It's my turn to stare into space.

Seated in Giovanni's king-size bed, in nearly complete darkness, I'm blinking at the harsh light from my cell phone screen. Two missed calls and three messages.

Rebecca: Scarlett, it's been days. What's going on? Norman said you're taking a vacation. And what's up? When did you get back with asshat Giovanni?

Carlos: If you don't start answering your phone, I'm going to be forced to track you down, and I won't be happy. In other words, pick up. Love you.

Norman: Scarlett, please. Answer my call. I don't want to keep disappointing you. Give me a chance to make this right. Please.

I hold the button on the side of the device to shut it down to a black screen and place it on the nightstand beside the bed. I lay back, pulling the covers back over my body, my gaze fixing on the ceiling, unable to get the nightmare that catapulted me from slumber out of my brain. Outside the windows, a crazed storm rages.

The nightmares are memories, as they always have been. Memories of my childhood. But now, there's something off in them. My subconscious has somehow managed to fit in the present, making me aware even in dreams that my parents were not who they said they were.

Realizing I won't be drifting off to sleep anytime soon, I push aside the cool Egyptian cotton, rising to my feet. Nearly two AM, Giovanni is asleep on his front, his arms encircling his pillow. I linger on him until I'm gone, watching the wide, straining muscles that are etched into a fine back move up and down peacefully.

His apartment rumbles with the sound of turbulent rain, which descends upon the city every which way, blurring the wall of windows with cascading water. I'm disturbed by the eerie quietness of his place, and without distraction, I'm unable to escape my thoughts. Giovanni doesn't own a television in this apartment, nor a radio. This is clearly a place he has simply to have.

I step up to a shelf, extending my arm for a framed photograph. The picture is of Giovanni and his sister, at least ten years ago. Giovanni looks to be entering pre-adulthood, fresh-faced and incandescently happy. He's nearly half the size he is now, still fit but lacking the Superman muscles he keeps up with diligently today. With a face-splitting grin extending ear to ear, they stand outside a rusted iron gate, overrun by bright vegetation.

I can't help but smile, finding it so odd to see him happy. My blood slows at the thought. He and I have been happy before, for fleeting, stolen moments. But never have we been able to bask in pleasure. Something has always disrupted, cut us down to the quick.

His little sister, Valentina, is so small in the photograph, which only reminds me of their age difference. She told me they are close. I wonder what she'll say when she hears we are back together. I wonder what his mother will say...

"Italy," I hear.

I pivot, finding Giovanni standing by the doorway to his bedroom. He's only dressed in charcoal-colored silk pajama bottoms. The rest of him is bare, undressed to my appreciative eyes. He straightens off the hinge.

"My family's place."

I tilt the picture to him. "You look happy."

"Italy is home for me."

"Your family is still there?"

He nods, and I watch his eyes crinkle in remembrance. "Yes, my aunt. My cousins. She owns acres and acres of land and lets it go wild, insistent on letting nature take its course."

"Where in Italy?"

"Florence. My cousins live in Naples, but they are constantly staying with her, taking advantage of the winery next door."

I bite down on my lip. "I've met your sister."

"You've met Valentina? Where? At the trial?"

"No. Connor Maynard's home."

His brows curve suspiciously suddenly. "Was this a week ago, by any chance?"

My expression must give it away. His smile widens, a soft rolling chuckle leaving his lips. "That explains a lot."

"Why?"

"She called me the night of the trial, probing me on the subject of you and I. Told me she thought I should call you, try to fix things. When I asked her what spurred the questions, she told me Maynard's daughter had finagled information about us from him. The next day, she asked me to drive her to his house, but I had a meeting with my lawyer, so I couldn't do it."

"She was very sweet. Said you'd strangle her for approaching me."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing you haven't already told me." His eyes narrow, pressing me to continue. "She said you were miserable, that you rarely saw them anymore. She said you wanted to get back together."

"She's very perceptive. I'll tell her to keep her nose out of things."

"Don't. Really. I'm in her good graces; I don't want that to change. I want at least one person in your family to like me."

"My mother would like you if she knew you." He lifts my chin with his finger. "Which I should inform you now I intend to put to play... soon."

"Meet your mother?" I blanch at the words I utter.

"Yes. You have to at some point, Scar."

He examines my features closely, so closely, a light finger tracing the edge of my jawline. I turn my face away, simply to move.

I press my back into the window, turned to him.

"You want to tell me why you're up?"

I shrug. "I couldn't sleep."

He crosses his arms over his chest, and his pectorals bulge, the curves dusted in trimmed hair. "Nightmare?"

With a frown, I contemplate how uneasy and yet completely satisfying it is to know that he is aware of the dark parts of my life without asking.

"You can tell me."

I don't want to burden him with something he has no power to change. He has enough on his plate without having to worry about what inner demons I'm fighting within.

I fight the urge to lose my emotions in front of him, eying the massive room.

"You remember the last time we were here?"

He regards me with telling appetence, which answers my question definitively. As the air bristles between us, my desire to forget anything and everything else around me becomes paramount.

I expect him to take over as he normally does, always able to catch when my mood gradually drifts into hunger. But he doesn't. He just stares at me.

The next words send me on a trip of nostalgia. Many months ago, I asked him the same question. "Remember when you told me you could dominate and submit?"

His chest expands. He still doesn't say a word.

I grab the hem of my nightgown and drag the material over my head. I gulp a breath of bravery. "I need the former right now."

My heart thumps as I drop the pale blue cotton fabric onto the shiny floor. Just like that, I'm naked, laid out bare in more ways than one. His gaze darkens with longing, even though his eyes don't leave my own.

I resist covering myself up at his stillness. "Giovanni."

"I need to know you're okay."

"Does it matter? I need you," I reply with quickness. After the few seconds he takes to let that sink in, he shakes his head.

"No, I guess it doesn't."

Despite my demand for closeness, when he finally does move, my breath catches, my back flattening against the window. Goosebumps cover my flesh at the coolness of the glass, and I welcome the feeling of familiar ground.

A dominant Giovanni is the man I know best. The other forms of him I'm still learning. I think it will be a very long time until I understand them. Seconds ago, I held the upper hand. I've just handed it over.

He stops just inches from my face, looking down at me, and I'm unable to read him. I have no idea what he's thinking. We're painstakingly off-balance. The only relief I feel so far is that his cock is hard between our bodies, which means he's restraining himself from touching me.

Why he is... I have no idea.

"Please."

He still doesn't move. I search his face wildly, my chest suffocating tight.

At his hesitance, I react with impulse. My hand shoots out, cupping the bulge through his pants. He sucks in a breath as I grow frustrated, taking it out on him. I drop down, my kneecaps aching from the impact against the marbled ground.

I grab onto his waistband.

"I thought I was in control." There's a disapproving undertone to his voice, laced with an edge.

"You took too long," I bite back, pulling the material down, pleased when his cock springs free to my greedy gaze, a perfect mass of silky flesh. My mood lightens considerably as my eyes note how stiff he is before I've even touched him, how the aching veins of resistance protrude from his virility. His head is swollen, begging for a mouth to relieve the tension building within.

Mouth watering, my hands both grab ahold of his ass, urging him to me. He pants a low moan of surprise as I take him as deeply as I can, quickly reminded of how well-endowed this man actually is. I suction my lips around him, dragging my tongue along the skin, and his salty, overwhelmingly male taste sends shocks straight down my body, zoning in like a target to the vortex already pooling between my thighs. I give it my all, driven wild by the choked gasps he's releasing. My head bobs, and one of my hands comes around to cup and massage his weighty balls, to which I'm rewarded by a hand that is suddenly in my hair, grasping onto my locks with a newfound passion.

I'm unraveling him.

"Fucking hell, Scarlett," he breathes as my mouth focuses on the wide crown with an unhealthy carnality, desperate to please him. His grip on my hair is actually painful as I feel him begin to swell in my warm trap, but I push past the discomfort, too caught up in his breathless praises. He towers like an almighty force above me, his chest heaving like a man running a marathon.

"Scarlett. Stop. I'm going to come."

I hum, wanting exactly that, and the vibration sends him straight into his orgasm. I hear the impact of his hands against the glass above my head and a sharp hiss when the first thick spurt of semen hits the back of my throat. I drink him in with unfailing eagerness, not wanting to waste one ounce of him.

I feel his ass muscles harden, clenching beneath my hands as he flinches at my suctioning. I gasp loudly, dizzy as my mouth pulls back from his penis, and my flushed forehead presses into the soft pale skin of his inner thigh. My sex tightens, turned on by the way his body is shivering in the aftershocks of an orgasm, the scent of arousal mixing in the air between us.

To my everlasting surprise, his brutal grip doesn't loosen. He urges me up by the hair, and my knees buckle in the stretch as he slams me into the glass, his mouth covering my sharp gasp. His tongue takes advantage of the opportunity, gliding along mine, curling greedily. He doesn't mind the taste of himself, or at least he doesn't act like he does.

And just like that, I have dominant Giovanni.

He's unraveled, taking greedy possession of my body like a switch has flickered inside him.

He pulls on my lip, and I cry out, but his lips are already on the move. They are gentle and persuading, tantalizing my skin in soft nudges. I stiffen when he gathers my breasts into his hands, massaging the weighty, sensitive rounds. I feel my nipples straining against his palms as his knees bend, his body lowering as mine did.

When he's low enough, his hands leave my breasts bereft, but I don't mind. I cannot even think of that. His mouth is too close to my core to think of that.

His finger drags through my slit, achingly slow, and I can't help it. My mouth falls open.

"You're sleek for me, so swollen."

His breath is warm on my thighs as he dazzles the areas with gentle kisses and little nudges with his tongue. A strong hand curls around the back of my knee, a strangely sensitive place, and he raises my leg off the ground, sliding to me until he's at eye level with the most intimate part of me.

I blush. I can't help it. Even in my wantonness, I cannot believe he's so unabashedly close, eying my dripping entrance with longing. I expire when his eyes flicker to mine, pitch black.

"You remember this? When I made you come against this very window, in this very position?"

I nearly grin. Oh, Giovanni is back, and he's a goddamn force.

"Yes."

"I'm going to do it again. I'm going to lick your cunt until you can't come anymore."

I know my eyes widen at his vow. There's a dangerous gleam in his eye. I've awoken a monster. The best kind of one.

I'm not disbelieving. I know he's going to. And he does. He licks, he sucks, he spreads me open, driving his tongue as far as it can go, nudging my opening with passionate drive. He doesn't falter. Not as my leg tightens around his shoulder, pulling him into me. Not as my hands pull on his hair as he catapults me from orgasm to orgasm. He knows the perfect time to change tactics, knows the perfect place to focus on when another area is still recovering. I lose track of how many times he gets me off, my nerves shot to fucking hell.

Sweat drips down my body, rolling between my breasts and down the length of my torso. He's gathered both of my ass cheeks into his hands, supporting my weight with them.

"Please," I plead, shaking my head from side to side with no real effort as my orgasm rolls like slow electric shocks through me. I don't know how his jaw hasn't locked yet, how he still has the endurance to want to keep pleasuring me. "Please, no more."

He briefly kisses the sensitive skin of my inner thigh before he stands, and my fingers fall from his hair. Thankfully, his hands don't leave my fleshy skin, or I'd definitely give out.

I gawk at him like the supernatural being he is as he straightens enough for me to have to look up at him. He presses his mouth to mine, kissing me deeply, taking his time to savor the connection. When we're both breathless, his lips hover over mine, his eyes opening to bore into my own.

"Turn around," he commands, his voice a deep rasp that makes me believe his quench for sex hasn't been dulled one bit today. My vagina is still pulsing between my legs, yet I obediently turn, pressing my hands up to the window.

"You're going to kill me."

"You asked for it."

I did. And he's fucking delivered. Whatever was holding him back before is gone, at least for now. I may have to deal with the repercussions of this later, but I'm willing to do it.

The air around us is nearly humid as we are both drenched in sweat, beads covering our skin like rain droplets. Surprisingly, the rain has actually stopped outside. The sky is a mixture of darkness and heavy grey clouds. My eyes close tightly as he moves up flush against my back, nuzzling his face into my hair.

"We're very high up. The highest building in the sky in this area," he whispers in my ear, his fingers burning my awakened skin, gliding upon the mist. "If someone's awake in one of these other buildings, all they have to do is look up, and they'll find me buried in you."

Oh.

My eyes open, looking down. There are a few lights on, not many due to the hour, but his words do the job. Taboo washes over me, igniting the fire within me again.

I'm shivering, anticipating the next step.

"Bend your back to me."

I do what he asks, humming with pleasure as his grip on my waist tightens. He surges up into me so hard my face nearly hits the glass. With a sharp throaty cry, my fingers spread out over the transparent wall, trying to keep myself steady. The aching tissues burn as he punishes me brutally, his arm coming around my body to hold me still, forcing me to take all of him.

I can't moan. I can't scream. I can only suck in short gasps of air, not retaining any of it. His fingers crush me, his lips pressing to my dipped back, immediately gliding his searing tongue along my spine.

"Oh– My–"

His hand moves up from my chest to my throat, and I'm locked in position, taking every single balls-deep thrust he has to give.

"You're so fucking tight," he gasps, pressing his forehead to my back, gasping against my damp skin. "Oh fuck."

We're caught up in each other, making this purely violent fuck last as long as we can, despite our fatigue or sensitivity. I'm rolled onto the balls of my feet, the only way I'm still able to support myself. My hands have to leave the window, which is wet from condensation from my palm, and they curl around Giovanni's hand secured around my throat.

"You're close," he bites out. "You're squeezing me so tight."

"I'm gonna come." I hear a whimper fall from my lips as my eyes dart up to the ceiling, nearly at the brink of another orgasm I didn't believe I'd make it to. His cock, his endurance, is strong, racing as he strokes himself deeply within me, nudging a sweet spot that immediately builds a hurricane within my lower half, conjuring up an exquisite pain that will blind me.

My toes are sore, barely sustaining me. Giovanni's grip tightens around my throat and on my hip as he grunts loudly, and just like that, I stiffen, my entire body seized by overwhelming ecstasy. At my orgasm, it takes mere seconds before he stills as well, my greedy core milking him for all it's worth.

We both deflate at the same time, but his arms come around me as we sink to the cool ground. He holds me to him, cradled like a child in his lap, his back pressed to the window. Reaching up, I rake my hand through his damp roots, holding onto him, pressing my face into his chest as we tremble against one another.

I don't think I could move. I don't want to move. So I tell him so.

He holds the nape of my neck tenderly, pressing his forehead to my hair. I close my eyes, relieved to know a piece of us that used to be is still here, still present and well.

"Let's get away," he whispers after a moment. "Just you and I... disappear with me."

I can barely speak still. "Where will we go?"

I tilt my face to his curiously, and a smile teases his full, sculpted lips.

"Italy."