Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

“Good,” he breathes, his lips inches from my temple. “You shouldn’t trust me. You shouldn’t let me in.”

“I won’t,” I say, but the moment has shifted, altered. It’s intimate when he’s this close to me, when my hands are on his body. It feels like I’ve already let him in. Like I already trust him, even though that’s impossible when he’s keeping me against my will.

For a breathless, tense moment I think he’s going to kiss me. His gaze is on my lips, head bent close. Somehow my chin turns up as if to meet him. This is crazy. This is dangerous…

A sharp bark echoes through the room, and I jump.

Slowly Gio lifts his head and steps back. His eyes are hazy with lust, and as I watch, his focus returns. It should be a relief. I don’t want his lust. I don’t want his attention in any way.

But I can’t shake the feeling of loss when he’s back to his stoic self.

“What was that?” I manage, my voice uneven.

He inclines his head toward the door to the bathroom, which is closed. “See for yourself.”

My stomach fluttering, I push away from the wall and edge around him, careful not to touch. He’s like a flame, hot enough to burn. I open the bathroom door in time to see an orange and brown blur streak by me.

Then he’s under the bed. “Lupo!”

Elation lifts my voice and my spirits. Two eyes glare at me from beneath the pink frills. I fall to my knees by the bed and reach out my hand. Lupo sniffs my fingers before backing deeper under the bed. He doesn’t trust me any more here than he did on the fire escape. Gio must have had him sent ahead of us. That’s why I didn’t see him last night before I fell asleep.

At least now I won’t have to worry about where he gets his next meal.

My gaze lifts to Gio, a mixture of fear and gratitude in my heart. He must have watched me for a while to see me put food out on the fire escape.

And he’s watching me now, a strange expression on his face. “You always wanted a dog.”

A clench inside my chest. “Thank you for bringing him.”

His eyes flicker with something painful and sweet. It looks like he’s going to open up to me. My breath hitches. Please, please. Then he pulls back, the walls slamming down again.

“The engagement party is tomorrow night,” he says.

Before I can respond, he turns and leaves the room. The lock clicks into place.

Lupo growls at the door from beneath the bed. Apparently he trusts Gio even less than he trusts me.

Gio didn’t trust me when I first talked to him either. He was a surly teenage boy, convinced that I would be stuck up. Or that I was toying with him, that I would tell my father that we had talked and get him in trouble. It took time for him to open up to me, for him to trust me.

I claimed he’s just like my father, and in some ways that’s true.

My father would never have brought this dog along.

The soldier or the boy. The monster or the lover. Which one is he? I think he might be a little of both, but the two can’t exist side by side. They’re fighting each other, battling within him. It remains to be seen which side will win.

* * *

I don’t see Giovanni the rest of the night, which is a relief. I need time to think about what he’s become—and what he wants to turn me into. A mafia princess. No, that’s what I was. He wants to make me his queen. A dubious honor when I don’t have a choice.

The shower holds the same kind of soap I use now. The closet has all my old clothes. This place is a curious mixture of old and new, a rabbit hole I’ve fallen into—everything too large or too small, upside down and color-bright.

My sheets are the same pale-pink paisley that I slept in as a child. The same sheets I slept between when I dreamed of Giovanni. The same sheets where I first touched myself, tentative and curious.

When I pull back the knit white blanket, only the faint smell of flowers rises up. No dust.

He prepared for this.

Of course I know he did. The way he had Lupo transported here ahead of us proves that much. As do the toiletries in the bathroom. He was watching me, stalking me.