Page 48 of Knot Made to Break: Part Two

I stilled, the sheet crumpled in my fingers. “You looked... angry.”

He captured my hand again, pressing a kiss to my palm that sent warmth spiraling through me. “At myself,” he said, his voice gravelly. “For all the times you needed protection, and I wasn’t there to give it.”

My breath caught. He wasn’t just seeing my scars—he was carrying them like they were his own. Like each mark on my body was a personal failure on his part, though we hadn’t even known each other then.

I slid his hand to my chest, over my heart. It beat rapidly beneath his palm. “You’re here now.”

The words hung between us, simple but loaded with meaning. I watched emotions play across his face—guilt, determination, something deeper I was still learning to recognize.

He studied me, then slowly stripped off his shirt and rolled onto his back, taking my hand and placing it over the sinewy muscles of his stomach. “I’ve got a few of my own.”

He guided my hand, letting me feel what he normally hid beneath his intricate tattoos. I felt the ripple of his abs beneath my fingertips, then the raised ridge of scar tissue along his ribs.

“This one,” he said, pressing my fingers to the jagged line, “I got when I was sixteen. Knife fight with a rival who thought Tommas was an easy target because he spent too much time with his nose in books.” A slow smile crossed his face. “Tommy didn’t need my help, but I gave it anyway.”

My fingers traced the uneven edges. It must have been deep, messy. I imagined teenage Giovanni, already protective, already fierce.

He guided my hand higher, to a small nick just beneath his collarbone. “Bar fight when I was twenty-one. The guy was huge but had half my skill.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Unfortunately, he had a broken bottle and decent enough aim.”

There was one along his jaw he told me he got during his first amateur fight, a few scattered across his knuckles from years of brawling, one just above his eyebrow he got from a childhood bully. And of course the newest, the one on his shoulder from the bullet that could have ended him at the warehouse.

I traced each one, my touch reverent. Just like mine, his scars told the story of his survival, his strength. But it wasn’t the wounds he shared with me in this moment that hit hardest—it was the ones he bore in silence. The ones memorialized in ink on his chest, back, and arms.

The date of his mother’s death tattooed over his heart. The crown-wearing skull on his pectoral that told of the cold pressure of legacy that always weighed on his shoulders. A crumbling hourglass etched along his ribs—reminder of time lost during his darkest years, and the single black rose on hisbicep that memorialized his first kill. His tattoos—the beautiful, intricate designs—covered his physical scars, but those deeper wounds were out in the open for all to see, though no one but those close to him understood their significance.

I flattened my palm over his chest, letting it rest there, over that date inked in black—over his heart. The silence between us wasn’t heavy. It was honest. Sacred, even. Like we were both lying our ghosts on the table, letting our damage breathe.

“I see them,” I said quietly. “The ones no one else notices. And I know they cost you.”

Giovanni’s throat worked around a swallow. His hand came up to cradle my jaw, thumb brushing beneath my eye. “You don’t flinch,” he murmured. “Every time I think I’ve shown you the ugliest parts of me, you just look at me like I hung the damn moon.”

I leaned in until our noses brushed. “That’s because you’re wrong about what’s ugly.”

His breath stuttered against my lips. The hand on my jaw slid down to my neck, resting there like a question he wasn’t sure he had the right to ask. I answered by moving first—pressing my mouth to his with a softness that unraveled something in both of us.

His arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me over him, into him, until I was straddling his hips and he was kissing me like he’d die without it. One hand splayed over my back, anchoring me. The other slipped beneath the hem of my shirt, rough fingers skimming the sensitive skin just above the waistband of my sleep shorts.

I gasped against his lips, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he rolled, shifting me higher until I sat across his chest, thighs spread over him.

“Let me take care of you,” he rasped, voice gone thick. “Let me show you what you do to me, Kit.”

The hunger in his eyes made my breath catch.

I nodded.

Slowly, he stripped me bare, drinking in each newly uncovered swath of skin like a man dying of thirst. Then he guided me higher, fingers strong and sure as they gripped my thighs, dragging me up his body until I was positioned over his mouth. My heart raced, but there was no fear—just heat, thick and low in my belly.

Giovanni looked up at me, his hands holding me steady. “You’re not just tangled in my soul,” he said, voice raw. “You own it.”

Then he pulled me down, and his mouth met me with reverence and hunger all at once.

GIOVANNI

Kit had never looked so beautiful; thighs spread across my chest, hair a little wild, lips parted. Her breath came fast, but her eyes—fuck, those eyes—stayed locked on mine. There wasn’t a single trace of hesitation. Just trust.

And that damn near leveled me.

“Let me take care of you.” It was a question as much as it was a gentle command.

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