Page 53 of Brutal Obsession
While shaking his head, he steps closer.
I hold my hand in front of myself, wordlessly begging him to stay where he is.
He pays my request no attention, so I use words. “If this is about the IVF bungle?—”
“It’s not.”
I continue as if he didn’t speak. “You don’t owe me anything. You’re as much a victim of their error as Valeria and I are.”
He stops a mere foot from me. “It’s not about that.” The sheer actuality in his tone pricks tears in my eyes. “That has nothing to do with this,” he says, jerking his hand between us. “I helped your mother because I wanted to.” His anger surges. “And because access to life-saving healthcare should be available for everyone, not just the wealthy fucks who probably have a cure for cancer but are too greedy to release it.”
He’s speaking words I’ve wanted to hear for years, but sometimes the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. “I can’t afford to pay you back. I’ll try, but?—”
“You owe me nothing.”
“Giovanni…”
“You owe menothing,” he repeats, sterner this time.
Relief crashes over me in slow, trembling waves. I can’t believeafter all this time, Mom is finally getting the medical treatment she desperately needs. Fresh tears fill my eyes as I imagine her in a clean hospital bed, moaning about the nursing staff fussing over her. She hates feeling like a burden, but if it brings back the color in her cheeks and makes her voice a little stronger, I’m all for it.
I’m grateful for the relief, but I know it will be short-lived. I’m not off the hook just yet. Giovanni’s shoulders are still high and taut, and the tension emitting off him is palpable.
He’s angry, and my actions this morning are thesolecause of his fury.
He fixes me with that stare again as his tone shifts from brutish to wounded. “You ran…”
Before I can offer him a stream of excuses, he slices his hand through the air, cutting me off. He doesn’t want excuses. He wants restitution for my mistake. And he wants it now. The lust detonating in his eyes announces this, as does the growing bulge below his belt.
“What happens when you run from me,dolcezza?”
He’s asking a question, but I keep quiet. I can’t speak. It’s impossible to do anything but stare. Giovanni is a brutally beautiful man. Every inch of him radiates confidence and power, but my attraction to him stems from more than that. Even in an empty room, his movements and the energy he projects are palpable.
And the fact he helped my mother without truly knowing her has me drawn to him like a magnet.
He’s unaware that her smile rescued me from the dark when it became too much, or that it made my boo-boos seem nowhere near as dire. He has no clue my mother is my world, yet he still helped her.
When Giovanni hovers close, a part of me wants to avoid confrontation, but I stand my ground. He’s too enigmatic to crave a woman who bows out at the first sign of trouble. He wants someone brave enough to stand by his side, not two steps behind him.
“What happens when you run from me,dolcezza?” Sparks zapacross my face when he grips my chin and lifts it to align our eyes. “When I catch you, I get to?—”
“Fuck me,” I interrupt, too turned on by the chemistry hissing between us to act nonchalant.
I don’t need to lower my eyes to his mouth to confirm his smirk is smug.
I can feel it in my bones.
His agreeing hum clusters in my clit. I’m wet. Already. And unashamed.
How could something so right ever feel wrong?
Instead of seeking answers to questions I haven’t asked yet, I propel onto my feet and seal my mouth over Giovanni’s.
I kiss him until my lips are swollen and red as if I’m wearing lipstick.
Then I kiss him some more.
Lust bubbles in my blood when his hot breath ghosts over my ear. “How wet are you? Do you think you can take me now?”
