teeth catch on my lip or the way her mouth slightly misses mine before she manages to find my lips. All I can feel is her hands on me, hermouth, the desperate, reckless passion in the kiss, and the soft heat of her body against me as she tugs me closer, the water rippling around us as she wraps her legs around mine and pulls me in.
It’s almost impossible to stop. I’m aching, throbbing, and I know she can feel how hard I am. It would be impossible to miss in that moment when she pulls me close, my hips meeting hers for one glorious second before I arch away, knowing that if I grind against her the way I want to, we’ll be lost. I’ll have my trunks open, and her bikini pushed aside, and Gianna will lose her virginity in her backyard pool before either one of us can stop.
Or, worse still, I’ll come before that can happen and embarrass us both.
It takes every bit of effort in me to pull away. I disentangle myself from her, unlatching her hands from around the back of my neck and backing away, feeling the insistent ache within me only worsen as I do. It’s a novel experience for me to have to turn down a woman who has just shown so plainly that she wants me, and it’s not one that I’m enjoying in the slightest.
“Alessio—” Gianna bites her lip, looking at me with eyes gone glassy with desire, and I shake my head, putting more space between us.
“We can’t do this,” I tell her gently. “Whatever it is that made you want to do that—you need to put it out of your head. This isn’t right, Gianna. It can’t happen.”
“You want it.” Her words are almost accusatory, flung at me. “I felt—”
“What you felt was what would happen to any man with a woman pressed up against him like that.” It’s not strictly true, and I feel a little guilty using her innocence to convince her of it. I’ve never felt arousal likethat, not with anyone.
“So you don’t wantme?” There’s a hint of hurt in her voice, and I rub a hand across my mouth, feeling frustrated.
“Youshouldn’t want me. Gianna—this is wrong. If I do desire you, in any way, it’s something I should grapple with and do my best to overcome, not give in to. And this—attraction I suppose you have, it—”
“Why?” Her lips are pressed into a stubbornly thin line as she looks at me. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was fifteen, Alessio. You know that. It was in my father’s will that hewantedyou to marry me! So if I want you and you want me—” Her forehead creases, her eyes narrowing as she watches me from across the thin strip of water separating us. “Whydidyou leave?” she asks accusingly.
“The first time or the second?” I know what she’s asking, but I’m stalling as much as I can. This isn’t a conversation that I want to have with her, especially not with everything in so much upheaval for her, her father’s death so newly fresh. Hell,Idon’t want to reminisce on the last argument I had with Giacomo that left us estranged; that meant that I never saw him again—the only father I ever had—until I saw him in a coffin.
“Either.” She still has that stubborn set to her jaw, and I know that I’m not getting out of this conversation easily.
“Fine.” I let out a slow breath. “The first time was because he had you. Not out of jealousy,” I add quickly before she can get that idea in her head. “But I was eighteen when your mother died. Almost nineteen. I wanted your father to be able to focus on raising you—put all of the love he had into that, not comfort a grieving son. And besides, I’d been thinking about it since you were born. I felt that he no longer needed me to be his heir—that he would find a husband for you willing to keep the Mancini empire intact. I didn’t want to keep working alongside him, establishing that expectation in everyone else’s eyes that I would eventually be his heir. I didn’t want to step in front of you or take what could be yours. I didn’t want to be the reason you were married off to some other family while I took over the Mancini name. So I took my old name back up—Moretti—and I went to work for other families in Chicago, and then New York. That first time, Giacomo and I stayed in touch. He was disappointed, but he supported me, and I think he was grateful to have the space to grieve on his own. You were too young to need comfort. I thought he agreed with my choices. But of course, he had other ideas that I wasn’t privy to.”
“But that’s what’s happening anyway.” Gianna frowns at me. “You’re taking the role of don, and I’m going to be married off to some other man, into another family. What you say youdidn’twant. So—”
“My hope,” I interrupt her quickly, “is that we will find you a husband who finds taking your name and your father’s empire to be a suitable replacement for his own, lesser name. If that is the case, then I’ll simply step down, and go back to New York.”
“Like before.” Gianna’s expression is mutinous. “What about the second time? Why did you leave then?”
“Your father told me what he wanted,” I say quietly. “I had come back a handful of times after I started working for Luca Romano. His family and yours worked closely together, and Giacomo wanted to establish stronger ties. But that last visit—he sat me down and explained what it was that he hoped I would agree to…what he had put in his will. That he wanted me to take up the Mancini name again, marry you when you were twenty-one, and be his heir.” I feel the ache in my chest all over again, remembering that last conversation. It had been more acrimonious than I care to recall, and I hate that it was the last time we spoke—out of my own stubbornness, rather than his efforts.
“I have a great deal to atone for,” I tell Gianna softly. “And I can begin by keeping my promise to protect you, rather than taking advantage of you.”
“How is itadvantageif I want it?” It’s clear from her tone of voice that she doesn’t understand in the slightest. “If that’s what my father wanted—whynot, Alessio?”
“You shouldn’t want me,” I repeat. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Gianna, why you’ve—latched onto this idea, but this isn’t right. You’re my stepsister. By law, yes—but law is what would make us man and wife, too. And beyond that, I’m twice your age. Any of the sons that I will find to court you will be a better choice.”
“And if I don’t want them?” Gianna tilts her chin up, a measure of defiance in her face, but I can see the hurt behind it. I’ve made her feel rejected, and that knowledge makes my chest ache all over again—but better the rejection now, I tell myself, than her continuing to nurture this foolish crush.
“We all have to do things that we don’t want to in this life,” I tell her, wincing at the lecturing tone in my own voice.She needs to hear it,I remind myself.She has to understand.“I want to make this a slow transition for you, Gianna, and Iwill, as much as I’m able. But the only reason your father didn’t prepare you for marriage to some other man is that he was so firmly steadfast in his idea thatIshould be the one to marry you. That’s not going to happen. And so, it’s up to me to figure out how to handle what should have already been set in motion.”
