The Pool at Midnight

Candice's P.O.V

The villa had too many eyes.  

Bianca was gazing at me as though I were a spot on her white carpet. Conti was observing me as though he was a puzzle solver. Sanna stood and watched them all smiling. And Mantovani saw nothing, he peeped through walls and through people and through me as though he saw me in the face of it.

The meal was interminable: knives and knives and knives. I got off early with an excuse of having a headache. No one argued.

I got into the only swimsuit that Mom had brought; a black two-piece, more of lingerie than a sports outfit--and slipped down the back stairs. The pool was as turquoise as the floodlights, unoccupied and flawless.

I dove in. The water was so icy that it startled the sound out of my head. I kept swimming until the lungs ached, and the limbs were loose. The last thing I had to do was to surface at the deep end, now I was not alone.

Mantovani was at the edge, unbuttoned shirt, off his shoes, trousers turned at the knee. Silver lines were drawn by Moonlight up and down the folds of his stomach. His appearance was as though he was made of black.

"I thought  you had gone to bed" he said

"I couldn't sleep." I floated, making my hair plastered over my face. "You?"

"Same."

He didn't move. Just looked at me as though I were a bomb which he was scared to disarm.

I had entered the water at the steps and got out gradually. Water streamed off my skin. The bikini was tight as a result of being sprayed. His gaze tracked every drop.

"You are not to be out alone here," he said roughly.

"There are guards on the roof. I counted six."

"That's not what I meant."

I moved up to him until one foot was touching him. Near enough to feel the pulse driving at the bottom of his throat.

"Then what did you mean brother?"

The term broke between us as a whip. His nostrils flared.

"Don't call me that."

"Why not? It's what Conti calls you. What Sanna calls you." I tilted my head. "What you told me to call you?."

His hands flexed at his sides. "You know why."

I took the last step. His naked breast was rubbed against my wet breasts through my shirt. He sucked in air as if I had punched him.

"Tell me," I whispered.

One second with no breath he had. Then his control snapped.

He caught hold of me and ripped my waist and forced his mouth against mine.

Mantovani's P.O.V

She was like chlorine and sin.

I kissed her in a manner that I was attempting to punish her existence, that she was making me desire her, that she is soft and breakable and that she is mine. Her kiss was still more savage, her nails scratching down my back, her teeth snagged into my lower lip, and I moaned into her.

I pressed her against the tiling on the pool house wall and my hands were sliding under the wet material of her top. Warm, heavy, perfect, her breasts were in my palms. She arched with a broken sound as I rubbed my thumbs on her nipples that ran right to my cock.

I grumbled on her throat, Candice. "We can't."

"We already are."

I chewed the tender part at the junction of neck and shoulder. She shuddered. Her thigh was between mine, and rubbing down the ridge of my trousers. I saw stars.

I yanked the tie at her neck. The bikini top fell away. Moonlight turned her nakedness with silver and blue paint. I gazed in a dumb way, feeling so exquisitely beautiful; and dropped my mouth to one nipple.

She screamed, and threw her fingers in my hair, and dragged me closer. I sucked, and flicked the tongue and rubbed teeth, and rolled her hips helplessly against me. My control was ash.

I dropped to my knees.

"Mantovani..."  

"Quiet."

I grabbed my fingers at the sides of her bottoms and pulled the bottoms down her thighs. She stepped out, trembling. I rubbed my face between her legs and sniffed. Sweet. Clean. Mine.

She bent under the initial lick of her tongue. I lifted her and stuck her hips to the wall and ate her as a desperate man, my tongue moving round and round and lips sucking and two of my fingers f**king deep inside hotness. She was quick and rough, with her thighs round my head, with my name a sob on her lips.

I stood and rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth, heaving my chest. Her eyes were immense, shocked, flushed.

I kissed her once more so that she could test herself on my tongue.

Then reality slammed back in.

Footsteps on gravel. A guard doing rounds.

I cursed, and jerked her bikini back in, trembling with my hands. She remained disoriented with puffy lips and dishevelly hair.

"Room. Now," I rasped. "Separate doors. Don't look at me tomorrow."

She touched her mouth, dazed. "Mantovani..."

"Go."

She went.

I lingered by the pool till the sky was grey, cock on, heart torn, all the good intentions of her taste.

Tomorrow I would stay away.

Tomorrow I would lie.