Gio (5th Street) (21 page)

She hugged him back taking in the smell of him again. He smelled so good and it felt so perfect being in his big arms she could barely stand it.

Finally loosening his hold on her, he kissed her, a little longer this time, then took her hand in his again. “Let’s go check it out.”

Bianca had been in them before, mostly nervous about any possible snakes, but now she wondered why a bear being in one of these caves had not crossed her mind. The whole damn town was called Big Bear for Pete’s sake!

She followed him cautiously as he made his way down the trail toward the cave. It was big enough for them to walk in without having to duck their heads. “This trail is probably too busy for any bear to want to make it their place.” There was a lot of writing on the inside walls and names etched into the rocks. “Oh, yeah. Way too many people visiting this place for any bear to feel comfortable here.”

He turned to her with that sexy little smirk of his that made her insides liquid. “A lot of young couples probably turn this place into their own little love cove.” He pulled her to him and in the next second had her pinned against the cave wall. “Is that why you brought me here?”

Before she could respond, he kissed her roughly pressing his body against her. Bianca wasn’t sure if she should panic or go with it. He pulled his lips off her and moved her already loosened scarf out of the way. “Take this off.” Staring into his eyes, she did so methodically. Completely aroused and caught in his eyes again, she let the scarf drop but he caught it and stepped away from her stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “Is this why we’re here, Bianca?”

She shook her head but no sound came out. He took a step closer to her again, bringing his face next to her ear, causing her body to tremble in response. “What do you want?” he whispered. Again, her head began to shake but she froze when she felt his tongue on her neck.

Staring at her very seriously and thankfully not smirking at her rejecting the idea of them stopping so vehemently, his eyes came down to her lips. “Why’d you bring me here? Tell me what you want, Bianca.”

With her body still trembling, she shook her head, for once her mouth holding hostage the words that she really wanted to say for fear he’d think her absurd. “I don’t know,” she whispered, staring now at his lips. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t understand what I’m feeling—or know what I want.”

“I know what I want.” He leaned in whispering the words against her neck making the trembling more pronounced. And she felt him chuckle. “Is that your body telling what
you
want?”

She tried pushing him away, suddenly feeling angry—or hurt. It made no sense, she
did
want him—this. And doing what he was suggesting was probably the most she could ever expect from him but she didn’t like that he was okay with just that. “No, Gio. That’s not why I brought you here.”

He pulled away to look at her and damn it if she wasn’t caught in those eyes of his in an instant. “I know that, sweetheart.” He hugged her hard. “But Jesus. What I want… I could only dream of…”

He didn’t finish his sentence burying his face into her neck, then lifted his head and took her mouth in his again kissing her so hard it was alarming but at the same time so thrilling she moaned. He bit her lip the arousal she felt by the slight pain was surprising, leaving her to only imagine would he could only dream of—what other parts of her body he wanted to bite. Then like they usually did in reaction to him the words now flew out. “I’ve been dreaming of you.” His head lifted immediately—his near frantic eyes eagerly searching hers for more and suddenly for the first time in all the times she’d spoken so freely with him, Bianca was speechless.

Gio waited but Bianca said nothing more. She just stared at him in that same way she’d been doing since they left the cabin that morning. Those eyes owned him now—completely. It was almost painful to look into them now and know she belonged to someone else. That she was his for just a few stolen moments and tomorrow she’d be back in Felix’s arms… his bed.

He hugged her, squeezing his eyes shut, not wanting to be looking into those eyes when he asked her, “What’ve you been dreaming, Bianca?”

Did he really want to know? He realized only moments ago when he found himself getting carried away that as much as he wanted to take her and do all the things he’d been fantasizing about on a daily basis now he couldn’t—shouldn’t. Not just because she was Felix’s girl but because what was happening was exactly what he’d been afraid of.

Kissing her today had been a leap of faith. One he’d hoped would get her out of his system. Instead, it’d backfired on him. His need for her now had magnified in a way he hadn’t expected. Making love to her would only make that a million times worse. If she told him now that that’s what she wanted he couldn’t even begin to imagine rejecting the idea—but he had to.

“Bad things,” she finally whispered. “This isn’t like me. I swear to you. That’s why it’s so hard for me to understand why this is happening.”

Earlier he would’ve looked at her. Watched her as she gave him any further details of her dreams but now he couldn’t. It was hard enough just listen to her.

“What kind of bad things?” He gulped, now afraid of what her answer might be.

“The kind of bad things that have me waking up with my heart pounding and breathless but very content.”

Gio froze and he could feel Bianca do the same. One thing he loved about her so much was how easily she put things out there. Only now he was wishing she’d have been just a tiny bit vaguer. He was having visions of the kinds of things he could do to her to leave her heart pounding and breathless. Although today he’d had a heavy dose of her breathlessness and felt her heart pound straight into his several times like now.

She still didn’t move but she began to speak again. “In my dreams—”

“Don’t.” He had to stop her before she went on. “I don’t think I can take it.” He backed up taking in the delicate features of her sweet face—he was in love with every one of them now. He forced a smile. It took everything in him to let it go—not stay there and listen to her tell him what he’d done to her in her dreams. “Let’s go check out that meadow.” He pulled out her scarf from where it was half pushed into his jacket pocket and placed it gently around her neck, then kissed her one last time before taking her hand and walking her out of the cave.

For the rest of the day she was his. They walked the trails hand in hand and played around in the snow when they got to the meadow. They each made a snowman and, since she obviously was more experienced at this then him, hers was much better than his half-assed crooked excuse of a snowman. Of course she laughed at it openly.

They then decided they would take their own snowmen down with snowball bombs. Being the gentleman that he was, Gio let her go first. Her first bomb was a direct hit that took his snowman’s head right off. Her jaw dropped and in the next second was laughing uncontrollably. “I didn’t mean to do that,” she squealed as she took off when she saw him give chase.

“What do you mean you didn’t mean to? You aimed right at his head!”

She laughed even more as he caught up to her, quickly pushing her down on the soft hill of powder she was going to try to climb. She flipped around still laughing and out of breath. “I’m sorry!”

Gio couldn’t stand it. He loved everything about her. Her laugh—her smile—the way she made him so impossibly happy by doing nothing more than laughing. Nothing else seemed to matter as long as he was around her. Laying there in the snow next to her looking in her eyes was pure heaven. His eyes on hers calmed her laughter but she still smiled big. She lifted her hand and touched his hair.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, staring at her. “I mean that.” He lifted himself to rest his weight on his elbow. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I’ve had my share of beautiful women.” The flicker in her eye told him maybe his dumb ass should be careful with his wording. “I mean I’m not just talking about looks, Bianca. There is something so special, so beautiful about you. I hope you know that.”

He bit his tongue before telling her that he didn’t think Felix worthy of her. Hell, Gio probably wasn’t either but at least he wouldn’t take her for granted. He knew a good thing when he saw it and Bianca was as good as it got.

Bianca sat up making him sit up with her. “I don’t think there is anything special about me. And I’m not saying that to fish anymore compliments out of you. What you’ve said is enough. Thank you.” She glanced out into the open meadow. It was as amazing as she had described it. Even as Gio glanced around at the huge snow covered pine trees that surrounded it so perfectly he suspected it wouldn’t be quite as amazing if she wasn’t there with him. “It’s just hard to feel special when I’ve spent one of the most wonderful days of my life kissing my boyfriend’s best friend.” She turned to caress his face. “I should be missing him, you know? I did before you came along. I haven’t thought about him even once today. What I’m feeling for you, Gio…” She shook her head. “It’s scaring me.”

“Noah’s my best friend,” Gio said, as if that bit of information made the situation any better.

He should be happy about what she’d just admitted but how could he be? If she were with anybody else, Gio would already be doing—saying anything and whatever it took to convince her to leave the guy. The way he was feeling right now begging would be the obvious and easiest next step. He’d never begged a girl or anyone for anything in his life but if he thought it could make things different he’d gladly be on his knees already.

The problem was it wouldn’t change things. Her boyfriend was Gio’s longtime friend and, just like all his other friends, loyalty might as well be Felix’s middle name. He just couldn’t do that to him. The only thing Gio could hope for now is when he finally got a moment alone with Felix that he could get the truth out of him about his loyalty to Bianca—the only place where ironically it appeared to be lacking.

“Felix is still your friend from way back and he speaks very fondly of you.”

Gio frowned. He didn’t need to hear this right now. He stood up, frowning even more when he realized his ass was soaked. Jeans and snow—not the smartest combination. He held his hand out for Bianca and she took it standing as he pulled her up.

Halfway back to the car Gio pulled her aside and into his arms. He needed to alleviate the ache he was already feeling from just the thought that their time alone was almost over. This was going to be torture.

He kissed her so desperately he hoped it didn’t freak her out but he couldn’t help himself. “I wish…” he started to say between kisses but stopped to kiss her again.

“Me too,” she whispered against his lips, sounding just as desperate. She took his hand and placed it inside her jacket against her chest. Her heart pounded as wildly as his did. “That’s not just excitement, Gio. It’s fear that this feeling is only gonna get worse.” He stared in her eyes suddenly seeing the fear—the very fear he was beginning to feel himself. “What’s happening?” she whispered. “I’ve never felt this way.”

“Me either,” he said quickly.

“We can leave again tomorrow, he won’t be back until tomorrow night.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “Yeah, let’s do that.” That did ease the ache a little but Felix would be back tomorrow night and spending the day with Bianca had epically failed in getting her out of his system. In fact, his feelings for her now were at a level he didn’t even know existed in him. What the fuck was he going to do?

~*~

On the ride home, Bianca’s stomach turned when she saw she had several missed calls and texts from Felix. Lying to him was out of the question. All it would take was one call to the driver to get an update on her if he was worried. She felt weird about even reading his texts in front of Gio so she waited until she got back to the cabin in the bedroom to read them. But she did tell Gio that if he talked to Felix before she did not to lie. She was telling him almost exactly what they did today leaving out, of course, all the parts about making out with his friend all day.

Most of the missed texts were basically the same, asking her how things were except for the last one about a half-hour ago.

Babe I’m getting worried. Please call me as soon as you can.

She listened to the voicemail that he left just a few minutes after the text.

“Look, if this is about that story they’ve been airing. I promise I can explain that, too. We talked about this already, remember? I’m supposed to get a chance to explain before you shut me out.” He paused for a moment taking what sounded like a very frustrated deep breath then exhaled. “I’m sorry this keeps happening but I wish you wouldn’t turn on me so quickly. Call me… please?”

Unlike all the other times something like this happened, Bianca felt oddly relieved. In her rush to read his texts she’d skipped the texts from Toni. Toni was probably already all over whatever story Felix was referring to. Knowing that Toni was under strict warning that she wasn’t supposed to pass on any gossip about Felix unless there was something concrete, Bianca felt like a huge hypocrite afraid to read her texts.