by Kyle, Regina
“Make a list,” he repeated, almost sprinting for the door. If he stayed much longer, his resolve would weaken, and he’d give in to the little devil on his shoulder telling him to pin her against the wall and find out what lust-inducing underthings she was hiding under her ridiculously oversize sweatshirt and body-hugging spandex shorts. “And meet me downstairs in five minutes.”
He’d keep his promise to help her get the pig settled in.
And then he’d do his best to keep his distance.
…
Zoe flopped down on the massive canopy bed in her new room, her body exhausted but her mind reeling from the day’s events.
She’d adopted a pig. And kissed her roommate.
Or he’d kissed her.
Holy cannoli, the man could kiss. Not just with his lips, although they weren’t too shabby all by themselves. He was a full-body kisser, his hands everywhere at once, his touch soft but sure, demanding yet desperate. Her mind had turned to mush and her body—she blushed remembering the way she’d opened up for him like a twenty-four-hour convenience store, her nipples tightening into points and her panties wet with her arousal.
She tried to tell herself it was overactive hormones, made worse by a longer than usual sexual drought. The last few months with Brad, they’d been more friends than lovers. She’d have reacted the same way if old Mr. Lombard who ran the deli across the street from her office—or what used to be her office—kissed her.
But not all that deep down, she knew she was lying. Yes, it had been a while since she’d gotten hot and heavy with anyone. But this thing between her and Dante was more than physical. She was starting to get glimpses of the man behind the gruff exterior. And she liked what she saw. How could you not develop a soft spot for a guy who made killer cappuccino, baked biscotti on par with a professional pastry chef, and shelled out almost a thousand dollars to rescue a helpless animal?
Too bad he didn’t feel the same way about her.
With a long, heavy sigh, Zoe sat up and flung her legs over the side of the bed. Sleep was a pipe dream. She might as well make the most of her insomnia and enjoy—or try to enjoy—a good book out on her balcony, with the stars overhead, and the gentle roll of the surf below.
After a quick check on Houdini, softly snoring in the heap of blankets she’d piled in the corner to serve as his bed until the fancy crate Dante had ordered online showed up, she grabbed her e-reader and stepped through the sliding glass doors into the still-warm night air. She settled herself into a wicker chair, her feet curled beneath her and her head resting against the cushion. She’d barely opened the latest Jack Reacher novel and begun to read when a low, indistinct, vaguely human sound stopped her mid-sentence.
Was that a—moan?
She cocked her head, listening. Yep. There it was again. She wasn’t imagining things. An almost primal, guttural groan that sounded like it was coming from the room next door.
Dante’s room.
She set her e-reader down on the ottoman and tiptoed to the edge of the balcony. Putting curiosity before caution, she leaned over the railing and peered around the wall into the adjoining balcony.
Empty.
But the sliding glass door was open a crack, enough for her to hear another moan from the darkened bedroom, this one louder, more frantic, followed by a muffled thump and a muttered Italian curse word even she recognized.
Her heart skipped a beat or two or ten, and the hair on her arms and the back of her neck lifted. Was he hurt? In pain? Or—?
“Fuck, yes. Almost there.”
Oh. My. God.
He was killing her. Abso-fucking-lutely killing her. She could picture him, cock in hand, stroking himself from the thick base to the gleaming tip. Dragging his thumb through the wetness and using it to make himself slicker, hotter.
Were his eyes open or closed as he pleasured himself? Was he lying in bed, his big body sprawled across the mattress, sheets twisted around his ankles, or braced against the wall, his muscular thighs straining with the effort of keeping him upright? Did he like it slow and controlled, drawing out the sweet torture, or hard, hot, and fast?
A huge part of her wanted answers to those questions more than her next breath. But another part felt the crushing guilt of eavesdropping on something so personal, so intimate. Okay, so he shared some of that guilt for leaving his damn door open. But that didn’t excuse her snooping.
She stepped back into the shadows, preparing to retreat to the relative safety of her bedroom and her Beats headphones, turned up to full volume.
He moaned again. “God, yes, Zoe.”
The last word slammed into her like a high-speed train. The way he’d shut down after their kiss, she thought she repulsed him or something. But now she didn’t know what to think. The man was a maddening mess of contradictions.
Her legs threatened to give out, and she collapsed onto the chair, needing something to support her. Overhearing him masturbate in the next room had been hot as hell. Knowing he was thinking about her while he was doing it—
That was hot times one hundred. Incendiary.
Almost unbidden, she lay back, propping one foot up on the ottoman and parting her legs so she could slip a hand under her sleep shorts. Now that she knew what she was listening for, she could hear the muted sounds of his tugs as he jerked himself, spurring her hand lower, between her thighs, until her fingers brushed the neat patch of curls she kept meticulously trimmed above her otherwise bare pussy.
Her body twitched, and she swallowed a sigh. She was so primed, so turned on, even that light touch was almost enough to set her off.
A brief moment of sanity returned, stilling her fingers. Was she really doing this? On a darkened balcony only a few feet from the man she had to share space with for three more long, torturous weeks?
Come on, Zoe. Live a little. Enjoy this amazing, exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime offer. Just be quiet, and he’ll never have to know.
Next door, she could hear Dante, his moans coming faster now, more urgent. Her already heightened arousal kicked up several notches, and her hand moved lower still, one finger daring to glance across her slick button.
Oh yeah. She was doing this.
She parted her folds and bit back a pleasured cry as she touched herself, all the while listening for his release, some warped sense of propriety demanding that she hold off until he climaxed. Lucky for her, it was only a few seconds before she heard him grunt out his orgasm. She followed almost immediately with a stifled scream, her body rising and falling as waves of sensation crashed over her.
Unfortunately, waves of sensation weren’t the only things crashing. In her sensual stupor, she’d forgotten her e-reader, perched precariously on the edge of the ottoman. One errant twitch of her leg was all it took to send it clattering to the floor, the hollow thud when it hit the tile echoing in the quiet Mediterranean night.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
Zoe held her breath, waiting for Dante to realize she was out there and that if he was able to hear her, she was able to hear him. One second went by, then ten, then twenty, then a full minute.
Nothing.
She let out the breath she’d been holding in a long, low hiss.
Crisis averted.
Gingerly, she picked up her e-reader and checked the screen, pleasantly surprised to find it still intact. Score another one for Lady Luck.
Not wanting to press her good fortune, she made her way back inside as quietly as possible, closing the door behind her with painstaking slowness. She glanced at Houdini, still sleeping in his blanket bed, only the pale pink end of his nose visible, then slipped under the covers of her own bed and stared up at the ceiling.
If sleep had been difficult before, it was pretty much impossible now, when every time she closed her eyes she was back on her balcony, listening to Dante as she fingered herself. She was two s
econds away from giving up on slumber completely and drowning herself under a cold shower when her phone buzzed on the nightstand and her sister’s name flashed across the screen. She swiped right to answer, but before she could get a word out, Fliss was off and running.
“You have to talk to Dad. He’s ruining my life.”
“I seriously doubt that.” He’d have to be paying attention to her sister’s life to ruin it.
“I’m not kidding, Zoe. If you don’t do something, I’m going to be the laughingstock of the twelfth grade. No, I take that back. Of the whole school.”
Zoe took the phone into the bathroom and closed the door, not wanting to wake Houdini.
“Do you realize what time it is?” she hissed.
“Three o’clock.”
“In San Francisco, sure. We’re nine hours ahead here. It’s almost midnight.”
“Well, it’s your fault I have to call so late. If you were in California where you belonged, we’d be in the same time zone and you could tell Dad he’s being a butthead without me having to wake you up.”
Zoe sank to the bathroom floor with her back against the vanity. “What did you do this time?”
“Me?” Fliss squeaked. “It’s him.”
“What did he do, then?”
“He’s destroying my social life, that’s what.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“He insists on driving me and my date to homecoming.”
It was a good thing Zoe was already sitting down for that shocking piece of news. Her father was acting like—well, a father. There really was a first time for everything. “Who’s your date?”
“Dylan Reid,” Fliss answered on a dreamy sigh. “His parents just got him a brand-new Corvette for his eighteenth birthday.”
Zoe didn’t know much about cars, but she knew no eighteen-year-old had any business behind the wheel of a vehicle with that much horsepower under the hood. “Dylan Reid? Isn’t he the one who had his license suspended last year for speeding?”
“He got it back a few weeks ago. Don’t tell me you’re on Dad’s side. I can’t believe he’s being such a jerk. He never cared who I went out with before.”
Because he didn’t have to. Zoe was always there to play parent. Screening Fliss’s dates. Setting curfews. Waiting up for her to get home. Until now.
“I’m not on Dad’s side.” She was, but she wasn’t admitting that to Fliss. It was way past time for her family to learn how to resolve their problems without her there to play peacemaker. “I’m on my side. The side that says I’m six thousand miles away, and you and Dad need to work this out on your own.”
“I knew you wouldn’t understand. What do you know about young love? I’ll bet you haven’t even looked at another guy since you and Brad called it quits.”
Oh yeah? I haven’t just looked, I’ve listened. With my legs wide open and my hand down my pants.
“This isn’t about me. It’s about you. You’re practically an adult. You need to figure out how to deal with Dad without me running interference.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Fliss grumbled, probably with an accompanying pout or eye roll for dramatic effect.
“You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you’ll come up with some sort of compromise.”
They talked for a few more minutes, Zoe trying her best to assure her younger sister that her life wasn’t a complete disaster, before they said their good nights—or good afternoons in Fliss’s case—and ended the call.
Zoe put the phone down beside her and hugged her knees to her chest. She loved her family, truly, but putting some much-needed distance between them wasn’t entirely a bad thing. They had relied on her for far too much for far too long. She was right to cut the cord and let them succeed—or fail—on their own.
With a groan, she pushed herself up off the floor. She still wasn’t tired, but at least the phone call had been good for something. It had taken her mind off Dante. And reminded her why she’d come to Italy in the first place. She was supposed to be finding herself. Figuring out her next move, personally and professionally. Not spending her days—and nights—salivating over the first filthy rich, smoking hot piece of Italian ass to drop in her lap.
Even if said filthy rich, smoking hot Italian piece of ass was salivating over her, too.
Chapter Seven
Dante cursed under his breath at the spreadsheet on his computer screen. The numbers still didn’t add up. And the spreadsheet was coded to automatically tally the columns. Meaning the problem was user error. The user being him.
He swore again and saved the document before turning away from the computer. It was no use trying to fix it now, not when every nerve ending in his body and all his attention were attuned to the scene directly outside his window, where Zoe was training that infernal pig. Or trying to. From the sounds of her cries of “No” and “Stop it, Houdini,” she wasn’t having much success.
Maybe closing the damn window would help. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. His brain would still know she was there. His body would still sense her presence.
It was worth a shot anyway, he supposed. He had to do something to try to forget that he wasn’t alone in the villa. Ever since that kiss in Zoe’s room—why the hell had he gone in there?—he’d been hyperaware of her. The subtle, summery scent of the shampoo she used, a combination of lavender and coconut. The way she scrunched up her nose when something—usually him—annoyed her. Her ass in those tight yoga pants.
No matter how hard he tried to avoid her. No matter how much distance he put between them. It was like he had some perverse sixth sense. A Zoe radar, if you will, one that was apparently directly connected to his dick. Even masturbating—on more than one occasion—hadn’t quelled his desire for her. If anything, it had heightened it. His hand was a poor substitute for the flesh and blood woman.
He crossed to the window and slammed it shut. Juvenile, he knew, but the temptation to linger there and watch her from the safe anonymity of his study like some creepy stalker was strong. Closing the window as quickly as possible and getting back to work—or trying to—was the only way he knew to resist it. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Painful, but necessary.
He sat down at his desk and returned to the spreadsheet, determined this time to finish what he’d started. His butt had barely hit the chair when a familiar tone chimed from his phone, interrupting him. Luca’s ringtone. He was half tempted to hit ignore, but the truth was he hadn’t spoken to his brother since coming to Bella Vista. It was long past time for them to speak, if not as brothers, as his business partners. Dante was supposed to be holding up his end of things from Positano. It wasn’t fair to Luca for him to let things slide because he was distracted by his infuriatingly stubborn, impossibly sexy, eminently kissable housemate.
Dante snatched the phone off his desk and swiped the screen. “Ciao, fratellino.”
Luca’s derisive snort echoed through the phone’s tiny speaker. “I told you to stop calling me that. I was born two minutes after you. That hardly makes me your younger brother.”
“It does in my book.”
“Your book is wrong.”
Dante relaxed in his seat, propping his feet up on the corner of his desk. He’d almost forgotten how fun exchanging barbs with his brother could be. At a minimum, the concentration it took to keep up with the back and forth kept his mind from wandering to Zoe. Much. “Are you going to tell me the reason for this call or just argue with me about the semantics of our birth order all day?”
“Do I need a reason to call my own brother?”
“No, but knowing you, I’m sure you have one.”
“I’d say not hearing from someone in almost two weeks is a pretty damn good reason, wouldn’t you?” He could picture Luca’s smug smile as he puffed on one of those disgusting Chesterfield cigarettes he liked so much.
/> “I’m sorry,” Dante said, trying to convey as much sincerity in the two short, deceptively simple words as he could over a phone from more than two hundred kilometers away. “Things have been—interesting.”
“Nonna told me about your little American house guest. She’s that captivating, is she?”
Could you hear a smirk get smirkier? If so, Dante was fairly certain he just did.
“I wouldn’t know,” he lied. “It’s a big villa. We keep to ourselves.”
“Then what’s got you so occupied you couldn’t pick up a phone and call me?” Luca asked, sounding more than a little wounded. “And don’t tell me it’s work, because I’m not falling for that. I’m not the only one you’ve been ignoring. No one at any of the restaurants has heard from you. For all you know, all three of them burned to the ground.”
“Have they?”
“Of course not.”
“Good.” Dante ran a hand through his slightly too-long hair. He really should have gotten a trim before leaving for the coast. “Will you forgive me and get off my back if I promise not to fall off the grid again?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you tell me about your roommate.”
“Housemate. We’re sharing a house, not a room. And there’s not much to tell.” Unless he counted La Bohème. And the yoga. And the pig.
And that kiss.
Dante touched a finger to his nose to make sure it wasn’t growing.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” Luca huffed. He could be such a prima donna when he didn’t get his way. Like a spoiled baby. He’d been teasing his brother earlier, but it was possible there was something to this birth order nonsense after all. “Maybe I’ll make a trip to Positano to see for myself.”
Dante swung his feet off his desk and sat up. So much for casual conversation. Every one of his nerve endings was on high alert now. The last thing he needed was his twin showing up at Bella Vista. Not because he was jealous, he told himself. Although he couldn’t quite pinpoint another reason why he was so opposed to a visit from his brother. “You’re needed in Rome. Who would run the restaurant?”