Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

“He didn’t die with your father, but he was very pissed when I sold his secrets. He retaliated by taking my mother. And he’s got a large network of places to hide women against their will.”

My breath catches. “That’s why you’re taking down the brothels.”

“They’re disgusting. A stain on the family. I would always have taken them down if I had the chance, but doing it so quickly has raised some eyebrows. And I’ve already been through the ones owned by the Vegas operation. I need to expand outside my territory. That’s why I need to solidify my position quickly. That’s why I need you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

We stay like that for a long time, me sitting in his lap, my arms wrapped around his neck. I don’t want to let go of this Giovanni who abhors violence but protects his family at any cost—the Giovanni I once loved. Through the thin fabric of his shirt I feel the crisscross of his scars. I can’t help but stroke him in part sympathy, part wonder, reading the raised skin like braille.

There’s a kind of intimacy in telling the truth, a seduction with every layer and lie fallen away. It leaves me aware of his body in a deeper way, the warmth of his skin at his neck, the hard muscles of his shoulders. It also leaves me aware of the hard ridge beneath my hips.

My heartbeat seems to thrum through every part of my body, through my fingertips and between my thighs. Meanwhile my body stills, even the natural motion of breathing held in restraint.

“I won’t hurt you,” he murmurs against the wild jumble of my hair.

“You might.” I’m not only thinking about his body, the hard planes of him, the size with which he presses against the soft flesh of my ass. I’m thinking about the wedding vows he made to me. I’m thinking about what will happen when my purpose here is over.

“There are things I want to do to you, bella. Things I dreamed about when you were too young for anything at all. And then you hide under the blankets, and I realize you’re still too young.”

I pull back then and meet his dark chocolate eyes. “I’m a grown woman.”

His gaze wanders over my bare shoulde

rs, my breasts clad in satin. The place between my legs cupped with a strap of lace. “Your body, yes.” He brushes a thumb over my temple, smoothing my hair. “Not up here. You hold yourself like you’re bracing to be hit. I know your father was a cold son of a bitch, but I didn’t think he—”

“I don’t want to talk about my father.” He’s the last thing I want to talk about while Giovanni is holding me this way. The air is too inviting after his earlier confessions, teasing out my truths. When I was younger, I kept those secrets to protect the people I loved. Now I keep them to protect myself.

But I don’t need protection from sex. And I don’t really want it. I held myself back from closeness with Shane, with other boys, saving myself for a man who didn’t exist. Now he’s here, in my arms.

“Show me,” I whisper. “Show me what you dreamed of doing.”

He holds me, silent and still. I can only wait for his decision, body strumming with a lifetime of desire.

When he shifts my feet to the floor, my heart plummets. He’s rejecting me.

Except he keeps me in the V of his legs, standing before him, held captive by a single hand linked to me. His eyes are trained to mine while his other hand works the notch of his belt. My eyes widen because I’m about to see his naked body for the first time.

Except he doesn’t undress. Instead he turns me gently to face the wall, catching both my wrists behind me. Supple leather wraps around my wrists and cinches tight enough to hold me.

“Gio?”

“Bella,” he says, a wealth of meaning encapsulated in a single word. The love he once felt for me, the conflicted desire he feels now. The torture did change him, harden him, but I’m beginning to fall for the man he is now.

He gives a little tug on the leather at my wrists as if to see if it will hold. My body turns toward him, and he holds me there, sideways. I realize in those silent, breathless moments that there is no position more on display than that of my side, where I can’t look at him, where I can’t look away. My only purpose is an object for him to appraise, with his gaze and the featherlight brush of his fingers. He touches places that suddenly feel sexual—the tender skin behind my arm, the faint hollow beneath my breasts, the tops of my thighs.

His voice is uneven. “All these years I’ve thought about how you would look all grown up. But I couldn’t have…there’s no way I could have imagined this.”

My throat constricts. I want so badly to believe him, but there’s a voice in my head I’ve never been able to forget. You look nothing like your sister. Your breasts are huge, like balloons. You look older. Maybe my whore of a wife lied about your age too.

The only reason he wants me now is for my family tree, and even that is suspect. Maybe there is some fondness in him from how he loved me before, as children. I can’t believe that he really wants this body. Shane and his friends wanted it, but they were horny college boys. They wanted anyone. For all that he doesn’t want this role, Giovanni wears the mantle of powerful capo even better than my father. He must have been with a hundred different women, sophisticated and beautiful.

“I’m not… I can’t…” I swallow hard. “I know I’m not as pretty as other women. You don’t have to lie to me.”

He turns me to face him, searching my face with a mixture of shock and fury. “Men have died for calling me a liar, bella.”

I raise my chin, knowing that in this, at least, I am safe. “I don’t need a fake seduction.”

“Fake,” he says softly. “Lies. You don’t believe that I want you. Even though my body proves it.”