Chapter 18
Mia
Santino has been avoiding me all week and I can’t take it anymore. He needs to man the fuck up and stop avoiding me. I want to talk to him, but he seems to have a knack for leaving before I wake up and coming to bed after I’ve already gone to sleep.
Tonight, that all ends. I’m going to wait up for him and he’s going to talk to me.
That’s easier said than done, though, since it’s past midnight and I’m exhausted from pacing the apartment all day, going over what I want to say to him.
I’m watching a movie in bed and my eyes fall closed without me realizing it, then open again when Santino finally climbs into bed. I peek at the clock and see it’s after two in the morning.
I turn over to face him. “You’re avoiding me,”
I say, my voice groggy from sleep.
“You’re awake?”
“I tried to wait up for you but I fell asleep. Now you’re coming to bed in the middle of the night to avoid me?”
I’m afraid to ask where he was or what he was doing this late.
“I had a meeting tonight. It went late.”
“A meeting until two in the morning?”
“No. I went to eat with my brothers and your family afterward.”
“Are you going to keep avoiding me?”
“Mia,”
he sighs, and I hate that he doesn’t call me farfalla. I miss it. I miss him. I have no idea why, but I do. He’s the one who wanted me so badly and made me believe I was important to him, and now he’s backing off. He’s gone all day, every day, leaving me alone in this stupid place that doesn’t feel like home to me. Not that my other home felt like home to me, either.
“If you’ve changed your mind about me, and us, then tell me. We’ll get an annulment and be done with it.”
“Are you being serious right now or are you still sleepy and delusional?”
“I’m wide awake, Santino.”
“Then listen carefully, Mia. I told you I was serious about you, us, and this marriage. I thought we had taken a step forward on our wedding night, but then you made your feelings clear the next morning. I’ve given you space and time without me. Is that not what you wanted?”
“You’re such an asshole,”
I hiss out, and he laughs. He actually laughs.
“Now I’m an asshole for giving you space when you told me you regret everything we did? I was giving you time to sort out your feelings towards me, but you’re still angry, so what should I surmise from that?”
“God, you’re such an asshole!”
“You said that already.”
I throw the covers off and storm out of the room. I need space from that insufferable man.
“Where are you going?”
he asks, trailing behind me.
“Away from you!”
I hear him chuckle and I stop short, spinning around so fast, I almost lose my balance. “Don’t laugh at me!”
Santino’s smile is wiped from his face. “I’m not laughing at you. I just find this scenario a little funny. You didn’t like me giving you space, but now you’re running from me.”
I ball my fists at my sides so tightly, I’m surprised my nails don’t cut into my palms. “It’s not funny,” I growl.
He clears his throat. “You’re right.”
I throw my hands up in frustration and push at his chest, trying to shove him away from me, but he doesn’t budge.
Instead, he covers my hands with his. “Farfalla,”
he murmurs, and I close my eyes at the sound of his name for me leaving his lips for the first time in almost five days. “Look at me.” I open my eyes to see his are trying to urge me to understand him. “I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to stay away from you. I don’t want our marriage annulled.”
“I don’t know how to do this and you need to have more patience with me,”
I tell him. “You know I’ve never been in any kind of relationship before. I don’t know how to deal with everything I’m thinking and feeling. I loved everything that happened in the club, but I’m angry you tricked me. I’m angry that you manipulated me into marrying you, but then I realized you’re not a bad man and I actually like you. Then I get angry at myself for enjoying any second I spend with you because of how we got to where we are.” I shake my head, hoping he understands what I’m saying. “My head is a mess of contradictions, but my heart and body are quite clearly in agreement with what I want. I don’t want to be angry anymore, though. I don’t want to always be at war with myself, and I don’t want to feel guilty for feeling and wanting what I do.”
“Then don’t. The only reason to feel guilty would be because you care what other people think or because we’re doing something wrong.”
Santino takes my hands and places them around his neck. “And neither of those are true, right?”
I swallow hard, my mouth and throat bone dry. “I’ve spent my entire life having to care what people thought about me and my choices.”
“Aren’t you tired of living for everyone other than yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you going to do to change that?”
“Are you goading me into kissing you?”
His eyebrows shoot up and his lips curl in a sexy little grin. “Is that what’s on your mind? Because I’m all for it, farfalla. But if you kiss me, then it’s a step you can’t walk back. I can’t hear you say you regret everything again and forever make me the bad guy in your eyes.”
I don’t even have to think about it.
I jump up and Santino catches me without hesitation. I wrap my legs around his waist and cup his face in my hands.
The stubble from his day-old beard scratches my palms in the sexiest way, and I trace his lips with my finger, memorizing them. He lets me take my time and doesn’t say anything as I run my finger over his eyebrows and down his nose, then cup his cheek again.
“I’m going to kiss you, Santino,”
I whisper, not entirely sure why I’m warning him.
Leaning in, I keep my lips an inch away from his to prolong the moment. Santino tightens his hold on me and I smile, knowing he’s trying his hardest to let me do this my way.
This moment feels big. It feels like everything.
My heart is pounding, my pussy is throbbing, and my entire body is shaking from the build-up of tension that has nowhere to go.
Finally, the rubber band holding me back snaps, and I crush my lips to Santino’s. My hands slide to the back of his head and I kiss him until my head is spinning and my heart feels like it’s going to find a new home outside of my body and inside Santino’s.
I can’t get close enough.
I clutch his head and squeeze my legs together, clinging to him like a lifeline.
He tastes like minty toothpaste, but behind that, is the faint taste of whiskey and cigars, and it’s a lot more enticing than I thought it would be. He tastes like a man.
Tearing my lips away, I lean my forehead to his and squeeze my eyes shut. “If we don’t stop now…”
I trail off, shaking my head.
“It’s okay, farfalla,”
he rasps, his voice rough and full of everything I’m feeling. “It’s enough for me tonight. Trust me.”
Santino walks us back to bed with me in his arms, and tucks me back in. When he joins me this time, he doesn’t keep his distance. He slides to the middle of the bed and hooks his arm around my waist to pull me right up against him.
“No more space,”
he says gruffly. “It about killed me to keep my distance every time I came to bed.”
I settle my head against his chest and come to realize he’s not wearing a shirt. Was he not wearing a shirt this entire time and I was too angry and wound up to notice? Has he been sleeping next to me with no shirt on every night and I’ve been missing out on the view?
“I can feel you thinking,”
he says. “Just sleep, Mia.”
I take a deep breath, inhaling his masculine scent, then release it slowly.
A few minutes go by, and I’m not sure if he’s asleep or not, but I have to tell him the truth. The blanket of darkness gives me the little bit of strength I need to whisper, “I don’t regret anything we did. I shouldn’t have said that. I woke up and started freaking out, and then took it out on you because I could. I’m sorry.”
Santino skims his fingers up and down my spine and kisses the side of my head. “Thank you,”
he whispers, the relief in his voice evident.