“More,” Cara demanded, her voice thick with sleep and content.
Gian chuckled, rocking her body that was tucked tight against his. “You were supposed to be up an hour ago.”
“Just read.”
“Cara.”
“Gian.”
He made the sexiest noise under his breath. “You know I can’t refuse you when you say my name like that, Cara. That’s unfair.”
“More reading, less nagging.”
“You have terrible morning habits.”
“I also have a gorgeous man in my bed and a study group, first thing, that I can afford to miss. Shut up and read, Gian.”
In French, actually.
He was reading in French, and Cara loved it. She didn’t understand a damn word he was saying, for the most part. There was something about his voice that soothed her and provoked her at the same time.
With a half-hearted sigh, Gian continued reading. Les Misérables, to be exact. She didn’t know what to do with this conundrum of a man. He wasn’t entirely good, but he wasn’t entirely bad, either. He wore shoes and suits that cost more than what most people made in a month, yet ate comfort food and liked cheap beer. He had set a gun on her nightstand the night before, but brought a classic novel in from his car like he needed it just as badly, too. He was educated, high-class, and Toronto elite, but rough, dirty, and full of sin, too.
Cara didn’t know what to do with all the pieces of Gian Guzzi.
Not a clue.
The cadence of Gian’s tenor changed before his French turned to English as he asked, “You don’t even understand what I’m reading, do you?”
Cara shrugged, snuggling in closer to Gian and soft sheets. “Don’t have to.”
“That’s sort of the point of being read to, right?”
“Not right now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t.” Cara hummed a happy sort of sound, grinning up at the dark-eyed man staring down at her. “It’s your voice. It’s an all the time thing, Gian. The way you sound, you probably don’t even hear it, but I do.”
“And how do I sound?”
She could have said many things.
Sexy.
Lovely.
Comforting.
Arousing.
Deep.
Provoking.
The truth was, Gian’s voice—and him, really—was a mix of all of those things. Settling on one was not enough. It did not do him justice.
“Dangerous,” Cara whispered. “You sound dangerous, Gian.”
For a long while, Gian stared at Cara, never blinking or moving a muscle. It was as though he didn’t quite know what to make of her statement. “I’ve never been told that before.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
“Is it?”
“You should know the way you can affect people, Gian. It’s more than wearing a suit and a sly smile, with a gun hidden at your back. It’s knowing that you only need to speak and people listen. A man with a dangerous voice has far more command than anyone could possibly understand, he needs to know how to use it.” Cara rolled over to her back and reached for her phone on the nightstand. She checked the time, and scowled at it. “I do need to get up soon. The study group was okay to miss, but I have a paper I need to hand in for the class after that.”
Gian didn’t reply, which made Cara look over at him. She found that he was still looking at her, but the intensity she saw in his eyes made her heart stop for a split second.
An appreciation, churned with lust and mixed heavily in his admiration and hunger. As though she was the sweetest, most precious thing to have ever spoken in his presence, and he wanted nothing more than to be right there with her forever. She had seen his many stares before—when he wanted to fuck, his irritation, or his indifference.
This was not the same.
It scared her for a moment.
Something else to add to her rapidly growing pile of confusion.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” Gian finally said, breaking the silence.
“The same thing you have been doing, I guess.”
“It’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough, bella.”
She tossed her phone back to the nightstand, and then turned back to Gian, taking her sweet time to crawl on top of his naked body, under the sheets, until she straddled him. One of his hands landed on her waist, his fingers gripping tight to keep her still, while the other slid from her stomach, up between her breasts, and stopped on her throat.
Cara only smiled at the sensation of her heartbeat thrumming under his hand. “I like that, you know. I don’t really say it, because I figure I don’t have to. But I like that a lot.”
Gian’s fingers drummed against her throat. “This?”
“Yes. Especially when you squeeze hard enough to take my breath away, like I’m floating for a few seconds, all the control is gone, and it’s only a feeling. Nothing else. Just the way I feel.”
“What else?”
She shifted her weight on top of him, attempting to ignore the length of his erection resting between her legs. It didn’t help, really. She only ended up grinding against his cock more, soaking in the silky feeling of his length sliding along her pussy. She used her hands as support against his lower abdominal muscles to keep her steady as she reveled in that simple pleasure.
“Cara,” Gian murmured.
That voice of his would kill her someday.
She was sure of it.
Her attention was back on him in an instant, and she remembered what he had asked. “And I like the way you talk when you’re fucking me, how you always take and demand, and you rarely ever ask. You don’t push, either, but you don’t have to. It’s raw and it’s filthy and I like it that way.”
“Why?”
His question seemed simple enough.
Except his voice was laced with huskiness and heat.
“Because there’s something about you that’s different,” Cara admitted quietly. “You use me in bed like a toy, like I’m yours to ruin and fuck however you want to; like your own personal little slut. And then you open my doors, you hold my hand, and you tell me I’m beautiful.”
“Of course I do, Cara.”
“Yes, because you’re different. Because there’s more to a woman than how she behaves in a bedroom, but most forget not to bring it beyond the bed, too. You don’t, and I like that.”
She leaned down, close enough that her lips were a breath away from Gian’s as she said, “And nobody’s ever fucked me quite like you do, Gian.”
“That’s a damn good thing, then.”
That was all Gian said before his lips slammed into Cara’s with a bruising, demanding kiss that silenced her mind and made her heart race. His tongue found hers in a familiar dance that came like a comfort, and a battle at the same time. It was only when he pulled away enough to bite into her lower lip that she realized how badly she needed air, but couldn’t get in a good breath.
His hips had started moving with the gentle beat of hers, too. Rocking, grinding—putting pressure in the right spot and then taking it away before she could get more.
Cara was sure her juices had soaked his cock already.
She couldn’t even find it in herself to be ashamed.
“Why?” Cara managed to ask while his teasing mouth traveled over her throat.
“Why, what?”
“Why is it a good thing that no one has ever fucked me like you?”
His arms encircled her then, one curling around her back and neck so that his hand could grab onto her hair. His other arm went between her legs and up over her ass so his palm laid flat to her lower spine. He held her there, forcing her head back so he could look her in the eyes while her body fucking shivered.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“I answered your questions. Answer mine.”
“Because I like that it’s only been mine this way,” he told her. “The way I fuck you, how you let me have you. Your pussy, your ass, that fucking mouth, and the rest of your body. How you say my name and the sounds you make when you’re about to come but you know you need to wait. You’re greedy as hell when I’m eating your cunt and then sweet as hell in the morning, demanding that I read to you. When you want to get on your knees like you’re about to pray, but all you do is open up that goddamn mouth of yours and suck me dry instead. It’s … it’s insane, but it’s fucking beautiful, Cara. And it’s only been mine like that. Someone else might have gotten something else, but I get this, and that’s addicting. You’re addictive.”
She took a shaky breath. “And you don’t think you’re addictive, too?”
His arms tightened to her body and her hair. “As long as it’s mine, sweetheart.”
She was ruined for anyone else, anyway.
Didn’t he already know that?
Well, how could he know, when she was now realizing it, too?
“Who the hell else could make me fucking crazy like you do, Gian?”
He only grinned—sexy, cocky, and pleased.
“You know what I was most pissed off about, the morning after my car got bombed?” he asked.
“What was that?”
“I ruined my damn phone and—”
“Lost your filthy porn.”
Gian laughed. “Well, yeah.”
“You’ll get more.”
“Of you? I’d say so.”
Cara’s gaze snapped to his fast. “Only me.”
Gian’s grin melted into a smile before he kissed her mouth once more, softer than before. “Who the fuck else?”
Exactly.
“You do have to get up and get ready,” he reminded her.
She was more interested in his mouth, hands, and cock.
They were far more interesting.
“In a minute,” Cara said absently.
He let her go then, his arms releasing her from that snake-like hold so he could grab her face and kiss her mouth over and over.
Cara rotated her hips on Gian’s hard cock once more, determined to get back in her happy place, but he had other things in mind. Better things. His hand dove between their bodies, and the next time Cara ground along his length, he filled her full with one hard flex of his hips, driving upwards against her pussy.
She hadn’t been expecting the move, if only because he was always so careful to grab a condom first, though she had told him before that she was on the pill. But she liked him this way, too—bare and natural, filling and stretching her full, making her ache with nothing but him.
“Shit,” Gian groaned, holding Cara tight to his body so that she couldn’t move. “Fuck, I love your pussy.”
“Because it’s yours.”
His nod answered her back, and his eyes closed as she felt his cock jerk inside the tight walls of her sex. She was wet as fuck as her hand snuck between their bodies to feel the base of his bare cock fitted snug to her cunt. Hot, too, she realized.
Cara’s fingers slid over her clit with gentle strokes, making her inner muscles tighten and release with each touch.
“Could you come like that?” Gian asked, never opening his eyes. “Just stretched full of my cock and playing with your cunt, could you?”
“Yes, but not as fast as I would like.”
“And how would you like it, Cara?”
“You already know.”
Gian’s eyes opened, making Cara still on top of him entirely. “Yeah, I do.”
She hadn’t even blinked before one of his hands tangled into her hair and the other found her throat. The second his fingers tightened, choking and pulling at the same time, his hips thrust upward, driving into her again. Cara let him pull her forward, enough to lift her hips and let him pound into her pussy, deep and hard enough to make the rest of the room disappear. It was only the sound of them—his cock slamming into her, her pussy taking him in, all wet and tight, her whines and his whispers—and nothing else.
“Ride me or take it,” Gian muttered through his clenched teeth. “Fuck me how you want to, or take my cock the way I know you can, Cara.”
“I want both.”
She was greedy that way, too. Greedy enough for him to back her ass into his every thrust, but still needy enough to make him pound into her hard enough to make her fucking crazy.
His fingers tightened around her throat, taking away air and making her fly. She knew what was coming. She fucking vibrated for it, anticipated it, wanting his words to make it sweeter, and better.
“Just fucking come and give it to me, then,” he demanded. “Show me what’s mine, Cara. Show me.”
Shit.
She could do that.
All he had to do was say so.
Cara stepped out of the shower to find Gian leaning in the doorway. “I know, I’m late.”
He held his hands up, grinning in that way of his. “I’m saying nothing about that again. I warned you earlier, you wanted to listen to me read, love.”
“Well, it sounded good.”
“And then fuck after,” he added.
Cara shot him a look. “I didn’t hear you refusing.”
“Why would I?”
She didn’t dignify that with a response, instead drying off with a towel and making quick work of rubbing it through her wet hair. She was going to have to rush to get to school and hand in her paper on time, but she couldn’t find it in herself to give a shit.
Gian had jumped in the shower with her long enough to clean himself up before he jumped right back out. Cara was both jealous and irritated to see him standing there with his suit on and his hair dry.
It wasn’t fair that all he had to do was basically roll over and be ready for the day.
“What do you want, if you’re not standing there to remind me that I’m late again?” Cara asked.
She headed past Gian in the doorway, going toward her bedroom for clothes. It was what he said next that stopped Cara in her tracks.
“Your brother called.”
Cara turned slowly on her heel. “I’m sorry?”
“Tommas—that’s your brother, right?”
“Yes.”
“He called when you were in the shower. He wanted me to ask you to call your mother.”
Nope.
Cara turned back around and went straight into her room without a word. She dug through her closet, while Gian came to stand in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her in that silent way of his.
“Could you give me a ride to the university?”
“You don’t even have to ask,” he replied.
“Great. Saves me time.”
“I take it you’re not going to talk about your brother, huh?”
Cara shrugged. “Tommas is fine. Not my mother, though.”
Gian nodded as she passed him in the door. “Fair enough.”
“And I’m not calling the bitch, either.”
“Ouch,” he muttered behind her.
Cara kept walking, picking up her bag and the other things she needed on the way. Her hair would have to dry like it was, but it wouldn’t be the first time. “It sounds cold because I mean for it to. I have nothing to say to that woman that will be nice, and everybody knows it. Just because Tommas can muster up an ounce of care for the woman means fuck all to me in the end. I’ve looked for something, Gian.”
“And?”
She turned to look at him, unaffected as she said, “It’s not there. Nothing is there. Maybe when Lea was alive, or even shortly after she died, when I was so alone here by myself—maybe then I might have found something. But, now? Now, when I’m almost fully okay and I don’t need somebody holding me up, it’s gone again. I’m not calling my mother. I have nothing to say to Serena Rossi. She can keep drinking away the shit she did to us kids until she drinks herself into a grave. And even then, I don’t care.”
Gian’s face remained passive and calm throughout her tirade. “I’m sorry, mon ange.”
“You don’t have to apologize. If anything, you’re one of the things that woke me the hell up again. I was missing something for a long time after my twin died, and now I don’t feel so lost or empty. But you know what does makes me feel that way?”
“What?”
“My mother. Even thinking about her makes me revert back into that shell of a child that played a little quieter than normal, as to not enrage the drunks sleeping upstairs, or waited for her brother to get home so she could eat. That lost, lonely child. So fuck her and fuck Tommas for asking me to care, too.”
Gian cleared his throat. “All right. You going to be okay today or—”
Cara opened her apartment door with force. “I’ll be fine.”
“Really? Because you used more fucks in this conversation than the entire time we’ve been messing around, Cara.”
She locked her apartment up once Gian was out in the hallway with her.
“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “I always am.”
“Or do you have to be?” he asked as she started down the hallway.
Cara tensed, but kept walking. “Does it matter?”
Gian caught up with her quickly enough, his arm curving her waist as he pulled her in tight and kissed the top of her head. It was that simple action—his unspoken concern and care—that slowed Cara’s rage.
“It matters to me,” he murmured against the top of her head.
Cara sighed. “I’m good.”
Gian made a discontented sound under his breath.
“I am,” she promised. “Sometimes it spills out, though.”
“That’s a lot of anger to bottle up, Cara.”
They strolled out of the apartment building into cool March air, and Cara breathed it in deep.
“A lot of deserved anger,” she pointed out.
Gian nodded as he directed her toward the apartment’s parking lot, where he had left his car the evening before. “Sure, except you don’t direct it at the person most deserving of it.”
“My mother is the type that feeds off attention, negative or otherwise. She uses any time and attention you give her to manipulate you for her emotional games. It’s not worth it.”
“I’m suddenly feeling like I need to give my mother a visit soon.”
Cara frowned. “I didn’t mean—”
Gian shrugged as he unlocked his car and then held the passenger door open for Cara to slide inside. Once she was seated, he offered her one of his charming smiles. “You reminded me that despite the fact I am a twenty-nine year old man, I have a mother who still loves me as though I’m her baby. She’s always concerned for my happiness, even though she doesn’t have to be. I can’t even remember her yelling when I was a boy. I have a wonderful mother, and sometimes I don’t appreciate her enough. That’s all.”
Oh.
“I’m sure she would like to hear that, too, Gian.”
He laughed. “No worries there. I’ll be sure to tell her. I think she would like you, Cara.”
“Do you?”
“Of course, because I do, amore. Maybe you’ll be able to meet her soon.”
“When?”
Gian winked. “Soon.”
Then, he closed the door.
In a blink, he had rounded the car and was inside the vehicle, too. He hummed a sexy sound as the car lit up under his handling, the gears shifting into place as the engine turned over.
“I love this car,” he said, “but I do miss the Lexus.”
“I can’t justify buying a car in a city like Toronto. Everything is a walk away. It would be pointless.”
Gian glanced over at her, and then pulled out of the parking spot, heading toward the road. “I travel too much from one side of this city to the other to not have a car.”
“Point taken.” Cara stared down the road while Gian maneuvered the Mercedes into traffic. Something caught her eye down the way, something familiar. “Is that …?” She trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging as she stared over her shoulder.
Gian followed her gaze, although he was careful not to ram the front of his Mercedes into the back of the car in front of them. “What?”
“There, parked behind that white Toyota.”
His teeth clenched.
Cara didn’t miss it. “That is my uncle’s car.”
“Looks like it.”
“Why would he be outside my apartment?”
Gian turned back in the seat, his show of irritation all but gone. “Hard to say. Let’s get you to classes, Cara.”
“But—”
“Hey,” he interrupted smoothly, “your birthday is coming up, right? Constantino might have mentioned it, since his is not far off from yours.”
Cara’s brow furrowed while she tried to decide whether to push him on her uncle’s presence outside her place, or call him on his distraction. She settled for answering his question, for now. “Two weeks from Saturday.”
“Would a private flight to Quebec be a proper present? We would leave Saturday morning, and be back Sunday evening.”
“What’s in Quebec, Gian?”
“French. A whole lot of French, mon ange. And old buildings, brick roads, shitty drivers, some of the best restaurants, tickets to a ballet, and a fantastic suite booked for a birthday girl.”
Cara couldn’t help but smile. “A trip to Quebec it is.”
Cara nearly tripped over the waiting bags at her apartment door as she rushed to answer the persistent knocking. With only a towel wrapped around her waist, and her wet hair hanging freely around her shoulders, she figured whoever it was could deal with being made to wait, considering it was them who got her out of the shower.
She pulled open the door with a huff, flipping wet curls out of her eyes at the same time. “What?”
A man she recognized—Chris was his name—stood on the other side, waiting with a smile and a large white box with two smaller white boxes on top of them. Pretty, shimmering pink bows had been tied to each box.
Cara’s irritation instantly melted away.
“Gian?” she asked.
Chris nodded. “You know it.”
This was the second time Gian had sent Chris to her door with a gift—although this looked to be gifts. The first had been the black choker she loved so much. The barrel-chested man had politely explained to Cara that should she continue to refuse the gift, he didn’t mind escorting Cara to Gian to accept the gift directly, if she was so insistent on not allowing him to do his job. Given that first meeting, Cara knew better than to refuse Chris, when he was only there to do what he had been told.
And it was her birthday, after all.
“He could have waited for tonight,” Cara mused as she stepped back to let Chris in.
Her birthday had come much faster than she expected, the end of March skipping into her life before she had blinked.
There was no way she could take the boxes and maintain her modesty by holding up her towel. Chris kept his eyes above her chest as he maneuvered through her apartment to set the boxes down on the kitchen table.
“Early gifts, he said,” Chris told her. “Something he thought you might like to have for the trip, and the ballet tonight.”
“Oh?”
“That’s what was told to me. I’ll be waiting outside to drive you to the private air strip when you’re ready, miss. Do you want me to take the bags at the door down for you?”
Cara gave the guy a smile. “You can call me Cara.”
Chris shrugged. “I could, but I won’t. At least, not yet. The bags?”
“They’re only small. I can do—”
“I’ll take them, no worries. Finish getting ready.”
Chris gave a two-finger wave as his goodbye, and exited the apartment with Cara’s small, overnight bags slung over his shoulder. Once the front door was shut, she turned back to the waiting boxes with their pink bows on the table.
“What did you do now, Gian?” Cara wondered out loud.
She thought it was time to find out. She set each of the three boxes side by side, and started with the middle one first, carefully untying the box and pulling off the top. Patent leather, pristine, white pumps rested inside white tissue paper. Pointed toes and six-inch stiletto heels. Vibrant red soles painted the bottom of each shoe.
Cara knew that signature red sole without even having to look inside the heels to check.
Every girl did.
Louboutin.
A small note rested alongside the shoes, and Cara picked it up to read.
Because beautiful legs deserve to be shown off, birthday girl. –Gian
She reached for the largest box, then, wondering what on earth he had stuffed inside that thing, too. It was a good two feet in length and width. She wasted no time getting the bow and top off, only to find more tissue paper this time covering the item inside.
Her hands shook as she removed the tissue paper to pull the white and silver dress out from within the box. White silk, and silver lace and fringe, covered the form-fitting, sleeveless, knee-high dress. There was no flair to the skirt; it was pencil thin, with the same silver lace fringe along the bottom that decorated the sides and bodice. Sparkling beadwork and crystals had been carefully sewn in to the fringe.
A matching clutch also sat inside the box, waiting to be appreciated.
There was no note in this box, but Cara wondered if that was because Gian intended to let the tag on the dress speak for him.
Dolce & Gabbana.
Already, there was a small fortune sitting on her table in a single pair of shoes and a dress. She was reaching for the third, final, and smallest box of the bunch before she even realized it.
Inside, she found a thin, white lace choker. Maybe an inch wide, the delicate lace was soft against her fingertips, and clasped at the back with a small chain with a single, dangling white pearl.
A note rested underneath the choker.
All white, as angels should wear, mon ange. You’re only missing the wings, now. Happy birthday, Cara. –Gian
Gian had forewarned her during the lead up to her birthday that she would need something appropriate to wear for the ballet in Quebec, but that she wasn’t to worry about it. Cara had packed something in her overnight bags, which was why she needed two instead of only one, just in case.
Apparently, she wouldn’t be needing it after all.
She looked over the items spread across her table, overwhelmed and happy, all at the same time. Gian was smart, though. He had sent the gifts over late, when he likely knew she would be rushing to finish getting ready, and couldn’t overthink the gifts or call him on them. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them—oh, she loved them—but she knew what these items cost, too.
She couldn’t help but wonder why a man like Gian had no problem with spending this kind of money on a woman like her.
And for her birthday, no less.
These were the kinds of gifts that were meant for the queens of men—women they loved and adored, whom they cherished enough to treat as the royalty in their lives that they truly were.
Was Cara becoming that to Gian?
Maybe that scared her a little.
And Cara didn’t have time to think on it.
Which she was sure Gian had known, sending the items over at this time.
Cara backed away from the gifts and headed for the bathroom. She spent the next half hour getting her hair dried into manageable, free curls and putting on a quick bit of makeup to color her eyes and lips. She had managed to clasp the choker on after slipping into the dress and pumps, when a knock beat on her door, and Chris’s voice filtered in.
“We do have to leave soon, miss.”
“Coming,” Cara shouted back.
She grabbed the white tweed coat she had pulled from Lea’s closet when she couldn’t find something suitable in her own to wear over the white and silver dress. Her sister had owned far too many clothes, and while Cara had slowly started to go through Lea’s things to get rid of what she didn’t want to keep, she had barely touched the clothes.
Cara pulled the door open to find Chris waiting on the other side.
His gaze fell down over the dress to the shoes and then back up just as fast. He hadn’t lingered, and his expression remained neutral. “Gian will be pleased. You look wonderful, miss.”
Cara smiled. “Thank you.”
“Let’s head out.”
She followed behind the man, letting him lead her through the apartment hall, down one flight of stairs, and outside to where a black town car sat running in front of the building. It was only a short stroll away. Chris held the back door open for Cara to walk the remainder of the way and get inside, but something caught her eye as she made it to the vehicle.
Another car—bright yellow, which was what caught her attention first—came speeding far too fast down the city road. Black tinted windows made it impossible to see inside.
By the time the car reached them, the driver’s window rolled down a few inches.
Cara didn’t understand the item that was shoved out the window, not until the color burst from the barrel, and the sound sliced through the air.
Rapid gunfire.
Bullets.
Pain bloomed in Cara’s shoulder as she was dragged to the ground. She was frozen, stuck in a strange nightmarish state of reality and memories. She hadn’t heard gunfire like that since the day Lea was murdered. It was as though she had been shoved right back into that day all over again in a split second.
She couldn’t bring herself out of it, no matter how hard she tried.