Untangle Me

Chapter 79

Andrea

"How long have you been staring at me, creep?" Giada asks, her voice still rough from sleep and her eyes barely open. I smile to myself, unable to resist the urge to give her a chaste kiss. She has that effect on me, makes me want to be as close as possible to her at all times.

Damn, I'm whipped.

"About 87 breaths," I reply, shrugging as if I didn't say the creepiest thing I could think of. No, of course I didn't count her breaths. But she doesn't know that and her reaction is absolutely priceless.

"You- I- how long would that even take?" she stammers. I can't help it, I burst out laughing. She's just too fucking cute, still half asleep and all. "No, I'm serious. I have no idea what the breaths to minute ratio is. Are we speaking a few minutes? Half an hour?" she adds.

My laughter intensifies as I clutch my stomach and gasp for breath. Fuck, I can feel my eyes welling up with tears. Literal tears. That never happens to me.

"Stop laughing at me!" Giada protests, hitting my shoulder weakly. I take a deep breath, trying to pull myself together despite the giddy feeling inside of me.

What a way to start a day.

"I was joking, baby. Sorry," I tell her, smiling fondly. "Fuck, you're cute."

She huffs at that, rolling her eyes even as a smile of her own tugs at her lips. "Have you seen my boyfriend anywhere? He's supposed to be this scary, dangerous man. I can't seem to find him anywhere," she teases me.

I arch an eyebrow, accepting the challenge. "I'm not dangerous, huh?" I turn so my body is hovering above hers while she looks up at me expectantly. I suppress a smile. "I can show you dangerous."

With that, I start tickling her. And fuck me if her screams of protest and loud laughter aren't my new favorite sounds.

After several minutes of that game, I finally put the poor woman out of her misery and take my hands off her. She blows out a sigh of relief before scowling up at me, the corners of her mouth turning downwards and a soft furrow between her brows. I lean down to kiss the skin above the bridge of her nose, smoothing the skin there. Next, I kiss the frown off the lady's face.

"Forgive me?" I ask softly.

She rolls those pretty eyes of hers before blowing out an exasperated breath. Then she cups my face gently and presses her lips back on mine. "Only this time," she hums.

Then, sitting up and stretching, she says, "You wanted to discuss our trip, right?" Right to the point then, fine. Honestly, I'm surprised Giada even heard me, much less remembers what I said when she was falling asleep last night.

"Yes, we haven't really talked about what happened, my love. We're in no hurry, of course. I want you to take your time figuring everything out but just know that I'll be here every step of the way, okay?"

"I know that. Thank you," she replies without missing a beat, looking at me like I hung the moon once again. It's that dreamy expression, her eyes so soft and tender, that makes my heart beat a little faster and my chest grow a little fuzzier.

"Have you thought about whether or not you want to stay?" I ask her. Personally, I wouldn't care either way. Even if our trip was cut short, I'd be perfectly content as long as I had Giada by my side.

"Yeah," she says, chewing on her bottom lip. "I know we were supposed to stay longer but I think it might be best if we went home. I mean, my parents are right here and I have no idea what to do about any of this. It's too soon to confront them again, I know that. And I'm not sure how much I'd be able to relax with that in the back of my mind," she explains.

"Of course, whatever you need. And who knows, maybe we'll come back in a month or two. June's great here. Or July. Anything but August. We could stay on the mainland, maybe even tour along the coast. Oh, and winter's great if you ever want to go skiing," I tell her, getting excited at the prospect of future travels.

Showing Giada the north of Italy. Skiing from Switzerland right across the border. Maybe we'd even get a tacky tour of Venice with one of those gondolas like every other tourist. My heart swells. We have nothing but time.

Giada's warm palm enveloping my own takes me back to our present. "I can't wait for it. All of it."

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I- that was it guys... the end💀

First off, I wrote this at five am so don't go too hard on me;))
Also, I decided to go w an open ending for this story... It felt right so I hope u guys are good w that:)

Thanks to everyone that made it this far!! I loved writing this story, reading your reactions and seeing how more and more started reading it<33

If u liked this, check out my other stories... coming up soon is another mafia story. Dw the plot& characters are all different (gotta keep u on ur toes) but I'm really excited already.