AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Merry Christmas, Elio,” she replied. “Thanks for the kiss. I needed that,” she admitted, before walking away to deliver the wine to Liza, who—mercifully—had been too wrapped up in the quarters game to see him kissing her friend senseless.
Then he considered her comment…and realized something unexpected.
He’d needed that kiss too.
The only thing he couldn’t figure out was why.
Chapter Three
Gianna leaned forward, shifting slightly to alleviate the pain in her knees from holding the same position for so long. She’d put a towel down, kneeling on it, rather than the hard tile floors, but she probably should have grabbed a pillow instead.
Stretching, she fought hard to scrub the back corner of the oven. She was fairly certain it had never been cleaned. Not once in its very, very long life.
She sang along with Spotify, belting out one of her favorite P!nk songs, “Fuckin’ Perfect,” as she worked. Liza had told her to take this time at the cabin to work her shit out, and Gianna figured her best chance at doing that was letting her girl P!nk build her back up and help her find her feet again.
She had arrived at the Moretti cabin in the Poconos a few hours earlier, and she’d known in an instant that Liza had given her a true gift. The place was so quaint, so inviting and cute, that she’d fallen in love with it within seconds of walking through the front door.
Her holidays had also been surprisingly great. A Moretti Christmas Eve was everything Liza had promised and more, but rather than feeling overwhelmed and out of place, Gianna had gotten, perhaps for the first time in her life, a true sense of family.
Not that she’d grown up without a family, but it had always just been her and Grandma Mary in a quiet apartment that had been devoid of any sort of life or liveliness or…God, even joy. The holidays she’d spent with Sam and his family had also been fairly low-key and relatively uneventful.
None of that held true at Nonno and Nonna Moretti’s house. She’d been welcomed with open arms and a lot—holy shit, a lot—of hugs and food and music and presents and laughter and wine.
Jesus. So much wine.
The Morettis were huggers, the whole bunch of them, and she’d found those friendly, caring, warm embraces filling her well in ways she hadn’t even realized she’d needed.
Elio had been there—of course, it was his family—but because of the huge crowd, she hadn’t had the opportunity to do more than wish him a Merry Christmas and accept his friendly sling-free hug, which had been very much like the ones she’d received from his brothers and cousins. Not that those hugs had produced the same reaction as Elio’s. None of the others had left her feeling so tingling inside.
Unfortunately, there’d been no repeat of the mistletoe kiss, more’s the pity.
She had never really noticed Elio in the past, beyond acknowledging that he was sex-on-a-stick hot. She may have had a boyfriend, but she wasn’t blind. All of Liza’s brothers and male cousins were hot. It was just a fact of life.
But on Christmas Eve, she’d found her gaze traveling around the room to find him, to watch him interact with his family, her newfound fascination driven by that kiss.
God almighty.
That. Kiss.
Prior to the holiday party, she’d kissed one guy in her life. Sam. And while she’d always found Sam’s kisses very sweet and sometimes even sexy, she realized now her opinions were misinformed and inaccurate because she had not done nearly enough research in that area.
She had tossed and turned in her bed the night of the party, not due to sadness over Sam as she might have expected, but because Elio had turned something on inside her that she could not turn back off.
Not even now, nine days after the party.
Gianna tried, once again, to push it out of her mind, which was easier said than done. She was such a glutton for punishment, constantly fluctuating between sadness over Sam and lust for Elio, the most unavailable man on the planet.
She’d been friends with Liza enough years to have heard all about Elio Moretti’s aversion to anything even remotely approaching a relationship or even dating. His sister had dubbed him King of the Booty Calls, claiming Elio was married to hockey and that was it. End of story.
Sex wasn’t in the cards for her in the near future, so it was best to stop obsessing over that damn kiss. That, or maybe she should break down and try out her new sex toys.
Elio was on his way back to Baltimore, and she most likely wouldn’t see him again until the hockey season was over.
Besides, she thought, internally wagging a finger at herself, what the hell do you think is going to happen the next time you do see him?
Nothing. Not one damn thing.
It wasn’t like mistletoe was always hanging in doorways, or Elio was interested in her. It had been one kiss.
