Giovanni (12 page)

“Fell, hit a door or woke up with them … what is it? Give me an excuse. Come on, tell me one to brush it off. There are thousands of other women who justify abuse every day, so why not you?”

Kim’s bottom lip trembled, but Gio wouldn’t relent.

“How about we skip the excuse of how you ended up with bruises because we both know, and you can move right on to explaining and defending his behavior, instead. What happened; did you disrespect him, piss him off, or sass him with that mouth of yours? Shit, maybe you hit him.”

“Gio, please.”

“Because none of those things are worthy of him putting his hands on you like that. Not a fuckin’ one. No man has the right to hurt a woman. I would never do this to you,” Gio finished, his voice edged sharp like a razor.

“Please stop,” Kim whispered.

“Why did he hurt you?”

“Leave it alone, Gio.”

“You talk or I find him. You won’t like what happens when I do.”

“No.” Color drained from her face. “Gio, you can’t. He’s jealous and resentful enough. Doing that would only make it worse.”

“Of me?” Gio asked.

Franco had no reason to feel concerned about Gio and Kim having some kind of relationship. Well, he did, but Franco didn’t know that. Outwardly, Gio gave no indication of his interest in Kim, or the fact they hooked up.

“You, the guy down the street, and the old man who sits on the bench outside the library.”

Ah. Gio got it. “So anyone with a cock, then.”

“I know it’s ridiculous.”

“Does his father know he pulls shit like this with you?”

Kim shook her head, refusing to look up from the floor. “What goes on between Franco and me is our business. Maximo doesn’t get involved.”

“Is that what Max said or Franco?” Because Gio was pretty goddamn sure Maximo wouldn’t put up with Franco doing nonsense like this.

“That’s how it’s always been,” Kim said softly. “My father doesn’t get involved, so neither does his. I can handle Franco, okay? This was the first time anything like this happened.”

“But it won’t be the last. If he does it once, he’ll do it again. Chances are, he’ll get increasingly more violent every time. And it’s not the first time, either,” Gio said, canting his head to the side. “You forget how I stood in a hallway and listened while he berated you like you were less than nothing to him. From the way you looked to how you behaved, he tore you apart because he didn’t deem it suitable. Newsflash, Kim, it’s no different. The intended effect is the same—to victimize, control and isolate.”

“I know.” 

It made Gio sick that she said it so indifferently. “I don’t have the slightest fucking clue why you want to marry him if this is what he does to you.”

“Because I made a choice. I have to follow it through. You have to understand the situation I’m in here.”

Gio sighed, feeling more uncertain than he ever had in his entire life.  He intended to find out exactly what she meant by choices, but tonight was not the best night to push it. Another argument wasn’t what Kim needed. Gio wouldn’t be the one to cause her more pain.

“Let me see your wrist,
Tesoro
.”

“You don’t have to worry. I’m fine.”

Right. He couldn’t not worry when she looked so sad and torn up. Gio crossed the short distance between them and grabbed her arm, inspecting her wrist. The bruises would likely stay for days if their color and size were any indication. Gio let his fingers ghost over the sore looking marks, sorrow rising in his heart. She didn’t deserve this kind of abuse.

If Kim was his fiancée … No, Gio couldn’t finish that thought. He refused to.

“I didn’t want a ring,” Kim said quietly.

“Why not? I mean, you’re engaged. It comes with the territory for most women. They spend years wondering what the ring is going to look like.”

“I’m not like most women. I’m me.”

And she sure as hell was something else.

“Point taken,” Gio said with a grin.

“I know it seems odd, but I don’t wear a lot of jewelry as it is and a big diamond ring didn’t feel right to me. Franco wasn’t happy he couldn’t put something else on me that would show off his wealth, but he seemed okay after I kept denying him. I’m fine with him picking out whatever kind of band he wants me to wear, but not an engagement ring.”

Gio’s understanding dawned quickly enough. “So he gave you one tonight in front of everyone so you couldn’t refuse.”

“Yeah. After, I got him into the kitchen and asked him why he did it when he knew it wasn’t what I wanted. Franco got angry, called me ungrateful, grabbed my arm and shook me. He told me to get the fuck out of his face, so I came up here to calm down, and instead, all I could do was cry. I can’t believe I let him make me cry, the useless bastard.”

“Kim—”

“All those people down there, they don’t know anything about me. They’d probably think I was some worthless, weak girl because I cried over something so stupid.”

Gio didn’t agree with that at all. “First of all, it’s not stupid. What he did was unacceptable on more levels that you’re even aware of.”

Like the Cosa Nostra rule that demanded all wives of made men be treated with respect. Being a man’s fiancée was as good as being married in their world. Shaking away this thoughts, Gio continued, “You’re not worthless, and you’re certainly not weak for crying. Those people don’t know you because you don’t let them. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. It’s your choice who you allow to see what’s below your surface. The strongest people are the ones who fight and win wars no one else ever gets to see.” 

A warmth siphoned up Gio’s arm. Only then did he realize he was covering her bruises with his fingers as if to make them disappear. Subconsciously, he rubbed his thumb back and forth across her skin.

“You’re an incredibly beautiful, intelligent and precious woman, Kim. You deserve better than this and you know it.”

“Thank you,” Kim said so low he strained to hear.

Before Gio could put a safe distance between them to clear his thoughts, Kim placed the barest graze of a kiss to the underside of his jaw. Gio wished she hadn’t done that. When it came to her, nothing was simple or clear for him. There were so many shades of gray muddling up what was right and what was wrong about his situation and feelings for Kim, he didn’t know which direction to take.

The kiss couldn’t be just a kiss. It was nothing more than a brief meeting of her lips to his skin, a gesture of her gratitude, but at the same time it wasn’t. Every part of Gio felt that light caress. All of him reacted to what should have been an innocent action.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

It was the best warning he could give her because he had no control left. The liquor, their situation, his crazy beating heart and messed up mind … it all clashed together for Gio. Left behind in the aftermath was nothing more than his selfish desires.

Kim’s mouth was still so close that he could feel the heat of her breaths washing over his jaw. She either hadn’t heard his warning or didn’t care. Gio hoped it was the latter of the two. Turning his head slightly, he felt silken lips brush along the corner of his mouth. So, he turned completely, responding to the kiss with his own.

The seam of her mouth tasted like gloss and wine. What started out slow swiftly turned heated when Kim urged him on with a soft moan. He kissed her harder, spearing his tongue into the warmth of that luscious mouth and grabbing her waist. Kim’s back hit the door with a thump, but the noise didn’t hinder her wandering hands. She pushed the suit jacket off his shoulders before she began yanking the dress shirt tucked into his pants. She unbuttoned his slacks without removing her lips from his mouth. He released his hold on her midriff long enough to let the jacket fall to the floor.

It wasn’t the right place. It was far too dangerous. The low hum of the party and guests still alive and well down below traveled up from the floor. Anyone could hear and catch them.

When Kim’s hand dipped below his pants and boxer-briefs, those thoughts fell away. The snug smoothness of her palm surrounded him and she stroked his semi-hard cock to life. He freed a strangled groan, enjoying the pleasure her hand gave him. It took no time at all for his shaft to thicken under her attention.

The stupidly annoying voice in the back of Gio’s head wouldn’t shut up. He shouldn’t be doing this with Kim again, regardless of how badly he wanted her. And good God, did he ever fucking want her.

“Yes, you should because I want you to,” Kim whispered, making Gio realize he’d voiced his inner thoughts out loud. “Fuck me, Gio. Right here in this house.”

Sweet Christ, if his cock could have gotten any harder, it did just hearing that.

Gio wasted no time pulling Kim from the door and bending her roughly over the bathroom countertop. Her hands grappled for purchase on the taps of the sink, her quiet cries urging him on as he wrenched her dress up over her hips.

There was nothing to hide the beautiful creamy flesh of her ass under the silk. Just a scrap of white lace he wouldn’t even consider worthy of being called underwear. It didn’t cover a damn thing. He stopped his rough movements just long enough to grope her backside, pulling her perky ass into his groin. Beneath his slacks, his erection strained against the fabric, fitting between the cheeks of her ass snug enough to relieve the throbbing pain in his shaft.

“
Dio
, I’m never going to get tired of looking at your sweet ass, Kim.”

“Come on, then,” Kim murmured, glancing back over her shoulder at him. “Fuck me.”

Gio didn’t need any more encouragement. It was entirely stupid and reckless. A death wish on his part. Shameful to his family and the creed he took for Cosa Nostra. That didn’t stop him from pulling her thong down to her knees before dropping his own pants and freeing his erection to his palm.

Using his thumb, Gio spread the bead of precum leaking from the head of his cock. He didn’t say a word as he slid the tip along her slick folds, spreading them. Kim moaned as she tried to back into his dick. Every time he brought the tip to her entrance, he flexed forward just enough to let her feel him there, opening her. The juices from her sex smeared over his cock; her pussy glistening with arousal. With his hand on her lower back, he kept her body forced down to the counter so she wasn’t able to move.

“You want me to fuck you right here?”

“Gio, please,” Kim whined.

Gio felt like he had to give her once last chance to back out, or maybe he was trying to give himself one. It was one thing to be doing sneaky shit like they had before, but this was going to put them both on a whole different level of carelessness. No regrets. Gio tried never to have them. He didn’t want this to turn into one, but he wasn’t sure it would lead anywhere else.

“I need a yes or no,” Gio said, still sweeping his cock between her folds.

“Yes. Jesus Christ,
yes
, Gio.”

That was enough for him. Gio let his hold on the base of his shaft go at the same time he flexed forward again. With one hard, swift thrust, he bottomed out nine inches deep into her shuddering pussy. There was no resistance from her body. She always seemed to fit him like a hot, wet glove. A tight, blazing paradise. The force of the plunge and his groin meeting her ass sent Kim up to her toes in three inch heels, a blissful cry ringing out. Her hands flew to the mirror to keep her steady.

Gio froze, not only from her shout, but from the soaked, velvet heat surrounding his length. No condom. No. Fucking. Condom. He wanted to tell her to be quiet, but the words lodged in his throat and the breath stuck in his chest like tar.

“Gio?” A quaver rocked Kim’s soft tenor.

“I …”

No, the words still wouldn’t come. It was hard to focus while he was buried in Kim, feeling every twitch and flutter of her walls along his shaft. Being sheathed inside her, unsafe and natural, literally knocked the sense right out of Gio. He couldn’t breathe as he felt her heartbeat pulse inside her flexing sex holding him in. Everything … holy shit, he felt it all.

“No condom,” he finally uttered, beating back the urge to start pounding into Kim.

Not that it mattered now, he knew. What was done was done. It wasn’t the fact he was fucking Kim without protection that shocked him into stillness, but rather, that it happened so easily and he hadn’t even considered using something at all. God, what was this woman doing to him?

“I’m safe, Gio,” Kim said, passing a look over her shoulder with hooded eyes. “I promise. Please stop freaking out and fuck me.”

“I’m not freaking out.” 

Not a whole lot
, Gio corrected internally.

It probably wasn’t the best moment to enlighten Kim that this was the first time he’d ever fucked unsafely. Instead, Gio slowly pulled out from her sex until only the head of his cock was still in her sweet heaven. He watched, completely absorbed and enthralled at seeing her juices drenching his length. The way it felt was indescribable. So goddamn amazing.

“Hold on,” Gio grunted.

Kim’s reflection in the mirror showed her confusion. “What?”

Gio didn’t answer; he slammed into her body again. What little self-restraint he may have had left was gone with that one thrust. Something inside snapped, like a dog who lived its whole life tied finally breaking from the chain. His rhythm of fucking her was punishing, totally unrelenting. Gio didn’t think, he just moved. He only wanted to feel her. All the flutters of her channel hugging him and the gushing of her fluids covering his cock as he took her.