Page 33 of Brutal Legacy

“If you want to thank me, shouldn’t you ask what I want?” My voice was a low scratch in my throat.

She tilted her head closer, leaning into my chest. “What do you want, Elio?” she asked, her tone unbearably throaty.

“You know exactly what I want,” I whispered and stepped back, taking her with me.

The olive tree met her back, and then I was pressing her against it. Her soft breasts pushed into my chest.

“Since that moment in the bathroom… since our first touch, you’ve known, and don’t pretend that you haven’t. There’s no space for pretending between you and me,topolina,” I murmured.

Her pulse leapt again, and she swallowed, the movement brushing my palm.

“Well… then take it,cittaiolo,” she teased. “If you dare?—”

I captured her lips in a searing kiss and cut off her words. Her lips were as soft as they’d always looked, and her mouth tasted like vanilla. Her tongue slid out and stroked my lips boldly, and I jerked back, surprised. It felt wrong, somehow, that a girl as perfect and protected as Georgia would be so forward. Was she after something? Was she trying to steal something, or was she going to accuse me of kissing her and then get me fired? Surely,she couldn’t be kissing me like that because she wanted me? Surely not. Things like that didn’t happen to men like me.

She appeared rumpled and debauched, her breath coming in quick pants. Her lipstick was smeared. I couldn’t stop staring at her mouth.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want me?” she asked in a whisper. Her teasing was long gone. Something real lived in the depth of her hot, vulnerable gaze.

“Why?” I tried to calm my racing thoughts and the desire to pull her up into my arms and push up her short dress. I wanted to tumble her to the soft earth of the grove and settle between her thighs and claim her as my own before God and nature. I wanted to plant my seed deep inside her and ensure she’d be mine forevermore. My wife. My lover. The mother of my children. It was hard to think straight around that overwhelming need.

“Why what? Why do I want to kiss you?” She wet her lips, leaving them shiny. “I’m nearly twenty. I think I’m due a first kiss. I don’t believe that sinners will go to Hell or any of that other bullshit my father and his friends talk about… and I don’t think they believe it either. God, the Devil… they’re just monsters under the bed to scare kids into being good.”

I blinked at her. No one spoke like Georgia Bellisario did. She was irreverent and opinionated and fucking fearless.

The first man to touch her was me. I wanted to be her first everything. I wanted to leave my fucking fingerprints on her soul so no one could doubt that she was mine.

“Why me?” I clarified and waited for the answer that would change my life or break my hopeful heart.

She sighed and let her head fall back on the trunk of the tree.

“Why? You don’t want to kiss me?” she asked, but there was evasion in her tone.

I brought my hands up to the tree trunk and caged her in.

Excitement leapt back to her dark gaze.

“I said… why me? You could have anyone… Why. Me?”

Her gaze glided over my face. I wondered what she saw there.

“Because,cittaiolo, you’re not like the rest of them in this godforsaken place. You’ll get out of here one day… and I want you to take me with you.”

Her attention fell to my lips and bounced back up. Her tanned cheeks warmed with pink roses. Georgia didn’t blush often. She wasn’t the type. She was too confident for that. But not now. Now, with everything else stripped away, she let me see her.

All of her.

“I guess I want you to save me, Santori. I want you—” She took a halting breath. “I just want you.”

“That feeling, Miss Bellisario, is entirely mutual,” I murmured.

Her hot breath hit my lips when I leaned back in and kissed her hard. Her arms twined around my neck, and she pressed her body to mine.

And nothing would ever be the same.

11

GEORGIA

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