by Virna DePaul
Rose’s body was a wet dream.
As Gio wound around her, wrapping those luscious curves in white paper, all he could think about was making that same journey with his tongue.
But even better?
He could tell she was thinking about it too.
He molded a tight, sheath of a dress close to her body, groaning under his breath as his knuckles slipped past her hard nipples and gritting his teeth as he resisted the urge to palm that plump ass.
She was going to be the death of him yet. Surely his heart needed blood to survive and, currently, all of it had pooled to his aching cock.
Ninety seconds felt like a lifetime and, when he was done, it didn’t get any easier. The flirty flared skirt of her dress was shrouded under layers of Charmin and every inch of her form was on display.
She stared at him, trembling and biting her lower lip.
Suddenly, Michelle’s voice boomed over the mic. “Time’s up! You guys are awesome! Everyone looks fantastic.” Her eyes scanned the participants. “I think we’ve got a clear winner here! Rose Whitman, come get your prize!”
Rose’s cheeks flushed as she laughingly slunk her way up to the head table, hardly able to walk in her new dress.
Michelle gave Rose a basket filled with a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs, a blindfold and some massage oils and it was a wonder Rose didn’t burst into flames on the spot.
The crowd dispersed as they called up the wedding party for another game and he made a beeline for a frazzled Rose, who was headed back to their table.
“Nice job, Versace,” she teased, but there was no doubt about it. She was imagining using the items in the basket as much as he was, and it took all his strength not to drag her off into the coat closet and fuck her brains out.
“Thanks. It feels like that basket is sort of half mine,” he countered, eyebrow raised in challenge.
Rose wasn’t biting, though. “You can have the whole thing. I need to get out of this dress.”
He bit back the offer to help as she hurried ahead.
“I want to see every single, dirty thing in that basket,” Nana Rose said, clapping her hands together with glee.
Rose chuckled good naturedly and sat next to his grandmother.
“She’s a keeper, brother.”
Michelle had rolled up beside him a few yards from the table as she watched Rose letting Nana paw through her basket, a wide if slightly embarrassed smile lighting her beautiful face.
“She’s so genuine. It’s hard to find people like that.”
Didn’t he know it. He’d tried for the past fifteen years, and no one could compare.
“Nana told me about the ring. You gonna pop the question or what?” She grabbed his lapel and scowled at him in mock warning. “After my nuptials, of course. Nobody is stealing my thunder.”
Guilt stabbed at him again as he tried to think of how to answer his little sister without lying to her.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, to be honest with you. But I know that I love the shit out of her, and I don’t want to spend another day without her.”
The second he said the words, a sense of rightness clicked in his chest. The very thought of going back to the West Coast and he and Rose just going their separate ways made him feel physically ill. Which meant that he had four more days to get her to see things his way.
He watched as Rose and Nana examined the handcuffs, giggling like school girls, his decision made.
Rose could tell herself whatever she wanted about their differences. This thing between them? It was as real as it got. And now that he had his foot in the door, it was time to pull out all the stops and kick it the fuck down. Tonight, he’d blow her mind if she let him. And then, once the wedding was in the rearview mirror, he’d sit her down and have the conversation that was long overdue.
The only way to move forward with the future was to open the scars of the past and let all that poison out.
Because he let her get away once, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Chapter 14
“If you stay still, I promise you won’t even feel it,” Gio urged, gripping her more tightly as he leaned closer.
Rose swayed, nearly unseating herself from her perch on the end of the tub and closed one eye to bring him into better focus.
“Bet you never said those words to a woman before, have you?”
Gio’s bark of laughter sent a thrill of pride through her gin-soaked brain. She loved making him laugh.
“But seriously, if you don’t stay still, this sliver is going to wind up buried deeper into your foot and get infected, so stop fooling around,” Gio said, his expression intense with concentration.
He had to be joking. Fooling around was all she’d been thinking for the past day, and after getting a basket full of sex paraphernalia, it had only gotten worse. She’d sucked down two more martinis in an effort to cool her overheated libido, but by the end of the party, she was still just as desperate to have Gio’s hands on her again as she had been to start with.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have this splinter out before you know it. But you should’ve left your shoes on when we were walking back to the house like I told you,” Gio said as he prodded her heel with the pointy end of his nefarious tweezers.
“Ouch,” she gasped.
“Stop being melodramatic, I barely touched you,” he shot back with a grin. “Seriously, just close your eyes and count to three.”
She squinted her eyes mostly closed and had gotten to, “One,” before letting out a hiss as he went in for the kill.
“Son of a bitch!” she squealed.
“Sorry, but it had to be done. Stay still,” he commanded as he held her foot in his firm grip and began to rub at it with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball.
She winced but stayed silent while he finished his work. He really was a specimen. Those dark eyes, totally focused, his square jaw tight while he worked.
She was contemplating those perfect lips as he leaned back and admired his handiwork.
“There.”
She looked down to find a Snoopy bandage affixed to her heel and she couldn’t help but giggle.
“I love Snoopy,” she murmured, leaning forward to touch the bandage. Instantly, the room seemed to spin and she pitched forward, right into Gio’s strong, waiting arms.
“Ooph!”
She was flush against him now, her cheek pressed against the soft linen of his white shirt. She meant to pull away, but the warm, manly scent of him had her burrowing closer instead.
“You smell delicious. Like, better than cake.”
His chest rumbled with something between laughter and a groan and she shivered against him.
She pulled back and gazed up at him, entranced by what she saw in his eyes. “Gio?”
As if she was being drawn to him with an invisible string, she lurched forward and mashed her mouth against his. Buzzed or not, she wanted—no, needed—to feel his arms around her.
As she swept her tongue along his bottom lip, she groaned at the taste of him. She would miss this. And she’d miss that low growl, too. The one that told her he was wild with want for her as he drove his fingers into her hair and pinned her closer.
But as she slipped a hand between them to slide up the length of his thigh, he pulled away, fast enough that she nearly lost her balance again.
“Ah, Rose, it’s like you’re punishing me,” he said with a pained laugh as he steadied her.
“Punishing you?” she shot back, indignant and a little stung by his sudden rejection. “You weren’t saying that last night.”
“I definitely wasn’t,” he agreed. “But last night you knew exactly what you were doing. Tonight, I’m not so sure.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, relief coursing through her. He wasn’t saying he didn’t want her. He was just worried she was too drunk to make the call about sleeping with him.
As much as she admired that, she wasn’t above a little pressure in hopes of swaying him.
> “I had three drinks, Gio. Hardly enough to be considered bombed,” she whispered, allowing her hand to complete its journey up his thigh to close over the thick ridge in his pants.
“But enough that you might have regrets tomorrow.” He gripped her wrist and tugged on it until she met his gaze. “The next time I have you, it’s going to be when both of us are completely sober so we can savor every second of it.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded, yanking her hand away and pushing herself to her feet as Gio did the same from the spot where he’d been squatting beside her.
“Thanks for the first aid, Dr. Esposito. Much appreciated.”
She padded out of the bathroom, eyes stinging with unshed tears. Now that all the party fun was over and she couldn’t dull her emotions with drink or mindless sex with Gio, the truth was like a dull, insistent ache in her chest.
Gio wasn’t just her past coming back to haunt her. A blip on the screen, soon to be forgotten about. He was the one, and, if she was being totally honest with herself, she’d admit that she’d never stopped loving him. Even after he’d hurt her. Even after all these years. And when they parted ways this time, she would be too old and too wise to pretend that she’d be all right without him.
It was going to wreck her.
She flopped onto the bed fully clothed, dimly aware of him stirring in the room nearby as alcohol, emotional strain and exhaustion took its toll, and she drifted off into a fitful sleep.
Her dreams were filled with chaos. Brewing storms and thunderclouds as she ran through the night in search of shelter but found none. When she awoke a few hours later, she was facing the window. The moon hung high over the ocean, and she stared at the scenic image for a long moment before getting her bearings.
There was no storm, and the Maine sky was clear and dotted with stars. The warmth of Gio’s body pressed against her back had her scooting closer for comfort.
To her surprise, she didn’t suffer any after effects from the martinis, but she reached for the bottle of water that had materialized on her nightstand. Next to the bottle lay a pair of aspirin.
Gio.
Why did he have to be so freaking thoughtful? So caring, and sexy and perfect?
“He always was those things, you know,” that annoying little voice in her head reminded her.
Exactly.
Until the one day he wasn’t.
But had that been how he always behaved when she wasn’t looking? Or had she punished him—punished them both—for what was nothing more than a singular, youthful slip? A split-second of inaction in the face of peer pressure? A mistake he might never have repeated if she’d just told him how it made her feel?
Only Gio knew the answer to that question. All she could be sure of was that the man she’d gotten to know again over the past couple weeks wouldn’t behave that way today. She saw it in the way he cared for his family. She saw it in the gentle but protective way he’d dressed her foot. She saw it when he so clearly wanted to have sex with her and denied himself just in case she wasn’t in a good place to give clear consent.
She pressed her bottom more firmly against him, and shivered as he pressed instinctively back, nestling the thickening length of his cock against the crevice of her bottom. She rocked there for a moment or two and then rolled to face him.
Gio was a good man. A great man, even.
She’d never gotten over him. Her heart belonged to him.
And while they were here, so did her body, so she was going to wring every last drop of joy from their time together.
Heat.
So much heat.
Rose’s soft, sucking, wet mouth over his rigid cock. His balls, heavy with fluid, drawing close up to his body as he arched into that molten, sucking cavern. It was only the fear that he’d come in his sleep next to Rose that had him pulling back and forcing his eyes open to cut this sensual fantasy short.
It took a second for his eyes to adjust, but his dick got the message instantly.
This was no dream. Either someone had broken into their bedroom or this was real-life Rose, mouth and tongue treating his cock like a lollipop.
He let out a strangled groan as he peered down to see her telltale, auburn curls gleaming in the moonlight as her head bobbed up and down over his aching cock.
“Rose, fuck…” He broke off, trying to think straight as she dipped lower, sucking him in deeper.
He’d managed to deny her last night, but saying no here would take some superhero level shit that he wasn’t sure he was capable of.
“Rose, seriously…”
As he slipped his hand into her hair to still her motions, she released his cock and tipped her face up toward him, a smile in her eyes.
“I’m fine. It’s two AM and I’m stone cold sober now.” She worked a hand up and down his shaft in silky strokes. “Still want me to stop?”
Flames licked over him, burning away the last of his protests. “Hell, no.”
Her smile made his blood sing and when she bent low and took him into her mouth again, he sank against the pillow with a groan.
Her exploration was as sweet as it was thorough, tentative brushes of her tongue against the sensitive head followed by gentle sucks that drove him mad. Half of him wanted to grab her and yank her closer, work her over his cock fast and firm until he spurted in hot jets. The other half relished the sensual torture as she lapped at him and murmured her approval.
“So smooth. Like velvet,” she whispered as she stroked him almost lovingly.
He squeezed his eyes closed, knowing if he had to watch for another second, it would be game over. But having his eyes closed didn’t take the edge off. All it did was add to the mystery of what Rose was going to do next, leaving him in breathless anticipation.
Her tongue drew circles around his tip as she leaned forward, laying her full breasts against his thighs. The thought of her moving up further, pressing his cock between those tits and moving up and down was enough to make his whole body flex.
A second later, though, that thought sizzled away as she drew him deeper into her mouth, sucking her cheeks in to grip him from all angles. Inch by inch, she pulled him further into the molten cavern of her mouth. He fisted a hand in her hair and called on every ounce of self-discipline to stay still…to stop himself from arching forward and burying himself balls deep in her throat.
Her nipples were tight against his hips and, as she sank further and further, he couldn’t help but open his eyes.
Her cheeks were concave as she drew hard on his now twitching cock, pulling him into the vice-grip of her throat.
“Ah, fuck, Rosie. You gotta stop now,” he managed through gritted teeth. But she was in a trance, cheeks pink, eyes glassy with need as she swallowed him whole, until the head of his cock was wedged firmly in the column of her throat and her nose pressed to his pelvis.
She reached up and grabbed hold of his balls, giving them a firm tug as she suckled.
Pressure pooled to one spot as his vision blurred. He gave her hair a sharp yank, as much to break her concentrated attentions as to jar him back to reality.
She blinked up at him and expelled him from her mouth.
“Why are you stopping me?” she whispered, her lips brushing his gleaming cock as she spoke. “I want to feel you come in my mouth.”
Bag ‘em and tag ‘em, because he was fucking dead.
His cock jerked and pulsed between them like a live wire as he croaked out his reply. “And you can. But not now. Not yet.”
She nodded dubiously, her gaze trailing down over his chest and abs before locking on his cock. A pearly bead of fluid had worked its way from the slit at the tip and she lapped it up with a delicate sweep of her tongue, making him shudder.
“Seriously, Rose. That’s enough,” he growled with one more yank on her hair to show her he meant it this time. If he didn’t take control of this situation immediately, he was going to blow it.
Literally.
She arched a
brow in challenge and opened her mouth to draw him in again, but he held her firm. He was only human and if he didn’t get her at least a foot away from his cock until he got his shit under control, he was a dead man.
In one, smooth motion, he flipped Rose onto her back and she let out a squeak.
“You had your fun, now it’s my turn. Don’t fucking move,” he murmured, rolling away from her and pushing himself off the bed. The basket they’d won earlier sat on an armchair in the corner and he made his way toward it, his plan of action already forming in his mind.
He could feel her eyes on him with every step as he returned to her, one item in each hand.
He’d give her the choice, but it didn’t matter fuck-all which she picked. By the time they were done, memories of tonight would be burned in her mind forever. Maybe then, she’d realize what he’d always known.
They belonged together.
“What’s it going to be? Cuffs or paddle, Rosie?”
Chapter 15
The question rang through the room like a shot, instantly sending a rush of heat between her thighs.
Cuffs or paddle...
She should say neither. She had zero experience with anything like that, and could very well wind up humiliating herself. Instead, though, carnal images of Gio ravaging her body with his hands and mouth while she writhed beneath him filled her mind and she found herself replying reflexively.
"Both?"
His very physical response to her answer was worth the explosion of butterflies taking flight in her belly. His cock bucked and lurched as he closed his eyes and sucked in a breath.
"Both it is, then."
She shimmied backward to rest against the pillows as she tried to slow the frantic pounding of her heart.
It was going to be okay. This was Gio. She was in good hands and if ever there was a time to try something like this, it was with him. He'd earned her trust. Now if she could just get past her own, silly inhibitions, this could turn into the most enlightening and sensual night of her life.
And after last night with Gio?
That was saying something.
