Page 8 of Already His

Tan and dripping wet, an extremely muscley, long, and lithe body was revealed. Elliot was drying himself roughly, every flex of his arm made a muscle pop up. He turned around and revealed a glorious ass, just, supremely biteable. Then he shook out the towel, revealing the v of his hips for the first time…. And lower. My eyes went there before I could stop them. Little rascals.

The universe had given with both hands when it made Elliot Winter.

“Mia?” The sound of his voice sent heat crashing to my cheeks, and I raised my eyes from Elliot’s generous nether regions, to meet his eyes.

“There’s a messenger at the door who needs your signature. He made me come up here,” I said, all in a rush. Elliot’s full mouth crooked in a wicked smile, and I died a little inside.

“And there I was thinking you’d changed your mind and decided to join me,” he murmured, wrapping the towel around his hips. I didn’t stay to see anything more. I tore down the stairs and back to the kitchen, taking up my place at the bi-folding garden doors of the garden and willing the furnace that was previously my face, to subside.

I heard the distant murmur of voices, and the door banging shut. After a moment, Elliot joined me in the kitchen. I could see his faint reflection in the window.

“So, what do you want me in?” he said. I turned and blinked at him.

“Excuse me?”

“What would you like me to wear?” he asked. My head was having a hard time catching up with the conversation, probably because a certain image was branded before my eyes, and I couldn’t stop drooling over it. Internal drool only, don’t worry, I checked.

“I don’t mind, I mean. I’m sure you look nice in everything,” I stuttered out. Elliot had braced his arms on the kitchen island and was cocking his head at me.

“Ditto, sweetheart, but I meant for the fitting.”

I swallowed the ball of embarrassment that lodged in my throat.

“Just something reasonably fitted and not too baggy,” I muttered and was subject to Elliot’s amused look as he sauntered from the room.

Who was I kidding? Resist the advances of that man? I must be crazy. I was totally sure at that moment that a hotter man had never existed, and his laser-like focus on me when I was in the room was more flattering than any compliment I’d ever received, which, admittedly, there had been few.

I let out a long breath, as I sank into a chair and stared at the garden. This was all my father’s fault, probably. Going to school in the same little neighborhood I’d grown up in meant that everyone knew not to mess with Vittorio Rossi’s daughter. The local butcher and old school hard man went to church, drank espresso at his local café while reading the football news, and always gave the best value cuts to the widows of the neighborhood. He also once took a baseball bat to Michele Ferrari’s beloved car on prom night, when he brought me home ten minutes after curfew. My father, like many Italian Americans, prayed hard and played hard. The rules he broke with his drinking and gambling, he made up with instilling in his daughter the most fundamentally strict and morally upright understanding of sex ed. Namely, nothing beats abstinence. As a safety net, he terrorized the boys of our area into never even daring to trespass against him, and that which he had ruled sacred… me and my body.

My father would HATE Elliot Winter, with his slick suits, and obvious wealth. His educated manner would intimidate him, and his intensity would make papa think the fires of hell were coming to consume me.

If I was another girl, I’d have taken control back over my body the same day I moved out of our little family apartment and moved to my studio. As it was, I had realized that the leash and collar of judgment and prudishness he had fitted on me were portable. Now, the invisible bonds stopped me from exploring parts of myself I genuinely worried would shrivel up and die, if I didn’t get married soon.

And let’s be real, I was in no danger of getting married soon, and therefore… I was doomed to die a virgin. Or worse… the wife of Simone the used car salesman and mother to his four boys.

I gathered my bag with my measuring tape and started upstairs. My confused thoughts weighed heavily on me as I climbed the stairs slowly.

“Are you ready for me?” I called loudly halfway up.

“It’s all clear. I’m decent,” he called back. Well, that was debatable. Certainly, nothing he made me feel was decent. I was less worried about Elliot being upset at being found naked again, but myself. My self-control was a ragged, flimsy thing as it was. It couldn’t cope with much more temptation.

* * *

Elliot

Mia edged into the room with a hand clasped comically over her eyes. Not only was she breath-taking, but she was smart and funny. I felt like smiling around her more often than I had in a year.

“I told you, I’m dressed,” I told her, ignoring the flicker of irritation that her aversion to seeing me naked caused. It wasn’t rational, this need I felt to get this girl to admit that she wanted me back, and I was a logical man. In my work, cases were won and lost on logic and rationality, and yet, nothing about Mia Rossi made me feel logical or reasonable. I couldn’t deny the hot urge in my chest to possess this woman. I knew she was meant to be mine with the same certainty I knew I wasn’t destined to end up in a loveless marriage like my parents. I wanted more than that. I wanted her.

She dropped her hand and blinked those huge blue eyes at me. She scanned me head to toe, not even giving my dick a fighting chance to lose its aching hard-on.

“You’ll do,” she quipped and turned to put her bag down, inviting me to look at her rounded ass. “I’ll take your measurements, and then we can talk about what you had in mind from the Studio,” she said, shifting into professional mode. She took off her jacket, and revealed a loosely knitted sweater that fell off one shoulder, and pulled her pale hair up into a knot on her head. I stood, feeling hyper-aware of my body, as she approached me, and took my wrists, and spread them out.

“I’ll start with the top measurements,” she said. A thickness grew in my throat, as I took her face in, so close to me, as she pulled the tape measure across my chest. I resisted the urge to puff it up. Her dark caramel lashes rested in a fan over her cheeks when she looked down, and her pale skin was dotted with a smattering of freckles over her nose.

She made notes on her phone, and I did my best to stand still, as her light touch drove me mad. A pulse was beating wildly in her throat, and her breathing was quick. Her pale skin was turning a pretty pink, and I wanted to touch her so badly it hurt.

I don’t fancy you

---