Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

And he’s carrying something. Not a tray of food or a leash, though.

A dress.

Something shimmery and glittery gold is draped over his arm. He sets it on the bedspread in front of me. “For tomorrow night.”

Lupo growls, but he ruins the effect by backing up until he’s underneath the bed.

I narrow my eyes. “How do you know it fits?”

His gaze flickers over my body, and suddenly the tank top and jeans I’m wearing may as well be see-through lace. It’s like he can see all of me, every inch of my skin, every shadow and curve. My body responds with inappropriate heat, starting in my core and spreading outward to harden my nipples.

His eyes darken. “Try it on.”

He makes no move to leave, and I have no desire to undress in front of him. “I’m sure it fits.”

“Do you have everything you need?”

The amusement in his voice turns my stomach. How dare he find this funny. I could be in chains, could be beaten and starved, but it’s hard for me to be grateful. I’m a captive just the same. “Oh, let’s see. Food, check. Water, check. Freedom? Not so much.”

His amusement evaporates like a drop of water on hot concrete. “Freedom is for other people. People who aren’t born the daughter of mafia royalty.”

“They’re dead,” I mutter through gritted teeth. My mother didn’t care enough to stick around. My father…well, let’s just say I would have preferred for him to care a little less.

“Which makes you their heir. But you know this.”

“I know there are people who would use me. I just don’t understand why you are one of them. Where is the boy who held me in his arms when I cried? What happened to the boy I loved?”

A moment passes in utter stillness. I didn’t mean to let out so much frustration. And I don’t expect a real answer, because he hasn’t given me one before. He shifts, and I push up from the bed, backing into the wall. No, I don’t expect a real answer—but he might do something worse. He might punish me. He might prove just how bad captivity can be.

He turns just enough to shut the door. It closes with a quiet, painful click.

A shrug of his large shoulders drops his jacket to his hand. He tosses it on top of the dress, and it’s a strange intimacy, seeing our clothes mingled together. Next his fingers work at the buttons of his white shirt.

My breath strangles in my throat. “Giovanni. What are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer except to continue working the buttons, exposing more deep bronze skin and sculpted muscle. Down, down, to the sprinkle of dark hair in a sharp V.

I’ve seen naked bodies before, many of them. Amateur models undress almost daily in the art building for classes to draw. I’ve shaded that line down the middle, sketched those indentations arrowing down. I have run the tip of my pencil over a hundred different bodies, but never have I see one as hard and as strong as his. He’s all muscle, no fat—not even the kind of padding that makes a body warm and comforting. There’s nothing comforting about the way his abs ripple as he takes off the shirt.

“Gio,” I whisper.

&n

bsp; I thought I had more time before he forced me. I thought he’d wait until we were married, even if that’s only days away. God, I thought he wouldn’t really do this to me.

His expression is flat, barely human. “You wanted to know, bella. You asked.”

It takes me a moment to register the question. What happened to the boy I loved?

He turns to face the door, and my breath sucks in. This is his answer. There are crisscrossed scars on his back, wounds shaped like talons, skin that healed in thick ropes piled over each other. He wasn’t just beaten. He was tortured.

“Who did this to you?” I choke out.

He turns enough that I can see his face. The complete lack of pain there is almost more disturbing than the scars on his back. Whatever they did to him changed him, turned something off inside him. And I understand why he’s showing me this.

The boy I loved really did die years ago.

He lifts one broad shoulder, a shrug casual enough to break my heart. “The place was swarming with security for the big party. They were prepared for an attack against the Russians, considering your sister’s engagement would have been bad for them. You wouldn’t have made it out undetected.”