On The Ropes (16 page)

“I think you’re going to get lucky tonight to celebrate.”

“I’m lucky already.” He wrapped his hand around the doorknob and laid the fingers of his other hand on my lips. Then he brought them to his own mouth in his version of a goodbye kiss. “Later,
amore mio
.”

I smiled after him. I really needed to get a pocket Italian dictionary or something.

My next set went by without incident. I danced, I shook my ass, I stuffed dollar bills in the waistband of my booty shorts. Gio’s win had given the place a jubilant atmosphere—led, of course, by his good buddy Marco, and the rarely spotted Lorenzo—and that meant guys were in the mood to spend. I was happy to capitalize on their generosity.

Mama had a bakery to start outfitting. I was already picturing the Sub-Zero freezer and gleaming stainless steel Kitchen Aid mixers now.

On my way down from my cage, I caught sight of Gio with a redhead. Not a sort of redhead like me, but one rocking a full head of glorious scarlet corkscrew curls. She had her hand on his arm, and she kept trying to talk to him, but his attention was squarely centered on me.

Jealousy spurted hot, and was quickly doused. We weren’t a permanent thing, or one that could be acknowledged anywhere but behind closed doors. Going up to his new friend and throwing a drink in her face would be childish, and ultimately, unsatisfying.

There was a reason I’d never be able to get too close to Gio, and it wasn’t because of all the pretty babes he could have with a snap of his fingers. If only. The hold Marco and the others had on him would snatch him away from me long before another woman did.

I sent him a smile and a wave as I sailed past him and headed to the dressing room, careful to keep the envy off my face. It wouldn’t do either of us any good.

On the way to his place, he called me on it.

“You weren’t jealous,” he said flatly, as I counted that night’s take.

“Hmm?” I’d done well for myself. Damn well. It would hurt to give up this job, but I’d get over it. I’d just have to make sure I aced every one of my classes and worked my ass off at the bakery to turn a profit.

Maybe a café was a better choice. I could still sell baked goods, and offer a small array of sandwiches and soups—

“She wasn’t anyone to me. Just one of the girls Marco brings around.”

I waved my handful of cash. A nice thick handful, thank you very much. “Oh, I know. That’s okay.”

“It’s okay?” His fingers tightened around the wheel. “Are you back with salad dude?”

“What?” I laughed. “No. I’m not with anyone.”

“Except me,” he said, as if I’d forgotten.

“Except you,” I echoed. “But we both know that’s almost over. Better to plan for the future, and not fret about what can’t be changed.”

Damn, I sounded Zen. Slater would be proud of me, if he wasn’t dating a psychopath and was still talking to us.

I’d have to go see him this week. He wasn’t allowed to shut me out too. I hadn’t done a thing to him. And if he was dating a psychopath, maybe somehow he had a good reason.

I cast a sidelong look at Gio.
Just like you have a good reason to be dating a guy who almost committed murder.

Or maybe he had, and just hadn’t been caught.

“And you’re okay with that. Just fine with it,” he said through clenched teeth. “No big deal, right? Just go back to our lives the way they were before.”

I stopped counting. “You’re the one who tried to argue me out of my feelings earlier,” I said quietly. “Now you’re mad because I’m doing my best to accept reality?”

“No. God, no.” He tipped his head back on the seat for a second before returning his attention to the road. “I asked you to give me a chance to show you what I wish, and I’m ruining it.”

“Yeah, you are.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ll never lie to me, will you? No matter how raw it is, you’ll always give me the truth.”

I thought of the words I’d stuffed down earlier, so we wouldn’t get into a fight. So he wouldn’t know what a sucker I was, so hopeless and naïve to fall for a man like him. “Yes, except when it comes to one thing.”

He glanced at me, and quickly glanced away. He didn’t want to know that one thing, any more than I wanted to tell him.

As soon as we arrived at his place, he drew me into the bedroom. I expected things to progress quickly from there, but instead, he handed me two gift-wrapped boxes.

“What are these?” I shook them, as I always did with gifts. The rustle of tissue paper was the only sound. “It’s not my birthday for another four months.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking more exhausted than I’d ever seen him. The smile he gave me was nothing like the one from earlier. There wasn’t an ounce of genuine feeling in it. “Open them, and you’ll see.”

Wanting—needing—him to smile again for real, I sat beside him and went through an elaborate routine with the first present. I shook it again, then pretended to sniff it, and took forever pulling on the bow and paper. When I finally opened the lid and pulled out a white cotton dress with plump strawberries all over it, and yellow ribbons laced around the collar, I started to laugh. Belly laugh, like I hadn’t in too many months to count.

“You didn’t,” I managed.

A glimmer of amusement lightened his eyes. “Open the rest.”

The next box held a multi-pack of huge plaid underwear. Not sexy plaid, old-fashioned plaid. I didn’t know where he could have found something so ugly.

My belly laughs started again. “Let me guess. These panties are to go with that awesome dress?”

He nodded solemnly. “I owed you new ones of both.”

I’d actually forgotten the whole outfit deal, because it had been a couple weeks since the doorway clothes-ripping night. He’d gone to war on two more pairs of my panties since then, so he would’ve owed me three pairs anyway.

And look at that, the plaid came in a three-pack. The guy never missed a trick.

“I’m so thrilled. They’re just what I always wanted.” I launched myself at him, absorbing the sound of his surprised laughter like a kid sucked down a milkshake. I’d memorize that sound too, and hold it close whenever he felt too far away.

Like all the moments he wasn’t inside me. That was the only time I felt like I had a real, solid connection with him. Every other moment between us might as well have been quicksand, always shifting.

“I figured.” He gave me a quick, hard kiss before pulling out two more boxes from under the bed. “But just in case, I got you these too.”

I eyed them speculatively, noticing the distinct difference in wrapping paper. The other two boxes had been wrapped in garish, neon paper. These two were wrapped in sophisticated gilt-edged paper.

My heart started to beat faster as I pulled open the first box. I lifted the seductive black and red lace bra-and-panty set out of the tissue paper and tried not to gasp. I gasped over too many things, but this—
this
really deserved one.

“La Perla?” I said, turning over the tag. “Holy shit. I’ve never…this is so far beyond…”

I glanced at him, biting my lip. I didn’t want to ask where he got so much money, enough that he’d offered to pay off my tuition with one check, for pity’s sake. Enough that he took me out to eat at fancy restaurants sometimes before we came back to his place, and he never blinked at the total, no matter the cost.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the absolutely insane tabs he ran at the club. He was always ordering Dom Perignon for the table, as if it were water. His closet was full of expensive Italian suits he rarely wore, and he had enough pairs of high-end sneakers to outfit a basketball team.

“You’re going to ask me how I make my money.”

“I wasn’t,” I began. Then I sighed, fingering my gorgeous lingerie. It mattered how he made his money. I couldn’t accept this if it was from dirty sources.

Could I?

“You make a lot fighting,” I said softly, knowing I was trying to reassure myself. Not just because of the panties and bra, but because I didn’t want him to be in so deep that he’d never find his way out. Even if he wasn’t able to until we were over, I didn’t want that life for him.

“Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I also make a little at the Boys and Girls club, teaching judo to little kids.” I blinked and his smile came and went. “I started taking lessons at six, so I figured I might as well put them to good use and teach others. And the kids, they love it. They think I’m a hero.”

I smiled and touched his arm with my free hand. The other still clung to the La Perla. I wasn’t giving it up unless I had to. “That’s really sweet.”

“No, that doesn’t account for most of where my money comes from.” His shrewd dark eyes narrowed on mine. “My mother left me a sizeable inheritance. I’ve invested well.”

I couldn’t restrain the breath I’d been holding. “Thank you for telling me.”

He nodded. “I promise you, I wouldn’t buy anything that would touch your body with money that wasn’t mine to spend.”

Before I could digest the reverence in his voice, he gestured to the second package. “Open it. Please.” He chuckled at my reluctance to let go of my new lingerie. “Give it here. I’ll hold it. It’s not my color, so you’ll definitely get it back.”

“Not your size either,” I said with an eyebrow waggle at the bulge in his pants. He didn’t have to be hard to be an eyeful.

“I can’t wait to see you in it. And in that,” he said as I carefully tugged the navy wrap dress out of the box. It was knee-length and made out of a satiny fabric with a sheen that would draw stares. Though the style was modest, there was no doubt of its sexiness.

This was the kind of dress a high-society woman would wear, when she was on the town with a man of distinction.

In other words, I’d never touched anything like it in my life.

“Oh Gio,” I whispered, awed. “How much did all this cost? I didn’t mean for you to break the bank. You could’ve replaced my panties and dress just by hitting a knockoff department store. These are…” I shook my head and tried to find the words. “You make me feel so special. Even with all of the insanity around us, and the other girls, and—”

“There are no other girls.” He tipped up my chin with a fingertip. “No matter who I talk to, or who comes around me, since it’s been you and me, it’s
only
been you and me.”

My chin trembled and he steadied it with that same fingertip. “I really want you to show me what you wished we could have.” I wet my lips and watched his expression change from caring to ravenous in a heartbeat. “If you still want to.”

“I do. So much.” He leaned forward and replaced his finger with his mouth, kissing me gently enough to make my eyes sting and my belly quiver. I slid my hands into his hair and pushed aside the boxes, needing to be closer to him. I would’ve climbed right onto his lap if he hadn’t chuckled and eased away. He dangled the La Perla set in front of me, his chuckle deepening. “Gotta take a shower first. I didn’t have time to take one after the fight, and I’m rank.”

I didn’t ask why he hadn’t take the time to shower before heading to the club, because I already knew.
Me
. He hadn’t wanted me out of his sight, not on a night I was dancing.

Warmth filled me as I took my treasured gift and buried my face in the lace cups. “Go shower. I’ll just be here making out with my new underwear.”

“Sure you don’t want to join me?”

Of course I did. But I wanted to set a mood too, and if we got under the water together, there would be nothing but fast, furious fucking.

Not that I had a single, solitary problem with that.

“How about you let me go first? I’ll be super quick.” Before he could question me, I backed toward the bathroom. “Time it. Five minutes or less.”

I stripped and jumped into the shower. I half expected him to pull open the frosted door at any time, but that was Gio. Polite to a fault, except when he wasn’t.

Moving swiftly, I lathered up with his orange-scented shower gel. In under four minutes, I got out and faced myself in the steamy mirror to survey the hair damage.

Hello, out of control curls.

Sighing, I fingercombed them as best as I could and hooked the towel around my body. I was practically tingling at the thought of the lingerie sliding over my skin—followed by Gio’s hands and mouth.

I opened the door to the darkened bedroom. The only light came from the candles that seemed to cover every surface.

And Gio stood naked and sheepish, as if he expected me to complain.

“Do you like them? If not, I’ll blow them out—”

“Don’t you dare.” Smiling, I rushed forward and placed my hands on his chest as I leaned up to give him a kiss. “Go on, get clean for me so I can get you dirty and sweaty all over again.”

“As you wish.” He groaned softly as I gave his cock a playful rub before he walked into the bathroom.

The man was already half hard. I loved him so.

Oh shit. Do not think that way. Not even for a second, or in jest.

To distract myself, I rushed to the bed to pick up my cherished lingerie. No, I did
not
love him. I liked him plenty. Love was different. Love was reserved for a man I could have a long-term relationship with, out in the open. No secrecy.

Which meant no Giovanni Costas.

I put on the bra and panties and looked around frantically for something to toss over them. I wanted a little pomp and circumstance to go with the effort he’d shown with the candles, but no way was I going to put on the dress he’d given me. Either of them. The strawberries…um, no. And the navy wrap dress, absolutely not. I couldn’t take the chance he’d get too enthusiastic, as much as I hoped he would.

My gaze lit on his dresser. One of his shirts would work perfectly.

The top drawer was just socks and underwear. I was about to shut it and go to the next one when a shadow in the back corner caught my attention. Without thinking, I reached out, slipped my hand inside—

And closed my hand around a gun.

I
sensed
the change in her the moment I went back into the bedroom.

She was on the bed, spread out. Wet hair draped over the pillows, long pale legs curled seductively. She wore one of my white dress shirts half-unbuttoned over the bra and panties I’d given her, and she was absolutely stunning.

But her eyes were dark, too dark, and even the flickering candlelight didn’t lighten them.

“Carly?”

She said nothing, just waited for me to come to her. So I did.

Shedding my towel, I crawled across the mattress and took her face in my hands. I didn’t know what had changed in the five minutes I’d been gone, but goddammit, I wanted one night where there was nothing between us but skin. No lies, no secrets, no denials. Just her body under mine.

I almost expected her to reject my kiss, but she opened her lips and drew me inside greedily, her hands coasting down my spine. She kneaded the sore muscles along my lower back while we fed on each other’s mouths. I flipped apart the shirttails of my shirt, unspeakably aroused by the sight of her in my clothes. Smelling like my soap, my shampoo. I wanted her to taste like me too.

As much as I’d hoped to go slow, to make love to her the right way, it wasn’t going to happen. My need was far too great.

When I moved aside to kneel next to her head, her big eyes swallowed me before her mouth did. She didn’t hesitate, taking me deep between those glossy wet lips. I tried not to thrust, to demand before she was ready, but her throat acquiesced to my invasion and the heat and wet was too much. I fisted the damp hanks of her hair and positioned her where I wanted, driving forward to the keening sounds of her moans. She rubbed her thighs together, in obvious distress, and I couldn’t keep from alleviating it any more than I could stop myself from taking her mouth.

Twisting sideways, careful not to lose the link with her, I parted her thighs and groaned at the stickiness already coating her brand new panties. She’d made them hers, just as I would soon make her mine. While I was inside her, I owned her. Every bit as much as she owned me.

I pushed aside the lacy panel guarding her from me and skimmed my fingers over her lower lips. Puffy and soaked, they lured me farther into the inferno inside. I plunged into her, registering her cry around my dick with another groan of my own. Tipping my head back, I pushed into her again and again, judging from the canting of her hips that she wouldn’t take long.

At this rate neither would I.

Breathing hard, I forced myself to pull back. Some primal urge caused me to paint her overused lips with the moisture beading at the head of my cock, just for the pleasure of watching her licking up every drop. She didn’t shy away from anything sexual. Anything, period. I was the one who’d lived in a cage of my own making for the last two and a half years.

Not Carly. She was deliriously open to all experiences, as open as I would make her for my mouth.

Pressing her thighs wide open, I moved between them and covered her with my lips. I couldn’t get enough of her on my tongue. I wanted to be coated with her. To taste her every time I swallowed.

She locked her feet behind my back and rose up, offering every bit of herself to me. I took it in greedy gulps, fingers and tongue working, driven to make her come. I scraped my teeth over her plump clit and she jerked, her body shuddering. Close. So close. I added another finger, using three to hold her open while I lapped at the arousal slipping from her onto my hand, onto the bed.

Growling at the underwear that was now in my way, I started to do as I always did—rip them away—and she bowed up, shaking her head frantically. She was already fighting to shove them down her hips. “No. For God’s sake, save the panties!”

Even with my chin smeared with her, I started to laugh. Hard.

She made such a gorgeous picture with her hair all wild, and her mouth abused from me. Her legs spread, her breasts trapped by the bra that pushed them together against the confines of my shirt.

I helped her take them the rest of the way off, and grinned as she folded them carefully and set them aside. Then she lifted her brows at me and gestured between her legs. “As you were.”

“Jesus, woman.” I nipped her belly and enjoyed her hitching laugh before I bent down to finish my task.

I opened her up again, and decided to ratchet up the stakes. Slipping in three fingers once more, I covered her clit with my lips and sucked without cease until she started to squirm. Her hands knotted in my hair, pulling hard enough to make my cock throb against the bed. It wanted in the tight wetness around my fingers. Now.

“Fuck me. God, please, fuck me. Before I come.”

I wanted both—for her to come in my mouth, and on my dick. I wanted her writhing and lost, delirious to anything but her oncoming orgasm. For as long as I kept her in that state, I could keep her. As soon as the sex-haze faded, we’d be back to where we’d started.

Way too far apart, on the opposite sides of a line that could kill.

I rose to my knees and leaned over her to fumble in the nightstand drawer. I expected her to back a joke about saving the condoms from the trash, as she had a few times now, but she only remained still beneath me, expectant. Waiting for me to sheath my cock with that layer of latex that couldn’t block the sensation of her scorching me right straight through to the bone.

She rose up on her knees too and I went to work on the buttons of her shirt.
My
shirt. Fuck, I got off on seeing her like this. Wearing me, tasting like me, smelling like me.

Opening up to me in every way.

Halfway down the line of buttons, I pushed the shirt off her shoulders. I couldn’t hold back any longer. Her skin was like candy to me. I nuzzled and kissed and lapped at her, tasting the drops of perspiration mixed with the water left behind from her shower. Her lemon and vanilla scent filled my head as I thumbed aside the strap of her bra. These kisses I was giving her would leave marks. I wanted them to.

I filled my hands with her breasts, tugging the nipples free of their contraption, swallowing hard at the way they peeked over the edge of red lace. I bent and took first one then the other between my teeth, giving her that pinch of pain that always made her go crazy. I didn’t stop until her nipples were as red as the bra, and as tight as the hot clasp that had surrounded me a few moments ago.

Too long. I had to get inside her again, this time with my cock.

“In me,” she breathed, and I couldn’t wait.

I grabbed the pillows behind her and shoved them under her ass, pushing her backward on her knees until I could plunge into her. Deep. Hard. Her mouth dropped open, and I closed it with mine as I pulled out and went for the second stroke. She panted every time I pulled out and sank back in, gripping her thighs and holding them wide open for my onslaught. Her rosy pink slit beckoned me, illuminated by the half dozen candles I’d set around the bed. I wanted her pussy redder. I wanted her soaked, swollen. Open to me in a way she’d never been to another, and never would be again once I was gone.

Reality tried to descend, but I fought it, surging into her harder, almost oblivious to the sounds of the bedframe hammering into the wall. She bowed her back, digging her nails into my sides. She’d leave welts behind, and I craved those marks too. I needed something permanent. The madness she created in me couldn’t blow in and out like a storm by morning. I wouldn’t let it.

I’d fuck her until we were both broken. Too spent to stand. Incapable of walking away.

She cried out at the frantic flick of my fingers over her clit. She pulsed under my touch, an erotic counterpoint to the throb of blood under my skin. The heat was drowning me. No matter how I struggled to break through it, to drive her up to the climax she’d been quivering on the edge of for so long now, I couldn’t get her there. Couldn’t get myself there either. My body refused to let go.

Just like hers.

A glance upward at the closed glass of the skylight gave me what I needed to push me over. The reflected image of our bodies wrapped together, my hips pumping, hers accepting. Her breasts bouncing as she arched her back, desperate to take every inch of me into her clenching grip. I grabbed her chin and tipped her head back, forcing her to see what I did. Us, in the glass. Shadowy and urgent. Fucking as if our lives depended on it.

That was the way we’d started, and the way we would end.

As she tightened up around me, letting me know she was almost there, I hauled in a breath and did the unthinkable—I pulled out.

“Gio,” she moaned, probably as shocked as I was that I was breaking up the action now, of all times.

“In my mouth.” I dropped to my stomach in front of her. The pillows pushed up her ass and pussy, putting them on display. The perfect height for me to take a long, slow lick. “Come on my tongue.”

She moaned again, and I didn’t know for sure if it was from frustration or urgency. But she wove her fingers through my damp hair, pulling me against her, wordlessly begging for what I was more than happy to give.

I rolled her engorged clit under my thumb and slid my tongue inside her, scooping up her wetness again and again. She rocked her hips against me, her legs jerking futilely against the sheets on either side of my shoulders. I nipped her swollen folds and let her taste saturate my senses, making me as mad for her as she was for me. On the verge myself, I reached down to grip my throbbing cock in one hand while I teased her with the other, prolonging both of our torment. I wanted to know all of her. Claim each and every inch.

She flexed against me and her nails pressed into the back of my neck. My name leaving her lips on a harsh pant of breath was the only warning I got that she was coming. Under me, around me, against me, her body went wild. I dragged her closer, savoring her taste, and continued licking long after her shudders had abated to the occasional tremor. Then I rose between her legs and with a shaking hand, guided my aching dick back into her drenched slit.

“More.”

She nodded, already giving in to my demand. She bowed her back and dragged her nails down my forearm, offering those sharp slices of pain that always drove me higher. And as I stroked into her, hard and fast, she used her free hand to play with her nipples, still trapped by the bra, giving me a show that was mine and mine alone.

Right now, I could pretend I would never have to give her up. This gorgeous body and giving heart and beautiful soul belonged only to me.

“Just for me,” I murmured, and she twisted one tight peak, whimpering as I bumped her sensitive clit with the base of my dick. “Tell me this is all just for me.”

“For you. Yours.” She whimpered. “God, you fill me up.”

She filled me too, in ways I didn’t have words for. Leaning forward, I loomed over her until the dagger on the chain dangled over her exposed nipples, making her pupils widen in fear or arousal or some combination of both. My hands clenched on her spread thighs and I wedged them farther apart, surging to the depths of her then taking a slow, dragging trip back. I was so close to coming that my painful balls slapped her ass with each pass, but if I came, this would be over. And these moments of connection where she stared up at me as I opened her more and more, demanding she take all of me, offered a completion beyond the physical.

Here we were joined, absolutely. Moving as one.

She slid her hand up my arm to my bicep, tracing the years of scars mixed with ink. Reverence lined her face as her fingers learned me. Then she cupped my cheek, and fused our mouths so that her breath became mine, and mine became hers.

When she cried out and convulsed around me, my control snapped. My hips barreled forward one last time and I finally emptied inside her, wishing with every fiber that it was truly inside her, no barriers. Nothing keeping us apart. I wanted her full of my come, and to watch it spilling out of her.

I wanted every experience with her, and to know they would have no end.

Instead of collapsing on top of her, I rolled to my back. After I took care of the condom, I drew her on top of me. She sprawled on my chest, still breathing hard, smelling of my shower gel and dirty sex. The best smell in the world.

“I can’t quit you,” she mumbled against my throat. “No matter how scared I am, or how much I know I’m going to get hurt…or even that
you’re
going to get hurt, and that will be the most painful thing of all. I …just can’t stop.”

Eyes closed, I stroked her hair, and hoped the erratic beat of my heart would lull her to sleep as it usually did. She rarely stayed the night, because her sister worried, but she claimed to sleep easier with me. She always wanted to put her head on my chest to hear my heart. To know I was breathing beside her. If doing that kept away the bad dreams that still resurfaced from that night in the back room, I was happy to be her pillow.

I would do anything for her, anything at all. Except one thing. The most important one.

I would not back away from the Andretti’s. No matter what.

“You know about my sister now,” she said sleepily, curling her hand into my side. She touched me constantly, especially after sex. Separating when our bodies were still hot and damp from each other—not going to happen.

Separating from her ever was going to be hard enough.

“I know the basic story, yes. But I don’t know how it affected you.” I brushed her hair away from her cheek. “You were what, eleven?”

“Yes. Eleven, and a total tomboy. Ame—Mia,” she corrected, “was the girly girl back then. She was a cheerleader. Can you imagine?”

“No. I really can’t.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. I’d never heard a mournful one before, but hers was. “He nabbed her coming home from school one day. She was in her cheerleading uniform. They found one of her pom poms where she disappeared, but nothing else. Not a trace. It was as if she vanished into thin air.”

“Your only sibling,” I murmured.

“Yes. I adored her. After my mom died, she took over. I looked up to her in every way. Then she was just…gone.”

Though it wasn’t the same at all—Dante hadn’t been kidnapped—I related so much to what she’d gone through. Losing my mother young, and having to get used to his absence in my life when he’d chosen a path that took him away from me. Our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, but we had those points of connection. Of intersection.