Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DARIA
E xcitement jittered my nerves. I had no idea what I had learned in college today, but whatever it was, it made me feel a tad smarter. Made me walk an inch taller. And I had made friends. Ones who had not seen the naked length of my husband.
We burst out of the main building in a fit of giggles. Me and my American Luna prospects. I liked this. I could get used to it. I lifted my head to let the sun kiss my face, but my line of sight pulled to the other side of the road where a familiar car and an even more familiar man stood parked.
I wished I could say that I was surprised, but I really wasn't. He had been all moody and dark in the morning, and I had slipped out quietly because, truth be told, I was terrified he would change his mind.
He hadn’t, thankfully, but he was still moody. I could tell, even through the distance of a couple hundred feet. He leaned against the car in black dress pants and a white open-necked shirt, with a cigarette dangling off his fingers, like he had forgotten he was inhaling nicotine into his lungs.
His dark gaze pinned me and pulled me in, and suddenly, I forgot the friends I had made. The chatter around me stopped, and a “Who’s that?” touched the nape of my neck. Mine . An amused smirk painted his lips, and I just knew the damn man had heard the compliments flying off the girls behind me. Friends. I had thought. I think not.
I crossed the street to the buzz of my pulse and walked right into the heat between his legs. Bold? I know. Did I do it to stake my claim? Damn right, I did.
A hand cupped my ass, and he dropped his jaw to my neck and traced the line with his scruff. “Who’s the boy?”
Huh? What boy?
I tried to twist to look, but a hand with a death grip on my neck held me prisoner. “So many boys, so little time. Which one is it?”
A harsh nip on my neck. “You’re my woman,” he growled.
I pulled back to look at him. “Am I now?”
He nodded roughly.
“Does that mean you are mine, too?”
“Of course.”
I tilted my face. “No sharing?”
“Fuck no,” he hissed.
“Yeah?” I felt a smile pull at my lips. “I think I like that.”
“You’d better.” He pushed off the car and opened the back door. “You don’t have a choice, anyway.”
There is that, too.
He slipped into the car and pulled me in right over his lap. My face heated, and I just knew I had an audience across the street. I didn’t dare to look, but a little part of me jumped up and down in glee. The thud of two doors closing reminded me of Orso. I hadn’t even seen him because when this man looked at me, I forgot to breathe. I’m not going to be Mamma. Even if she said I could never be her.
The car hummed, and the wheels churned somewhere underneath us. His hands gripped my upper thighs and pushed my skirt up. “You’re so uncouth,” I muttered as I tried to push my skirt down.
He swatted my hands away like they were flies on a hot summer day. “Uncouth, unhinged…” he pulled me closer and sucked my lips like a popsicle. When he released them with a hot pop a few minutes later, I thought I might like him as he was. “Admit it, you love it.”
“Nah,” I shook my head vigorously.
When he made to pull me in again, I poked him with my finger and held my arm in between us. “I do love uni.”
He caught my finger in his big hand. “Yeah? What did you learn?”
“No idea. I had to make some abstract shit with squares and rectangles.”
Amusement sparked his lips. “No idea, huh?”
“But they told me I have great style,” I told him haughtily.
“Of course.”
I frowned. I had expected him to laugh, but he acted like I had told him I was born in the Cosa Nostra . Like it was evident. “One day, I’m going to buy my own house and do it all up.”
My glance fell down. His hands were stroking the line of my slip.
“One day,” he muttered tightly. “Can I fuck you till then?”
Shit! There wasn’t a tint of a whisper to his voice. I twisted around, but thankfully, Orso had earplugs in.
“He can’t hear.”
I found my husband’s devilish grin and tried to swat his hands off. “But he can see.”
“Not if you’re subtle about it.” His finger crawled underneath my panties and found my core, right on cue.
“ Minchia! You can’t be serious.”
He plunged two fingers in and jerked me upright. A hot moan flooded out of my body. “Is this serious enough?” he muttered darkly, his breath hot on my lips.
“You said subtle,” I whispered.
“Up to you, Principessa , but I am fucking you either way.”
He was so vulgar. I wished I could say I hated it. But I couldn’t explain why it had the pulse of this good Sicilian girl thumping on her clit. His long fingers inside me felt all rough, dipped in warm honey, touched me everywhere, melted me into lava. It made me rock my hips against him even as his hand gripped my hip. My hands crawled up his shoulder and pulled his neck to me. The thought that I might never look Orso in the eye again floated through my mind. But he was pulling at my strings like I would die if I didn’t ride him out. A fever, hot and itchy, rushed up my body, tingling every nerve ending with it. A release was imminent as much as my next breath. I fisted my hands in his hair and pulled his lips into mine. His name spilled from my mouth and he captured it in his easily. Like it was as evident as the sun rising from the East. That I would call him Zo.
LORENZO
“Hurry the fuck up.”
I had thought she would be low maintenance. She had left the jars and pots she brought from Sicily untouched for weeks. Until she found them, I guess. They lined my bathroom and cluttered my bedroom. Pink smudges and gold dust were as much a part of my vanity as the glossy white Calacatta marble used to clad it. She was the messiest person I knew. For that alone, I should have returned her with a one-way ticket to her brother.
I growled in displeasure. She didn’t need any of this shit. She was perfect as she was. My bandaged hand tapped against the vanity, and her glance fell on it midway between switching a pink powder set to a black brush. I saw the question on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell. Yet.
“Just one more minute.” She dropped the black brush and picked up a red tube, and my patience flipped.
I pulled her up to her shriek, tossed her over my shoulder, and made for the elevator. “You don’t need that shit. I’m going to kiss it off you, anyway.”
“But I love getting dressed up,” she whined as I dropped her onto the elevator.
I punched the button. “You never did it before.”
She stilled, and I frowned. “What?”
She shrugged and said smugly, “I didn’t want to make the effort.”
I crowded her in against the mirror. “What, now you do?”
She examined her nails airily. “Maybe.”
Jesus! For the boys in her fucking uni?
The desire to lock her in our room was one I had to fight every single day. Instead, I dropped my neck and rasped my words along her neck. “You’re always worth the effort, Principessa .”
The door pinged open behind me. I dragged my gaze to the mirror. An old couple trudged in and glanced at us. My wife tensed in my arms, a palm in between, pushing at me. I allowed a distance of a few breaths but kept her caged in between.
Unhinged, she mouthed with a frown, and I brushed my hand to wipe the amusement off my lips.
Only for you, I mouthed back, and she pulled herself taut in defiance.
It didn’t matter, anyway. I was going to win her over even if it killed me.
“I wish you’d tell me where we are going,” she whined for the thousandth time.
I was relieved when Orso pulled the car to a stop, because excitement was crawling up my nerves, and I didn’t trust myself not to spill out the words.
“Soon.” I jumped out of the car and pulled her out.
She looked around with a frown. We were standing in a private gated community in front of a run-down house. White brick walls, tall pillars, and iron railings wrapped around it in a sad line. No sane person would walk inside it, yet I let Orso drive along the long driveway leading up to it.
She whirled around, catching the rundown garden and the loss of the hum of New York traffic. “This doesn’t look like a restaurant.”
I couldn’t stop the grin that split my cheeks. Jesus! She was making me into a fucking juvenile. I pulled her up the brown-brick stairs, put the key into the lock, and opened the large white doors. Fuck! My hands were shaking. The last time they did that, I was in a hotel room wiping the blood off a kid. I gave my head a shake and strode into the foyer. It was round, with a spiral staircase wrapping the edges. Tall white pillars turned a dull yellow lined the circumference.
“What do you think?” I waved my arms around.
“What is this?” She was still standing on the threshold, trepidation in every bone. Yet her hand stroked the door frame absentmindedly.
“Our new home,” I declared, and my voice echoed off the walls, and my enthusiasm bounced off the high ceiling.
Her face lost all trace of color. “What?” she croaked.
“You heard me.”
She asked, “You bought this?” in a drawn and tight voice. “Why?”
I shrugged. “You said you want to buy your own house and do it up.”
“I wanted my own house,” she snapped, and foolish nervous energy coiled in my stomach.
“This is your house.”
“But you paid for it.”
Awkward silence crawled on the dirty marble floor and raced up the yellowed walls. I swallowed a heavy sigh. I wanted to tell her I would always be hers. I would never hurt her like her papà. I wanted to tell her to take that leap and trust me to be there. “I’ll put it under your name.”
Silence. My breath wheezed three times in and out.
“Yeah?” She took a small step inside.
“Yeah. But I’ll live here with you.”
“It’s not mine then.”
“I’ll pay you rent.”
A wobble of a smile traced her lips. “You’ll pay me rent, huh?”
“ Sì, Principessa. ” Three long strides, and I had her crowded against the wall. “And if I ever cheat on you,” she stiffened in my arms. “I won’t. But if I ever lose my freaking mind and cheat on you, you get to kick me out.”
She cocked her face to mine. “You’d do that for me?” Her voice trembled, and I heard all the pain of a childhood within it rattling like stones in a jar.
“I would,” I promised her.
She gave a shake of her head. “No need.”
I knew she was trying, but her voice lacked the conviction I wanted to hear. “Doing it, anyway.”
She laughed. A thin, nervous laugh. “I’ll fill it up with my junk.”
“Aww Principessa …” my lips trailed her neck. “Your junk is my treasure.”
The sun was going down by the time I managed to pull her out. She was all excited and talked of her plans a million miles per minute. What materials did I want? What colors did I like? Couldn’t give a fuck about it as long she loved it. So I told her I wanted her to make a warm home out of it, and she shone like a falling star.
I locked the door, put the key away, and turned to find her a few feet away, her eyes lingering on my hand. “What happened to it?”
“Why didn’t you ask before?”
She looked away before catching my eyes. “Was too scared to know the answer.”
I frowned. “What did you think it was?”
She shrugged. “A hole in your hand?”
Jesus! I had forgotten the effects of growing up in the Cosa Nostra . Being born a girl. If we had one, I was going to wrap her up in pink fluff and hide her under a white cloud.
“It’s nothing serious.” I unwrapped the thin gauze around it. “Come have a look.”
She frowned but edged forward reluctantly. Her hands gripped mine and a tremble vibrated along my veins. It was still an angry red, but the heart on my hand read clear as day. Daria mia Principessa, sono solo tuo per sempre.
Her wild-eyed gaze lifted to mine. “Told you.” My voice grated on the front porch, in the early evening. “You’re my princess, and I am only yours. Forever.” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her roughly. “Just so you know, these hands will only ever be on you.”
There was a jitter to her movements, a tightness to her cuddle that wasn’t there before, and I knew I was one step closer to winning her fucking heart.