Wild and Wicked, page 14
Every time they’d come together, it had been a whirlwind, a tornado, a goddamn force of nature—powerful, heady.
This time was different, slower, calmer, yet just as potent. He was taking her down with gentle, soft strokes, and sweet words whispered in her ear.
“Gianna,” he said at last, just as she felt herself about to go over. “Come with me,” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured. “With you.”
Her back arched and her body trembled as her orgasm rushed through her, filling up every empty, dark corner of her soul, flooding it with light and warmth…and him.
“Happy New Year,” he murmured.
She said the words back, though three different ones drifted through her head.
I love you, Gianna whispered to him in her mind.
She knew better than to say those words aloud. Not because they didn’t belong here but because this wasn’t the time, and that sentiment wasn’t what he wanted from her.
So for now, she would take what he offered—his kind words, kisses, hugs—wrap herself up in the amazing emotions, and then…well…
Then she’d take a page from his book.
She’d figure out what came next…
Later.
Chapter Eleven
Elio breathed in a deep breath, soaking up Gianna’s citrusy scent, before opening his eyes. They’d slept in late. Again. It was going to take him a day or two to sort out his sleep patterns once he returned to Baltimore.
It was Friday, and most likely their last day together in the cabin. The weather forecast was calling for warmer temperatures today, which would accelerate the melting enough that the two of them could get their cars out. They only had to drive four miles of unpaved dirt lane before they hit the plowed roads.
Elio hadn’t been completely honest with her when he told her he had zero plans for his future because he did have a ghost of an idea, but it was so vague it was practically transparent.
He’d gotten into a discussion with Gio and Rafe at the holiday party, interested in learning more about their inn. Elio thought he might like to invest in a business after retiring from the game, maybe a restaurant or even an ice rink, and he’d picked their brains about their process and the hurdles they’d encountered.
Of course, they hadn’t exactly talked him into pursuing the idea. It became apparent very quickly they were both feeling stretched too thin, and they admitted they’d jumped into the project too soon. Rafe had inherited several businesses from his grandfather last summer, and he was still working to learn the ins and outs of those.
Gio, ever the carpenter, had loved the idea of renovating the mansion, but he was no fan of the business end of things, leaving too much to Rafe, who was quite simply overwhelmed.
Not that Gio wasn’t the same. He confessed he felt like he was burning the candle at both ends, keeping up with his full-time job with Moretti Brothers—something made harder now that Joey was off filming ManPower—and the renovations.
The conversation had left Elio thinking that perhaps the investment idea would be more hassle than it was worth. Besides, he didn’t have a clue what kind of business he even wanted to invest in.
Gianna lay on her side, facing him, though she was still sound asleep. Elio decided there was no better way to ring in the New Year than waking up next to her. He took a few minutes to study her face. He was amazed when he recalled his first impression of her, how he’d thought her wholesome. Jesus, he’d actually used that word to describe her, picking it over the obvious one.
Because while she was wholesome, she was so much more than that. Nothing short of gorgeous. With her wavy blonde hair, the cute little upturn of her nose, the delicate slope of her eyes, framed with long, thick lashes. Her complexion was pale, which only served to highlight her rosy cheeks. Her eyes were the lightest blue he’d ever seen, the color reminding him of glaciers he’d seen once in Alaska.
But it wasn’t her appearance that had turned his head this week.
It was her.
He considered her childhood, with her absent dad, shitty mom, and overworked grandmother. How she had come from all of that with her good heart and sense of humor intact astounded him.
He’d taken his upbringing for granted, never having to worry about money. God only knew how much money his parents had invested in his interest in hockey. It wasn’t a cheap sport.
He had tried to “pay them back” for all of that, now that he made very—very—good money, through expensive gifts and by footing the bill for their dream trip to the Bahamas a few years earlier.
But as a kid, he’d never spared a thought when it came to paying bills, and it would never have occurred to him to consider butter an extravagance the way Gianna did.
“You’re watching me sleep,” she said huskily, her dark lashes fluttering, then rising slowly.
“Creeping you out?” he joked.
She shook her head, still looking at him with drowsy eyes.
“Happy New Year, Freckles,” he said.
“Happy New Year.” She stretched out with a long, contented sigh, reminding him of a sleepy kitten as she slowly woke up. “I never sleep this good in Philly. Of course, I live in an eight-story apartment building with paper-thin walls, so it’s safe to say it’s never this quiet. Between the neighbors and the traffic outside, noise is just a fact of life.”
“You ever consider moving out of the apartment, looking for something else?”
Gianna flipped to her back, yawning, as she tried to come fully awake. “I think about it, but I’d never find somewhere decent for what I’m paying in rent. Although I’m sort of hoping…”
“Hoping?” he prodded.
Gianna sat up, facing him. “Well, I haven’t told anyone this…so do you mind if we keep it a secret just between us? For now?”
Elio sat up as well. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“You know that Gio and Rafe are opening that haunted inn, right?”
Elio had been amused by Keeley’s assertion that Rafe’s grandfather was haunting the place, but when she started telling him some of the strange things that had happened since the three of them moved in there, he had to admit she might be right. “I know about their plans.”
“One of the perks for the person they hire to manage the place is free lodging in the guest cottage behind the mansion.”
“That’s a pretty good perk.”
“I know,” Gianna said. “I’m hoping to convince them to let me run it. My degree is in hotel management, but God knows I’m not using it much in my current job.”
“Don’t care for your job?”
She shook her head. “It’s been beyond dull.”
“Rafe and Gio know you well, Gianna. You and Keeley are good friends. I’m sure they would hire you,” Elio said, certain all Gianna had to do was ask.
“Yeah, but…I don’t want to just ask for the job. I want them to know I’m the right person for it. I’ve been cleaning up my resume and creating a business plan to show them my ideas for running the inn. I don’t want to say anything to them until I have everything in place. It’s like you said, Keeley and I are friends, so I don’t want to put them on the spot or make them uncomfortable by asking them to hire me out of obligation. So my plan is to lay out everything—staffing, reservation policies, scheduling, even some ideas for possible special events. I want to play up the haunted idea, and I’ve even started generating a list of names for the inn, too, since Gio admitted the three of them can’t come up with anything they like.”
“Damn. That’s a lot of work,” Elio pointed out, though he was impressed by her efforts.
“Well, I probably wouldn’t do this much if it was a usual job interview. If it wasn’t Gio and Rafe, because it has been a lot of work for a job I don’t have. I just want them to feel confident that if they hire me, it’s for what I can do, not who I am. Running that inn would be my absolute dream job.”
“You dream of working with ghosts? And I’m the creepy one for watching you sleep?”
Gianna giggled. “You’re still the creepy one,” she joked. “If they hire me, I’ll only be two years late on achieving that particular goal.”
Elio tilted his head, confused. “There’s a timeline?”
Gianna flushed slightly, which he’d learned was a tell for her. She blushed whenever she confessed what she considered one of her obsessive-compulsive quirks.
“I had a Great Life plan I’ve been working toward for the last few years. Dream job at twenty-four, engaged at twenty-six, married at twenty-eight, first baby at thirty. Of course, that’s all shot to hell now. I’d intended to use my time here this week coming up with a new plan.”
Elio fought not to laugh, but in the end, he couldn’t hold back his grin. “Yet another plan.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know everything I just said probably makes me sound like a crazy person.”
He shook his head. “No, but that original plan is oddly specific. Was there any reason for the ages you picked besides the fact they’re all divisible by two?”
Gianna picked up her pillow and swung it at his head. He dodged in time so all she hit was his upper arm. “Those ages just felt right to me,” she replied, though Elio didn’t think she sounded convinced.
Then he said something that had been bothering him for a while. “You know, eleven years is a long time to date someone. I’m curious why you were putting the engagement and marriage off for so long.”
Gianna pulled the pillow she was still holding to her middle, wrapping her arms around it. “Sam was the one who came up with the list originally. He’s an architect, and he was determined to land a job with his dream firm by the time he was twenty-four.”
“Did he?”
Gianna nodded. “Yeah. One night, shortly after Grandma died, we were lying in bed, talking about the future. He’d moved in a few weeks before that and I remember thinking it felt so right, being in that apartment with him. It was like the next part of my life—the adult stage—had begun, and I was happy.”
“Did Sam feel the same?”
“I thought he did,” Gianna answered. “But I’ll admit that since September, I’ve thought about that conversation more than a few times, and I’m seeing some of the things differently.”
“Like what?”
“Sam was the one who insisted we wait until we were twenty-six to get engaged. He said that by then, we’d be established in our jobs, with steadier income. That made sense to me, so I went along with it.”
“Did you agree with the rest as well?”
“At the time, yeah, I did. Though now, I’m wondering why. I mean, why in the hell would we wait two more years after we were engaged to get married? What on earth would we learn about each other in years twelve and thirteen that we hadn’t discovered in the first eleven?”
“You’re not wrong about that,” Elio agreed.
“But at the time, we were still young, and truthfully, it just felt like words, you know? Not a real plan. Until twenty-four came and went. Then twenty-five. Then…my twenty-sixth birthday arrived, and I thought…”
She didn’t finish her comment, but Elio could figure out what she’d thought without the words. “No ring.”
She shook her head. “He got me a Roomba.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Her eyes widened with amusement, and she snorted. “Worst gift ever, right? Even for a clean freak.”
“Worst. Hands down.”
“Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty. My birthday was in August. Which was after Sam started dating Emma.”
“Sam is an idiot.” Elio had made similar statements about Gianna’s ex a few times this week.
“God,” she said, smacking her hand over her mouth dramatically. “I swore to myself I was going to stop talking about Sam and then, boom! Another whole conversation about the asshole. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about him.”
Elio considered that. With any other woman, he would have hit his limit on talk about the ex long before now, but with Gianna, he found himself wanting to hear more. It offered him insights into her past, and who she was as a person, because that relationship had probably defined her as much as the way she’d been raised. He wanted to know her, so that meant hearing about Sam.
Rather than respond to her comment, he changed the subject. “So you intended to come up with another life plan this week?”
She nodded.
“You probably won’t like hearing this, but I think you should skip the plan altogether. Life doesn’t work like that. No one can plot out the big moments in quite that kind of detail because life happens, takes twists and turns you don’t expect. Maybe it’s enough to just say you want to find your dream job, get married, and have kids.”
Gianna considered that, a soft smile crossing her lips. “You’re right. That is enough.”
He bent forward to steal a quick kiss.
“How do you do that?” she murmured against his lips.
Elio leaned back. “Do what?”
“Simplify things for me in such a way that all the things I thought I needed to do to keep my brain from exploding don’t seem necessary anymore.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I haven’t vacuumed this cabin since Tuesday. We left the dinner dishes in the sink last night. You’ve just convinced me not to make a list. I always make lists…for everything. And none of that is bothering me. Not even a little bit.”
“Have you considered it’s not me? Maybe it’s this place and the fact we’re on vacation.”
Gianna dismissed that suggestion immediately. “I’ve gone on vacation before and trust me, usually I’m more stressed because my daily routines are disrupted.”
He stole another kiss, this one lingering. “I think the reason is pretty simple.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s all the great sex.”
Gianna shifted closer, running her lips along the side of his neck. “You know what? I bet that’s it. So really, it has nothing to do with you at all. I just need to make sure to keep a hot guy in my bed at all times.”
Elio knew she was teasing him, but the idea of Gianna taking another man to her bed didn’t sit well with him. In fact, it pissed him off, made him feel…
What the fuck was this?
Jealousy?
He dismissed that idea immediately. He’d never been jealous a day in his life, and he didn’t intend to start now.
“It must be nice to be you,” she mused, falling on her back on the mattress.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’ve already gotten where you want to be. You wanted to play professional hockey and you worked your ass off until you got there. I feel like I’m still a million miles away from everything I want from life.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m exactly where I want to be.” Elio hadn’t meant to say that aloud. He’d only told Aldo about the idea of retiring from hockey.
Gianna’s gaze focused on his face. “What do you mean?”
Elio considered whether or not he wanted to continue the conversation. He could brush her off, feed her some lie, but he liked talking to her. Liked sharing the parts of himself he’d never shown anyone else.
Besides, he wasn’t making a bit of headway on coming to a decision one way or the other. Maybe talking it out with Gianna would help.
“You said it yourself last night. Hockey isn’t forever.”
Chapter Twelve
“Wait.” Gianna sat up once more. “Are you thinking about leaving the game?”
He fell silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain his thoughts, his feelings. However, he gave Gianna too long to put two and two together.
Her eyes widened. “That’s why you came to the cabin, isn’t it? To think about your future.”
“I’ve been debating whether or not I want to keep playing. Some days I can’t imagine leaving. Some days I can’t stand the thought of going back.”
“That’s a big decision.”
“Yeah. It is. And one that I need to make soon. The thing is, I have a lot of good years left in me, and there are things I haven’t achieved yet, professionally, records I could break, stuff like that. But I’ve been off the road the last two months, home more with my family than I’ve been in over a decade, and I liked it.”
“Has your time here helped you figure it out?”
Elio grinned. “I’ve been a little distracted. In a good way. But no. I’m no closer to deciding. I suspect perhaps it will come clear once I’m back on the ice. Either the spark will still be there, or it won’t.”
“Well, if you decide to leave the game, I know Liza will be delighted to have you home to stay. She misses you like crazy.”
“I miss her too. Though she might not like having me around as much as she thinks once it’s a reality.”
“Oh God,” Gianna groaned. “You’re not going to be like Aldo, are you? Always showing up at the clubs to check on her?”
Elio knew all about Aldo’s protective streak when it came to their sister. “No. Liza’s an adult and she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
“Said no Moretti man ever.”
Elio laughed. “Liza and I are very close in age, so growing up, we were basically playmates. Aldo, on the other hand, has six years on her, and he takes his big brother role very seriously. It doesn’t help that his best friend is Kayden, the cop, who tells him way too many horror stories about the crimes he investigates.”
“Excellent points. So, what exactly are you planning to do that might drive Liza insane?”
Elio hadn’t voiced his suspicions about Liza and Matt Russo to anyone, but he was interested in getting Gianna’s opinion.
“I’m starting to think she might have a thing for Matt Russo.”
Gianna barked out a loud laugh that died quickly. “Are you being serious?”
“I am.”
“But she hates Matt, calls him the bane of her existence.”
Elio had heard that particular complaint. “She calls him a great many things…constantly and frequently.”
