Twisted Bond by SR Jones
Chapter Seven
Giovanni
When we finally reach the villa, Amelia has well and truly crashed. I lied to her on the plane, but I did so for her own good. Although no one was killed in the fire, a staff member was burned and admitted to the hospital. They'll survive, but I know Amelia, and thinking about them in pain will haunt her.
Although, I clearly don't know my sweetness quite as well as I had thought. If anyone had told me that she would set a fire in such a way, I never would have believed it. It seems Amelia has a fight in her much deeper than I ever imagined.
After the plane landed in Italy, we took cars from the airport and drove to the villa. It was when we got within fifteen minutes of the village that Amelia fell fast asleep leaning against me. The cars have come to a halt, so I open the door and gently pull Amelia into my arms. I carry her into the house and pass Maya who is waiting at the door, hands clasping and unclasping.
“Is she okay?” Maya asks.
“She will be,” I say. “She's exhausted, so I'm taking her to bed, but I'm sure in the morning she'll want to speak to you. Thank you for all you've done, and thank you for staying to see her when she got home.”
“It's nothing. She's my friend.” Maya reaches out and gently brushes her hand over Amelia’s hair, then she gives me a smile and turns and walks down the corridor.
I think that young woman has much more depth than she lets on. At first, when I met her, I figured that Damen had fallen purely for her looks and her glamor, but as I've gotten to know her, I believe he chose well.
“Giovanni!”
My nonna comes rushing out of the kitchen as I walk by and shouts so loudly that Amelia jumps in my arms, making a soft snorting noise against my shoulder.
Amelia opens her eyes, rubs them, and smiles softly at Nonna.
“Bella ragazza,” Nonna cries out as she takes in Amelia, pale and dazed in my arms.
“It's okay, Nonna. Everything’s all right. I'll talk to you in the morning. Amelia is exhausted, and I want to get her to bed.”
“I'll send up some herbal tea and some slices of cake I made this afternoon in case she gets hungry.”
“Thank you, Nonna.”
I say my goodnights to Matteo and Marcello, thanking them profusely for their help, and then I ascend the stairs to the bedroom suites. I have my treasure in my arms and back in my house. This time, though, she isn't a pawn in any game—she's my future wife.
Of course, she doesn't know that yet. It's going to be a hard conversation when I tell her about her mother, but I want her to understand that she has a family now. My family is her family.
Holding her in my arms, a wave of possessiveness washes over me. I need to cherish and protect. Where before I only wanted to dominate, to own, now I want to help nurture and grow. It’s a strange mixture of romantic love and the fierce protectiveness I imagine a parent feels.
Amelia is more vulnerable than I had ever imagined when I first tricked her into coming out here. She's utterly alone in the world. Her grandmother is her worst enemy. I can't imagine that. Your own family, the very people who are meant to have your back through thick and thin, being the ones who tried to bring you down…unimaginable. Amelia's grandmother probably doesn't see it quite that way. She thinks she's doing the right thing for her granddaughter, but her every action has been abusive, controlling, and demeaning.
I reach my bedroom and kick open the door. Walking into the room, I place Amelia gently on the bed.
Staring down at her, as her red hair fans out across the sheets, I grow. I won't touch her, though. She needs to rest, and honestly, all I want to do, despite my arousal, is climb into bed beside her and hold her tight.
It’s an entirely new sensation for me.
I gently take her pants down, pulling her shoes off when the jeans pool around her ankles. She mumbles a soft protest when I get her sitting up so that I can pull her top over her head, but she does as I ask, then flops back down as pliant as a ragdoll.
She's only wearing panties and a strappy top now. I pull the covers back and lift her into my arms once more as I place her gently into the bed. I head to the bathroom and make quick work of brushing my teeth and washing up. Back in the bedroom, I strip my clothes and climb into bed.
Tentatively, almost unsure if I have the right, I reach for Amelia and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her into me.
I scoot in closer to her, until her ass is resting against my stomach and her back is pressed against my chest. She feels like coming home. Only when she's held as tightly to me as is physically possible do I close my eyes.
Sleep takes a long time to come. I'm a strange on-edge mixture of excitement, bone deep exhaustion, and a sense of contentment.
Amelia came with me because her life was under threat. I don't know if she'll want to be here long-term. The thought of her leaving me again terrifies me, both for myself and for her, but I made a promise and a vow in the eyes of God. This time, Amelia won't stay with me under false pretences; if she decides to stay, it will be because it's what she wants. Which means that I need to ensure her staying here becomes much more attractive than the idea of returning home.
For the first time in my life, I'm going to be wooing the woman that I want. Not in the sense of plying her with jewels and fancy items, along with dates in expensive restaurants, but in the very real sense that I'll try to show her what she means to me every day.
My Dolcezza is back where she belongs, and I need to ensure that this time she wants to stay.
***
Warm in my arms.
Curves against my skin.
Softness meeting hardness.
I awaken slowly to Amelia wriggling against me. She's all soft and pliant, and I'm hard as nails. About to move away so I don't poke her in the back with my erection, she turns into me, and her arms wrap around me.
The moment her full breasts press against my chest, all my good intentions fly out of the window. Her hair still holds a slight hint of smoke, and I need to wash the fire and that awful place away from her. She makes a small, happy moaning sound and snuggles further into me.
“I'm so glad you came for me,” she says.
I wrap my hand in her hair and pull her face toward me as I take her in a deep kiss. If I wondered whether her feelings were still the same, my fear flies out the window as she reciprocates by groaning and opening for me, giving as good as she gets.
I want to be inside her, but I also want to wash the figurative filth of that awful place away from her.
I could do with a shower myself.
Mind made up, I pick her up and carry her from the bedroom into the adjoining bathroom.
I switch the lights on, and she blinks two to three times as her eyes adjust to the brightness. She yawns, and I swear it's the cutest thing I've ever seen.
“What time is it?” she asks.
It's a good question, and I have no clue. We arrived back in Italy sometime in the early afternoon, local time, but came straight to bed, both completely exhausted. It's dark out now, so I presume it's the middle of the night. By the time it gets to around 5:00 AM, the sky is already lightening these days.
“It's late baby,” I tell her. “Or early, I suppose. It depends upon one’s perspective.”
“Why are we in the bathroom?”
“Because I want to fuck you senseless, but I'm filthy from the flight. And I want to wash the smoke from you. I want to wash all traces of that place off of you, Amelia.”
She blinks twice and then wipes once at her eyes. “I want to wash that place off me too. I wish I could wash my family from me as well. If only it were as simple as washing my hair and rinsing away all those years of control by my father and my grandmother.”
I pull her to me and wrap my arms around her. “You shouldn't want to wash your family away, Amelia. Your father and grandmother may have done some awful things, but they're in you, and they helped shape you into the person you are. And for good or bad, Amelia, you're an amazing person. You still have so much interest in the world. So much curiosity. You've made me see things through new eyes. I'd become jaded in so many ways, even to the beauty of this place, although it was something that on an intellectual level I recognized. I don't think I truly let it seep into my soul for the longest time. You changed that. When you left, it was as if you took some of the sun with you.”
She stares at me for a long beat and then shakes her head. “Who are you, and what have you done with Giovanni?” she asks.
“Are you trying to say that I couldn't be romantic before?” I ask playfully as I turn on the shower.
“I suppose I'm not used to you laying your heart on the line quite so openly, no.” She turns and looks in the mirror, then gives a dismayed gasp. “Oh, my God, I look like I've been dragged through a hedge.”
“Well, you did run out of a burning building and through a forest, so...”
Our eyes meet in the mirror, and we both burst out laughing. I test the heat of the shower to find it perfect. “Come on,” I say. “Let us wash off the past twenty-four hours.”
Stepping into the shower, I gently pull Amelia in behind me. The shower head is a huge square contraption, and it provides more than enough water to cover us both. As the warm water streams over Amelia’s hair, I smooth my hands over it and grab the shampoo.
“Turn around,” I order.
She does as I say, and I lather up the shampoo, massaging it into her hair and scalp. I gather up her long tresses and make sure that it's all washed clean, ensuring that the smoke no longer lingers. I don't want the smell giving her flashbacks to the previous night. I'm pretty convinced that once Amelia has time and distance from the events of the past twenty-four hours, she's going to need some help coming to terms with it. I know enough about her to believe that she'll be racked with guilt, even though I believe she was justified in all she did.
When I finish cleaning her hair, I let the water stream over it as I smooth suds from her heavy tresses. Then I grab the shower gel, lather up my hands, and smooth it over her shoulders and down her arms.
“Hey, I need conditioner. I'm not like you with your short hair; mine will be a tangled mess if I don't put some conditioner in it.”
I inspect the bottles on the glass shelf inside the shower stall and see one that's a conditioner. Rinsing the soap from my hands, I pour the creamy lotion over my palms and smooth it down over her hair.
“You can leave that in while you go back to cleaning the rest of me,” she says as she glances over her shoulder with a small smile.
I gladly go back to my work of washing her beautiful smooth skin. The soap I'm using is scented and made locally here in Italy from olive oil and various flowers and herbs. I smooth it over her arms, and she raises them up as I run it down her sides, luxuriating in touching her. I go back up over her stomach and then cup her heavy breasts in my hands as I massage them with the foam. The soap makes her skin all slippery, and I’m achingly hard as I squeeze and palm her breasts.
“I think they're quite clean now,” she says with a soft giggle.
I move my hands, bringing them around her back, and wash down between her shoulder blades, down to that wonderful curve at the base of the spine, and then over her full hips and ass.
I reach around to her front and lightly run my hands over her pussy lips, washing her there, and then down her thighs. She sighs and leans back into me, her head dropped onto my shoulder.
Unable to resist, I lather up some more, drop the soap, and run my hands up to her pussy. I part her folds and slip one soap-slicked finger over her clit, and she shudders. I hold her open, parted, so the soap is rinsed off, and then I run my hands over her belly, up past her small waist to her big, gorgeous tits that I love so much.
I play with them some more, rolling her nipples in my fingers and pinching them hard. She gasps, and her ass rubs against my cock.
My intentions had been to wash her, carry her to the bed, and make love to her, but fuck it. I can’t wait.
“Place your hands against the tiles,” I order her. My voice is gruff and raw as if I’ve smoked ten cigars. “Spread your legs.”
She does as I say immediately. We need to talk. I must show her what she means to me, but right now, I simply need to be inside her.
I drop to my knees, not caring that the cold shower floor is hard and wet, or that the spray hits me right in the face. Her back is to me, and her pussy is right in my face, wet from more than the shower, temptation itself nestling between her spread legs.
Not able to wait or finesse this, I dive right in and taste her. Her unique flavor explodes on my tongue, and I sigh.
Heaven.
Home.
This woman, her body, heart, and soul are my home.
I use my fingers to spread her pussy lips wider and flick her clit with my tongue. She moans and slaps one hand against the wet tiles.
“Oh, God, Gio.”
I love my name rolling off her tongue.
Wanting to push her until she’s mindless, I thrust a finger inside her, crooking it immediately and finding her G-spot.
“Fuck,” she yells, the sound of her cry bouncing off the tiles.
I work her hard, making her tremble as I finger fuck her and alternate it with licking her clit. When I suck her clit into my mouth, she comes with a ragged moan, pushing her ass and pussy against me.
Slicking up my finger good and proper in her juices, I pull out of her pussy while she’s still coming and trail upward until I find her tight pucker. Pushing in slow, I smile when her hole contracts around me as I push against her walls from a totally new angle.
“Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh. Oh. Ooooh,”
Her moans and whimpers have me so hard, I’m leaking pre-cum all over my dick.
I need to be inside her. Standing, I slap her ass hard twice, and keeping my finger in her tight hole, I push into her pussy with my aching cock.
Her hands bunch into fists against the tiles as she turns her face to one side. Her cheeks are flushed, her mouth gaping against the tiles. She's glorious. I'm not going to last. If I wanted this to be all about finesse, then I'm sorely disappointed in myself, but I can't help this overwhelming need to claim her once more and make her mine.
I bite down on her shoulder as my hips buck, and I lose myself to the most intense orgasm of my life. Amelia joins me in my release as she cries out her pleasure, loud enough for half the house to hear.
“Wow! Is that my welcome home?” She turns to face me and sags against the wall behind her.
“Yeah, that’s your welcome home. We'll deal with the punishment part of it later.”
She gives me a wide-eyed glance. If my little minx thinks she's going to get away with what she's done, running from me, she has another thing coming. I might be newly converted to understanding the need to make Amelia want to be here with me, but it doesn't mean I've turned into some soft, moon-eyed fool who will let her get away with murder.
She'll enjoy it because there's a dark beating heart within my beautiful librarian that matches my own.
Worry slams into me. Shit, I didn’t use a condom. Amelia went on contraception while she was here, after we fucked bare the first time, but did they take that away in the institution?
“Are you still on the pill?” I ask her.
She nods and turns to me, smiling lazily. Part of me wouldn’t care if she wasn’t. I wouldn’t exactly hate having children with Amelia, but she’s in a bad place right now, and it wouldn’t be the best plan at this moment in time.
We dry off together, and I take great pleasure in slathering rich-scented body lotion over every part of her. We head into the bedroom and crash on the sheets. We're both exhausted still, and Amelia confirms the fact by yawning loudly.
We still need to talk, but I don't want to do so right now, not when I'm full of all the warm and fuzzies, and Amelia is glowing.
I snuggle into her and hold her close, the sheets kicked off to one side. “What do you want to do when we get up?” I ask her.
“I'd like to spend some time with Maya,” she says. “Then... You're probably going to think I'm crazy, but I'd like to spend some time in the library.”
Of course she does. There's something in there that she'll like. A gift I ordered for her before she decided to run away, which was delivered the day we left for America.
I'm going to make this woman my wife, but I need to go about it the right way. First of all, I must talk to her about everything her grandmother has done, her father too. It’s going to hurt like hell, but she needs to understand just how poisonous that woman is because I don't think Amelia is safe from her if she sets foot on American soil unprotected again.
I also have my lawyer looking aggressively into holding Charles’ estate to account for the contract he broke. At the moment, Amelia has inherited everything, but it's come at a heavy price. Her grandmother retains some control over what can be done with the house, which I'm not even sure Amelia is aware of. It means that Amelia would be restricted as to using the house to make money and forced once again to consider marrying some puffed-up moneyed fool who will make her nothing but miserable. There's also a ton of debts attached to the house, and the place needs a lot of work.
If I can make the estate adhere legally to the contract, I take the house from Amelia. In doing so, I intend to immediately hire contractors to renovate the place, and then I'll pay all the debts. Then I'll give the house back to Amelia, no strings attached. I'm also going to supply five men who will work there, full-time. Even though the thought of it kills me, I want my dolcezza to know that if she needs to go home, if ever I do something to fuck her off so spectacularly that she feels the need to leave, she can do so and have a bolt hole where she will be safe.
I'd always get her back anyway. I'd claim her again and make her mine no matter what it takes. And in the meantime, if she was in Maine but surrounded by bodyguards, and in a home the grandmother couldn't touch, at least she’d be safe, and at least I'd know where she is.
It's not going to be easy for me to legally take the estate, but there may be more underhanded ways in which I can do so. The information that Damen is gathering about Amelia’s grandmother, Agnes is damning. I doubt the woman will want it to be spread far and wide in the society she moves in.
I yawn and snuggle closer. We ought to sleep and then get up at the normal time; otherwise, we'll get into a pattern of delayed sleep. Today, though, we should do what we damn well please. It's been a very stressful few days.
In fact, I think we ought to work our stress out between the sheets. With a grin, I reach for Amelia, grabbing her and tickling, enjoying her squeals as my cock hardens again.