Page 19 of A Very Rossi Christmas
“I’m not your problem,” I told him firmly. “I’m not yours anymore.”
He used the hand on my chin to tilt my face, then leaned down and brushed his lips over the sensitive skin right under my ear, and I moaned aloud, every nerve in my body alive and singing at the contact.
“Not mine anymore?” he whispered, bringing chills up on my skin. “Were you mine before?”
I shut my eyes, trying to focus on the question—and my answer—rather than the feel of his teeth nibbling down the column of my neck toward my collarbone. “You know I was. You know I always have been.”
He released my hands and brought his own hand trailing down my face and neck, brushing his fingertips over my collarbone and then down over the swell of one breast to the nipple. He cupped my breast and squeezed gently, his eyes teasing and his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip.
My knees nearly collapsed with the pressure of his fingers on me, and I groaned. “Joseph, please.”
His eyebrows went up in surprise, though his hand, still busy with my nipple, didn’t stop its actions.
In fact, it dipped lower, brushing down my belly and leaving my skin quivering in its wake.
He lowered his face toward mine. “Please what?” he asked, his lips so close to mine that they brushed against them.
My body pressed closer to his, begging without words, and his hand became firmer on my belly, reaching lower and lower until he found the waistline of my pants.
“Tell me what you want, Sloane.”
I shot up to a sitting position in bed, the breath burning in my lungs and a fine sheen of sweat on my skin, my heart hammering and the space between my legs buzzing with intense longing.
My eyes shot to the window next to me, and I registered the ocean view outside, the shine of the sun just starting to come up over the horizon, and the clear blue sky of another LA day in December.
LA. December. The ocean.
God, I was in my room. In my bed.
It had been a dream.
I fell back on the pillows, taking deep, slow breaths to try to get my heart back under control, and stretched, enjoying the aching feeling in my core.
Of course, enjoying that feeling led directly to me thinking about what had brought it on.
And that brought the more rational voice in my head right to the forefront.
What. The. Hell. First I’d found Joseph Rossi on the beach in Santa Monica, and then I’d caught him following me not once, but twice. I’d thought at first that it was just coincidence, and then that he might actually be there on some sort of contract for my life.
Then I’d seen him standing at the parade with Donny Patrelli—a man my own contacts had specifically warned me about—and something in my brain had snapped.
I’d suddenly been able to think of nothing more than Joseph’s safety, and the fact that he was evidently out here on the West Coast by himself, and meeting with a man so dangerous that my guards had told me to avoid him at all costs.
I’d studied Joseph’s face for several moments before he noticed me, and I’d known him well enough to see that he wasn’t comfortable, either. He was nervous as hell.
He’d been sent into the lion’s den with nothing more than a knife. And he’d been sent alone.
I’d suddenly been so furious, so angry at his father or whoever had sent him here, that everything else had flown right out of my mind. All I’d been able to think about was getting to him and warning him about the man he was talking to—and asking him, on the side, what the hell he was doing following me around.
I’d seen him go into the bar with Patrelli. And I’d waited until they’d both had enough to drink that they were sloppy. Less observant.
When Joseph got up to go to the bathroom, he’d been easy prey.
That didn’t justify the conversation we’d had, though, and it certainly didn’t justify me letting him kiss me.
It also didn’t justify the thrill that had run through me at how close he was. Or the even bigger thrill I’d felt when he admitted that he was worried about me.
It definitely shouldn’t have led to the dream I’d just awoken from.
