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His head tilted, slanting a wave of chocolate-brown hair over his forehead. ‘Is it though? I’m merely warning that I’m prepared to fight for what I want.’
Sensation rushed faster through her veins, stinging her like frantic little bees. Her nipples hardened and surged against her sweater. She mourned her exposing attire blatantly announcing his effect on her. As for the heat surging into her cheeks...she shifted closer to the fire, hoping he’d attribute that to her proximity to the flames.
But one glance into his smouldering honey-gold eyes and she knew he could tell exactly how his words affected her. Hell, his lips quirked with mockery as his gaze dropped to her chest.
She lifted one shoulder, feigning calm, attempting not to feel the heavy weight of the hair he seemed obsessed with brushing down her back.
Most importantly, she didn’t want to reveal how deep his words settled into her soul. ‘You...you want to fight for me?’
His eyelids swept down momentarily, shielding his emotions from her. But she caught the tic at his temple, saw the way his nostrils flared. ‘When the alternative is to prowl the rooms and hallways of the chalet in a sub-par mood, then yes. I’d rather we were on more agreeable terms. Or at the very least the agita was one that brings us both satisfaction.’
He meant it in a purely physical sense, of course, but it didn’t stop her heart from lurching. Fromyearning. Because no one had fought for her before. Ever. All her life she’d fought for every crumb of regard or happiness.
So even if this was a temporary truce, even if they returned to disagreeing minutes or hours from now, for this moment in time she would halt the upheaval. Give into the soaring enticement and embrace the warmth that came with it.
It therefore was no task at all to sway closer, to moan when his fingers spiked into her hair and angled her face to his. To blink in impatience when all he did was hold her there, his scrutiny soul-deep.
‘Alessio, please kiss me,’ she gasped, something inside desperate to grasp the moment before it slipped out of her hand.
His eyes turned molten but he still withheld her wish. ‘It is true that, right now, my immediate need is to bury my fingers in those lush curls, feel them come alive around my limbs and take it from there. But first, I need you to give me the true reason you didn’t want this to happen again,’ he breathed against her lips.
Giada’s stomach dipped in alarm. She’d bared so much. As he’d said, once Gigi resurfaced with his precious heirloom, they’d never see each other again. In a matter of days, they would be memories to each other.
Past but not forgotten. I’ll never forget him.
‘Giada.’ The rasped command was unmistakable.
She sucked in a breath, the hand that had somehow found its way to his bare chest digging into his flesh, as if he could stop the ocean of anguish from sweeping her away. ‘I’ve striven so hard not to be anything like Renata. I know she’s my mother and I shouldn’t think badly of her but...’
‘A part of you reciprocates the disappointment she strives, unjustifiably, I think, to find in you? And you feel guilty for it?’
Her gasp at his concise summation drew a ghost of a smile from him. ‘Yes.’
‘And you think sharing my bed, and wanting to do it again, makes you like her?’
‘It’s not...something I’ve done before.’ And it terrified her how addicted she could get to, not just sharing her body with him, but even this...delving-beneath-the-skin thing she was doing.
A flame of triumph lit his eyes for the briefest moment. ‘I’m glad to hear it,bedda mia. And that in itself should tell you that there’s no slippery slope unless you create one yourself.’ His thumb slid back and forth over her lips, his eyes darkening at her hitched breathing. ‘This might feel like it’s out of your control, but ultimately the choices you make are entirely within your power and no one else’s.’
Perhaps this was the reason Alessio Montaldi commanded power and turned the world’s most influential men into his willing acolytes. Because just then, Giada felt like she could move mountains with her bare hands. As if the years of clashing with Renata, while heart-aching, had forged her into a woman who could hold her head up and declare herselfenough.
Tears prickled her eyelids as she opened her mouth, not entirely sure what to say to Alessio. Thank you, maybe?
But a heavy look was passing through his own eyes, a shifting in the air that said perhaps he knew what was happening to her. Was caught in it, too? A blink later, it was gone. And his head was descending.
‘You will not regret this,se?’ he rasped huskily. Insistently.
She shook her head, a glut of emotion overwhelming her.
‘Say it,tesoro.’
‘No regrets. Absolutely none.’
A thick groan erupted, then he was fusing his mouth to hers, nudging her back on the leather seat, his expert hands stripping them both.
And as he thrust hard and deep inside her, and she delivered herself up for the exhilarating ride to nirvana, Giada affirmed to herself that, no, there was no regret this time.
But therewaspossible collateral damage of her deeper emotions. Because Alessio Montaldi hadn’t just woven magic on her body. He’d also claimed a part of her soul.
