14. Sal

When Gia'sneck is in my hand, I lose my mind.

She almost died.

I keep seeing the gun pressing against her chest. The way she walked toward it. The smile on her face, which echoed the smile on that absolute sociopath.

I almost lost her.

And then, she flirted with him. Flirted. Like it was nothing. She never told me about him, and she didn't have to of course, but the fact that she flirted with him in front of my face makes me…

Jealous.

The feeling crashes over me in a tidal wave. It makes me insanely, completely jealous.

I want to brand her with my lips. Bite her hard enough to leave a mark. Spank her perfect ass until my handprint is burned into her skin.

I want to make sure that she'll never let another man call her "amour" again.

Part of me is practically screaming in protest. I'm doing the thing that Gia told me she couldn't do. I'm getting attached to her, in a way that means she won't be able to do whatever she needs to in order to maintain her place as the Rossi's nightmare twin.

But…

Amour.

The word sears into my mind.

Gia is not his lover. Gia isn't in love with him.

She's not in love with you either, asshole.

The thought makes my mood even darker.

She might not be in love with me.

But I have something that he doesn't.

And I'm about to make that very, very apparent to her.

I grab Gia's hips and pull, sliding her so she's further down on the chaise lounge. I adjust so that I'm standing above her, peering down at her.

My staff knows to leave me alone unless I ask them to appear, so I don't have any concerns about anyone seeing us.

Another thing I'm about to take full advantage of.

"You're not his, Gia. You're not his amour. You're not his anything. He doesn't own you," I growl.

Her eyes flash with challenge. "And who does own me, Sal?"

Fuck it. "I do."

It's a gamble. Gia's just as apt to hop up and slap me as she is to accept what I'm saying. She opens her mouth, and for a split second, I'm sure that she's going to protest.

Then, her eyes darken. "Prove it," she whispers.

Those two words set off a nuclear reaction in my body.

In seconds, I'm swooping down on the chaise. I growl as I grip her chin tightly, holding her face up to mine.

When I kiss her, it's with every ounce of the frustration that I'm feeling.

It's more than a kiss.

We're both lying to ourselves if we think it's not.

By the time I pull away, we're both panting. I can see the muscles in her arms shaking, and I grin.

"Do you remember your word?"

She nods.

"Good. Turn over."

She obeys, and her compliance sends a jet of lust through me that's so powerful, it feels like it's going to knock me out.

I barely recover before the next words are out of my mouth. "Put your hands up over your head."

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Gia responds. Her hands reach up and grip the top rail of the chaise lounge.

I undo my belt.

Lightly, I wrap it around her hands, then secure them to the chaise. She pulls back, startled a little, but I press between her shoulder blades, keeping her against the chaise.

"Remember, Gia. If you want me to stop, you have to use your word. Do you need to be reminded of what it is?"

"No," she whispers.

The no is shaky.

So shaky.

She's scared.

"You're doing a good job, Gia," I purr, soothing her with my voice. "Even if you were very naughty earlier, you're being such a good girl for me now."

She laughs. "You think I was bad earlier?"

"Yes. I do. And now I'm going to show you how bad."

I tug the loose pants down off of her ass, revealing her perfect pale skin. I gently caress the curve of her, noting with interest that between her legs, she's already getting wet.

She likes this.

Even if she thinks she doesn't, even if she thinks she shouldn't, she likes this.

I gently press inside of her with two fingers. "I think you like being bad even more than you like being good," I murmur as I feel her slickness clench around me.

Gia moans but doesn't answer.

I slowly plunge in and out of her. "You want to come, don't you Gia? You think that I'm going to help you, to make you come for me?"

She moans again.

I pull back. Gently, I caress her ass with one of my hands.

Then, I give it a light smack.

Gia gasps.

I give her a minute. If she's going to use the safe word, she needs a chance to process it.

My heart thunders in my chest, and I wait.

When she doesn't do anything, I take my other hand and press it inside her again.

"I think you want me to punish you, Gia. For scaring me. For acting like another man matters to you," I grunt.

With the free hand, I slap her ass again.

Harder this time.

With my fingers inside of her, I can feel her clench around me. She gasps again, and pushes back onto my fingers.

Oh yeah. She definitely likes this.

"You scared the shit out of me, Gia," I say. My voice is hoarse as I say the truth I've been feeling out loud. I slap her again, this time hard enough to make a satisfying noise.

Her flesh ripples underneath my hand, and she clenches around my fingers.

"You scared me and now you have to take your punishment like a good girl," I murmur.

I slap her again.

She moans out loud this time, thrusting herself back on my fingers.

"Gia," I grunt, repeating my pattern. Her ass is starting to turn red on both cheeks, and the impact of what I'm doing sends lust shooting through me.

She presses back again, her channel fluttering around my fingers. "Fuck, Gia," I hiss.

"Sal," she moans.

My name.

She's moaning my name.

"I own you, Gia," I grunt. "Not some random French fucker. Me. I own this," I smack again, hard enough that it probably hurts.

Still, she works herself up and down my fingers.

Shit.

She's going to come soon.

I reach forward and undo the belt. My hand at her waist, I lift her torso up, my other hand still deeply embedded within her.

She's pressed against me, her back to my front, and when I tug her lips over to meet mine, I slide that hand down to play with her clit.

"I own you," I whisper before I kiss her.

My fingers work her, sliding in and out while my other hand tweaks the center of her pleasure. I pull back from the kiss, gasping, and freeze. "Do you want to come, Gia?"

"Yes," she moans, breathless and needy.

I grunt. "Tell me who you belong to, Gia."

She pauses. I almost pull my fingers out, before the word falls from her lips.

"You, Sal. You do."

I growl and take her lips again, working her with my hands.

When she comes, I swallow her scream.

She's mine.

There's no world in which I'm going to let her walk away from this. Gia Rossi is mine, she's my queen, my woman.

My soulmate.

I'm never going to let her go.

* * *

After she comes apartin my arms, I help Gia pull her clothes back on and we head down to the cabins. We shower, change, and dress for bed.

Where we sleep.

Together.

In my arms, Gia rotates. She studies me. "You really thought that I was going to die today."

"You want to bring that up again? Now?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah well. We didn't really talk about it earlier."

"We processed."

"I think you processed. I… I worked through something else entirely," she grins.

I can't help it.

I smile back.

"Yes, Gia. It scared me to death when he had the barrel of the gun pressed against your chest."

"I was worried you were going to screw everything up."

I sit up on one elbow and look down at her. "What do you mean?"

"That you were going to do some macho bullshit and start fighting Gabriel."

I wrinkle my nose at her. "If you think I can't take down one Frenchman in a fight, you seriously think very poorly of me."

"He's tough! I've seen him take out a guy's eyes with a grapefruit spoon!"

Jesus Christ. "So that's why you keep bringing up the spoon thing?"

Gia giggles. "It was so fucking gross. He might be French, but don't underestimate Gabriel Durand. He's fucking nuts."

I bury my face in the pillow. "And you walked up to him and told him to shoot you?"

"You gotta fight fire with fire, baby. Fight crazy with crazy."

Mary, mother of God. This woman is going to be the death of me.

"Sal," she says, her voice serious. I look up at her, and all the laughter is gone from her face. "I'm serious. I thought you were going to get us killed."

"You thought I was going to?"

She nods. "Yeah. Gabriel might be crazy, but I can work him. I've always been able to work men to get what I want. But it requires me to… be myself. To flirt and be nimble. I need you to just roll with it when it happens, even if it pisses you off."

"And you think I didn't do that today? Gia, every time he called you amour…"

"You were back there radiating thunder like a summer storm. I could practically feel you being upset about it, Sal. And so could he."

The thought is sobering. "He didn't show it."

She shakes her head. "No. He didn't. But someone will. Someone will notice that you… react to me," she says quietly.

React.

That's one way to put it.

It's more than just a reaction. It's an overwhelming force of nature. Gia is the moon, and I'm a tide. She's a star, and I orbit her. There is never a world where I'm not going to be drawn to her.

I have to make her mine. Pretending anything else is an option is foolish.

So, if this is the only way I can have her…

"I can't not react to you," I finally say.

Gia shifts, looking at me.

She doesn't say anything, so I take a breath and continue.

"I can't pretend that I don't care about you. That I'm not drawn do you. I can't tell you that when you put yourself in danger, I won't turn around and try to get you out of it. I'll always be worried about you. I'll always want to keep you safe."

"Sal…"

I press a finger to her lips. "But I can promise that I'll try to keep my shit together. You can be whoever you want in public. As long as you're mine when you're here."

She tilts her head.

I nod. "As long as I get the real Gia, you can be whoever you want to the world. The real Gia? She's mine," I say fiercely.

Gia's eyes widen. "Sal…"

"You don't have to say anything yet. Think about it. Because Gia, if you say yes, there's no going back. There's no pretending anymore. If you agree to be mine, then you're mine."

"And what about you? Are you mine as well?"

I lean forward and press a light kiss on her lips. "Gia, I've always been yours."

I tuck her into my arms and turn out the light.

Gia's breath evens after a while.

While she sleeps, I hold her.

Hoping, praying, for things that I want so badly, it hurts.

* * *

"I can't saythat I've ever really been to Ireland," Gia says, looking out over the coastline looming in the distance. "But I feel like it's almost comically green."

I laugh, joining her on the deck. "Comically?"

"Like, we get it. They like green. You don't see Italians being so overtly… Italian about everything."

I shoot her a look. "I think we probably taught the Irish how to do it."

"Yeah. Fair, I guess. Still. The green seems like a lot."

I come behind Gia, and press against her, placing a kiss on her head. "It seems like Ireland."

We draw closer to the coast, and it is indeed, very green.

I'm not exactly happy to be here. For one, I don't know what we're going to find. Marco could be here. He could be dead.

The people who tried to kill us in Amsterdam are definitely here. I have no doubt about that.

Given the Irish vitriol toward the Rossi family and the De Luca family I have no doubt that the Irish here are going to be absolutely furious when they find out that Gia and I are here.

Well.

If they find out.

But we have to find Marco before they do. We have to get him, so they can't use him against us.

And so that we can figure out what the hell my oldest brother has been up to.

"So. You understand the cover?"

Gia rolls her eyes. "Yes. I'm Mrs. Shannon and you're Mr. Shannon and we're from Mobile, Alabama," she says, her voice shifting into a southern twang. "I always wanted to go on a trip to see Ireland ‘cuz it's the land of my people, and so when I married my childhood sweetheart, he promised me that he'd take me for our second honeymoon."

"‘Second honeymoon?'" I ask, my eyebrows raised.

She smirks. "The first one was to Bali."

"Ah. I see. Sexy."

"Expensive, too. My baby bought us a timeshare at the Ritz there, so we can go back over and over again," she says, patting my cheek with her hand.

"Oh, I did?"

"Yup. And after this we're going to Milan," she says, her voice softening.

"Milan?"

"To a little house on the lake," she whispers.

My heart stills. "You liked that, didn't you?"

"I did," Gia murmurs.

I gulp. "Gia…"

"Anyway. I've got the backstory down. Make sure you have your part of it, okay? Because it's almost time to rock and roll, baby. One errant elder brother, coming right up."

Gia smirks and turns, heading to grab her bag.

I watch her go.

Introducing Gia as my wife is the cover.

But she still hasn't given me her answer to my question last night. So for now, I'll pretend that she's my wife.

I can only hope that someday soon, she'll answer my question with the one thing I want.

Yes.