Page 85 of Driftwood Daffodil 2

No one except for Atlas.

To everyone else in this town, the oldest Mancini son was a monster. The person people would walk across the street to avoid. I knew this before anything happened to Veda. Yet to Gio, he was something else.

Atlas was his brother and, quite possibly, the only person he had. And my brother took him away. In Gio’s eyes, Atlas wasn’t the monster. Kato was.

“Gio…”

“What?” He said while sitting down on my hips with enough weight to press my butt into the mattress.

“I’m sorry about your brother.” I don’t think anyone had ever said that to him.

He stopped and looked up at me. A spark of pain I recognized flash across his face. It was the same hollow ache I felt every day when I woke up and remembered that Kato wasn’t there.

“You think you can apologize for what your brother did and everything will be okay?”

“No,” I didn’t think that at all. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t feel your loss.”

I lost someone too.

For the first time since I met him, I felt a connection with my tormentor. Neither one of us were involved in what happened, but we were both affected in ways that could never be fixed. His brother destroyed my family and mine destroyed him.

If what I said affected Gio, he didn’t show it. He snapped back into focused mode and grabbed my wrists.

Gio cocked a brow down at me. “You’re not going to fight me this time?”

“No.”

I don’t know why I didn’t? Every instinct I had told me to yell and lash out. But I just laid there and watched as he wrapped his fingers around my wrists and held them in one hand. It was oddly serine.

Until he began to unbuckle his belt.

My stomach twisted, causing my instincts to take over. I fought to get away while he pulled the leather strap through the loops on his jeans. Kicked my legs as best I could while struggling to get my arms free from his grip.

None of it did any good. Gio had me pinned. The only thing I could do was attempt to sit up. Considering he was straddling me, that would just bring me closer to him, which wouldn’t exactly put me in a better position.

So I decided to conserve what little energy I had left and glared at him while he wound the belt around my wrists. This wasn’t Gio’s first time tying someone up. He knew what he was doing.

Frist he looped it around one wrist, then crossed over to the other, and finally wound them both together. I was not getting free any time soon. The only question was, now what?

What was Gio going to do to me now? The possibilities were endless, but it was the memory of how his hands felt that made me swallow down a ball of nerves.

I guess he heard me, because his gaze floated back up to mine. “Are you scared,Gattina?”

Yes.

Clamping my mouth shut, I refused to answer him. I would not give Gio the satisfaction of hearing my voice quake.

He folded over me and growled in my ear. “Are you scared that I might fuck you?”

He said he wasn’t, but that did mean the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. And not in the good way. My body was purring at the feel of his weight pressing down on me. so yes, I was scared at what he might do. But I was more scared that a part of me would like it.

“Are you?” If I knew it was coming, I might be able to prepare myself.

Gio sat back up and eyed me for a second before responding. “That depends.”

“Depends on what?” I asked as he stretched my arms over my head and attached my wrists to the headboard.

“On whether or not you earn my dick.”

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