15. Serena #2
I stand too fast. Rocco stands with me.
“Sit down,” I say.
“You stood.”
“Don’t bring logic into this.”
He stays where he is. One step away. “I should leave,” he says.
He should. Correct answer. Door is that way, sir.
Instead I say, “Maybe.”
His eyes go darker. “Serena.”
My name is a warning. Not to me. To himself.
I step around the chair. He doesn’t move.
“You believed the worst thing someone could show you,” I say.
His face tightens. “Yes.”
“You sent me away.”
“Yes.”
“You froze my money.”
“Yes.”
“You missed the heartbeat.”
His eyes flash with pain. “Yes.”
I’m close enough now to see the cut on his cheek. Close enough to smell rain and soap and blood and Rocco.
“And I still want you.”
The words come out quiet. Mean. Like a confession and an accusation.
Rocco goes utterly still. “Serena.”
“I hate it.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He closes his mouth. Good man. Terrible husband. Good man trying.
So I do the stupid thing. I touch his chest, palm flat over his wet shirt.
His heart is hammering. Not controlled at all.
Rocco looks down at my hand like it’s a miracle and a punishment. “Don’t touch me because you feel sorry for me,” he says.
I laugh once, broken. “I’ve never touched you because I felt sorry for you. You’re far too annoying.”
His mouth moves. Almost a smile. Then my fingers curl in his shirt, and the almost-smile dies.
He lifts his hand slowly. Slow enough that I can stop him. I don’t.
His fingers brush my cheek. So light. Barely there. Not claiming. Asking.
My eyes burn. I’m so tired of crying that I’d like to resign from having eyes.
“May I kiss you?” he asks.
I should say no. I say, “Yes.”
Rocco kisses me like he’s been starving quietly for years. Not gentle. Not at first. But the second my mouth opens under his, something old and violent and married breaks loose between us.
His hand slides into my hair. His other arm goes around my back, not my stomach. Careful and desperate, which is a terrible combination for my self-control.
I make a sound into his mouth. He makes one back. Low. Wrecked.
My whole body answers. Breasts tight. Belly heavy. Heat pooling low in a way that makes me furious because how dare my body be this happy after everything.
He turns us with that old certainty that used to make me melt. My back meets the counter. Cold edge against my hips.
Rocco breaks the kiss. His forehead presses to mine. He is breathing hard.
“If you want me to leave, tell me now.”
I grip his shirt. “I don’t want you to leave.”
The truth lands between us. His hand flexes against the counter beside me.
“Then tell me what you want.”
What do I want? A time machine. The video burned before he saw it. My husband’s mouth. My husband’s hands. My husband believing me before proof.
Too late for one of those. Not too late for the others, apparently, because I hear myself say, “Touch me.”
Rocco’s eyes close. Pain or relief. Both maybe.
Then he kisses me again. Slower this time. Deeper. His hand slides down my side, over my ribs, and covers the swell of my stomach.
Of course he goes there first—the one place his hand has lived since the test turned positive.
Warm. Shaking. He goes still. Breaks a little. Not enough to stop wanting me. Enough that the wanting changes shape.
“I missed you,” he says.
My head tips back. “Don’t.”
“I did.” His thumb moves once over my stomach. “I should’ve said true things sooner.”
That’s unfair. That’s too good. That’s a sentence I’ll be angry about later when I have more pants on emotionally.
I pull his mouth back to mine. He groans. There. That sound. My dangerous husband coming apart because I touched him first.
His hand slides under the hem of my sweater, then stops against my bare side.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes. And I’ll tell you if it isn’t. Stop asking every inch.”
His eyes search mine. Then he nods. Not trusting himself. Trusting me.
His hand moves up. Slow. My breath catches when his thumb brushes the underside of my breast. Pregnancy has made my body sensitive in unfair ways. One touch and my knees decide they’re ornamental.
His mouth moves to my jaw, my neck, the place below my ear that has always made me stupid.
“You’re so soft here,” he murmurs.
“Don’t be sweet.”
“I’m not feeling sweet.”
His teeth graze my skin. I gasp. Then his thumb brushes my nipple through the thin fabric of my bra and neither of us is laughing.
Heat shoots through me. Sharp. Hungry. I arch before I can stop myself.
The ache between my legs gets worse. Better. Both.
I want him with an anger that feels almost clean. Because this part was never fake. The truth of us in skin and breath and all the places words failed.
That’s the cruelest part. The marriage broke. The wanting did not.
He pulls the sweater over my head and drops it on the counter. The kitchen air hits my skin.
I’m in leggings and a soft bra that barely fits because pregnancy has given my breasts opinions. My stomach is rounded under the band, not huge yet, but there. Real.
Rocco looks at me. Not like the tape. Not like proof. Like he’s seeing me. My body. Our baby. The wife he left.
His face breaks open with so much hunger and grief that I almost cover myself.
“Don’t,” he says. My hands stop. “Don’t hide from me.”
I laugh once. It hurts. “You lost the right to ask that.”
He goes still. Then lowers his eyes. “You’re right.” He steps back. No argument. Just back.
And that makes me reach for him. “I didn’t say stop. So earn it different.”
“How?”
I take his hand and put it on my stomach. His palm shakes. Good. Let him shake.
“Start here.”
Rocco drops to his knees. Not because I ask. Because his body seems to give out. He is on his knees in front of me, both hands bracketing my hips, his forehead pressed to the curve of my belly.
I stop breathing.
He doesn’t kiss me there. He rests against me, shaking. “I’m sorry,” he says. So low I barely hear it.
This time I don’t tell him to stop saying it.
My fingers move into his hair. I shouldn’t. I do anyway.
His head lifts. The look on his face ruins me a little. I hate him for that. I love him for that.
No. Not now. We’re not using that word.
He kisses my stomach once. Then looks up at me. “May I?”
I know what he means. I should say no. I say, “Yes.”
His hands slide to the waistband of my leggings. Slow. Asking with every inch. He pulls them down just enough. Not all the way. Down my thighs, leaving my underwear in place for one unbearable second before his mouth presses to my hip, then lower.
I grip the counter. “Rocco.”
“Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“I will. I promise.”
He hooks his fingers in my underwear and pauses. I nod. “Yes.”
Then his mouth is on me. And I forget how to be angry for about three seconds. Maybe four.
He holds me steady, one hand on my hip, the other spread over my lower back. His mouth isn’t careful. It’s hungry and precise and devastatingly familiar.
My head drops back. The kitchen ceiling has a water stain shaped like a potato. I know this because I stare at it while my husband kneels between my legs and makes a sound like he’s been waiting to taste me since the day he lost his mind.
Too much. Not enough. My body goes soft and tight all at once.
“Rocco,” I gasp.
He stops immediately. Too immediately.
I look down, breathless. “Why did you stop?”
His mouth is wet. His eyes are wrecked. “You said my name like a warning.”
I almost cry. Instead I laugh. “It wasn’t a warning. Encouragement, you idiot.”
The smallest smile. Real. Brief. Then his mouth is back on me, and the smile is gone because neither of us is capable of being cute for long.
He builds it again. Slow at first, then not. My fingers tighten in his hair. My hips move, a little, and he follows me like his whole world has narrowed to what I want.
That’s the part that breaks me. Not the pleasure—the attention. The way he listens to every breath and tremor like my body is finally the only evidence that matters.