Page 43 of Brutal Legacy

I couldn’t out Tommaso’s secret to Elio, no matter how much I’d love to reassure him that he had nothing to worry about from my best friend.

“I don’t care what my father thinks… don’t you know that by now?” I changed the subject. I stroked his face and stared into his eyes.

“Sage green. One day, I want to paint our bedroom sage green,” I murmured. “Just like your eyes.”

“Why?” Elio murmured.

“It makes me feel safe. It makes me feel… everything,” I admitted with a sigh. I was starting to feel that if I didn’t touch him, I’d die.

I tugged at the hem of my dress, pulling it up so I could swing a leg over Elio’s lap and straddle him.

His eyes went darker than the blackest coal as I settled my weight on him.

“What are you up to,topolina?” His warm murmur was more than half growl.

“What does it feel like?” I asked, mock innocence painted across my face. I knew exactly what I wanted, and it was this man. I wanted all of him. I wanted to end my youth right here, tonight, on the floor of the stables, with the man who would take me from this hopeless backwater. The man I’d face the world beside. We were meant to be, I knew it in my bones.

“It feels like you’re playing with fire.” Elio flexed his hips beneath me.

He was hard. The long, probing length of him was pressing against me through his rough jeans. My whole body shuddered.

I simply nodded, biting my lip. I wriggled my hips on his lap, rubbing my needy pussy on his bulge. I could probably come just like that, humping his jean-clad hard-on like it was a pillow in my bed. I had one that was just the right shape, but it was nothing compared to the real deal.

“Georgia,” Elio warned. He grabbed my chin in a firm grip and stopped my lazy gyrations.

I blinked back into focus and took in his dark, possessive gaze.

“Topolina, you’re not the kind of woman a man fucks casually.” His eyes searched mine.

“You don’t want me?” I asked.

“I was born to want you. I will always want you. I will live every day wanting you and I will die that way, too. Wanting you is in my blood. It is my legacy to want you… but I want more than tonight. I want forever.”

The hand holding my chin slid up my cheek and sank into the hair behind my ear, his grip holding my face in place, so near his.

“I want you to marry me, Georgia. Be my wife, and I will give you everything you want. I will save you every day. I will dedicate my life to your happiness. Marry me.”

“Marry you? Everyone will say we’re too young,” I protested, my mind reeling.

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t have to say that… for me to want to… you know,” I muttered, heat warming my cheeks.

Elio chuckled, so low and gruff goosebumps swept up my arms and over my chest. I was so cripplingly aware of him: his touch, his scent, his voice.

“On the contrary, youdohave to agree for anything to happen,” he said. “I told you that you’re not a woman to fuck casually, you’re a woman to wait for, and to marry… We’ll fuck as a couple about to get married or not at all.”

“Why?” I wondered at his dogged insistence. Most young guys I knew wanted to hook up and definitely not get a fiancée out of it.

“Because, I can’t take having you just for one night. If I have you, I need to know it’s forever. Anything else would break me.”

His quiet confession felt sacred somehow. An admission of weakness from the strongest guy I knew.

“I’ve fallen in love with you, Georgia, and I’m not a man who intends to love like this more than once. I need to marry you like I need air to breathe. I don’t have much of anything right now, but I swear, I’ll give you a good life. I’ll find a way to give you what you deserve.”

I didn’t know what to say. My heart swelled; my skin flushed with fire. I couldn’t breathe. Thoughts were racing through my head, and yet above the din, there was one word that emerged above all else.

Yes.

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