Chapter 20
Gina
One month later
“You should be resting, il mio sole.”
My heart flutters every time Tommaso calls me that, claiming me as his sun. And when he tells me I’m his sun, his light, and his queen…I’d do anything for him.
Honestly, the way my heart beats for this man is shocking.
But he’s totally pushing my buttons right now.
“I’m tired of resting,” I say like a brat. We’ve been arguing about this because he’s turned into a tyrant. “Both Reese and Johnathon said—”
“It’s Reese and Johnathon now?” He cocks one of his dark brows on his unfairly gorgeous face. “Not Dr. Albans and Moretti?”
“Yeah, Reese and Johnathon,” I say rather disagreeably. I’m not sure why I’m in such a mood.
It might be because I feel like Tommaso is keeping me locked away.
I go outside and walk the estate’s beautiful grounds, but only for short periods because the bright sun still bothers me.
Otherwise, I haven’t left the house or the estate.
The only guests who have come here are Tommaso’s brother, Marco, and his best friend, Silvio.
Other than Adolfo, Jerome, and Etta, the staff who live onsite with us, no one else has come here that I’ve seen. Tommaso only leaves for short periods of time and works as much as he can from his home office.
“You need to stop treating me like I’m made of glass, Tommaso.” I turn to face him while I sit in front of my vanity. I’m dressed in a blue silk pajama set with a robe, and I was testing different make-up to cover the lingering bruises on my face.
He stands in our bedroom beside the large four-poster bed. In most bedrooms, it would dwarf everything due to its size, but with the scale of this room, it fits perfectly.
Just like everything else fits perfectly in this house. Just like Tommaso himself, in his power suits and neatly styled hair.
The only thing that doesn’t fit here is me. Or at least…it feels that way.
You’re a nobody, a voice whispers in my head.
Those whispers have been happening more often lately.
Not always that statement; sometimes it’s just a word or another phrase.
Sometimes the whispers are said in my voice, other times in another woman’s voice, or more frequently, in a man’s voice that makes the nausea rise within me and my healing wounds throb with pain.
When I told Reese about the pain, he explained it more as phantom rather than actual pain, likely caused by some trauma related to my accident.
He encouraged me to see a therapist, but I declined, something warning me that I really don’t want to dig in and unpack that trauma.
So far, Tommaso has supported my decision.
But I still feel less than. I’m unable to remember anything of my husband before waking up in the hospital.
Not even being able to remember our wedding day.
There aren’t even any pictures from it. If Tommaso didn’t have pictures of me talking and laughing with an older couple in a coffee shop or sitting in the moonlight at some ruins by the ocean, I’d question if we had even known each other prior to my waking up and being told he was my husband.
A logical person might question it, but I have no family to ask since I was an only child, and my parents are gone. If I didn’t feel the love for Tommaso that seems to come from deep within me, and how intensely, almost obsessively, he loves me, I might question it more.
But he has answers to questions I’ve asked about myself, including where I was born, my birth date, and where I went to school.
He even has my birth certificate along with all my other ID.
I’m still struggling to believe I went to a private all-girls school in Italy; it doesn’t feel like something I would’ve chosen.
Not all the questions that I’ve begun to ask have answers, though. Or if they do, it doesn’t feel like a complete answer. Including those of the actual details surrounding what caused my face and head wounds.
I study my husband, standing so tall and broad, as he walks over to me and crouches down. From his lowered position, he stares up at me and brushes my hair back from my face before running his knuckle over the healed cut on my cheek.
“Why haven’t you touched me?” I ask a question that’s been burning in my mind.
He sleeps with me every night, holding me close, but we’re both clothed. I haven’t had the courage to undress in front of him, and he hasn’t pushed me. Each night, I can feel his hardness pressing into me, but he never does anything except hold me.
At first, I don’t think he’s going to answer, or that he might give me an answer that I suspect isn’t the whole answer.
“We haven’t had sex.”
I jolt in surprise. “Ever?”
“Ever.” He traces the line of my jaw with his thumb. “I haven’t touched you sexually because I didn’t want you to feel pressured, and I wanted to give you time to be comfortable. Plus, you haven’t been cleared medically for sex yet,” he adds with a smile that makes my toes curl.
But I frown as I consider his words. “But if we loved each other enough to get married, even if it was a whirlwind romance, why wouldn’t we have had sex? It’s not like this is the 1950s or something.”
He chuckles. “True. But I’m older than you—”
“I don’t see how that applies.”
“And you had a very conservative upbringing.”
“So you were a player while I’m a virgin?” A pit grows in my stomach as I consider another reason why he’s kept it G-rated with me. “Do you not want to have sex with me?”
He stands from his crouched position, picking me up as he does, and I squeak in surprise. Instead of carrying me bridal-style like he usually does, he wraps my legs around his waist while walking over to the bed and sits down.
I’m straddling him and blushing wildly with my heart racing. When I rise up on my knees, he pulls me down onto him, and I feel a distinct hardness pressing into my core, and my blush blooms.
Okay, so maybe a virgin after all.
“Have I ever given you reason to think I don’t want you, Gina?”
I try to get up and look away, but he keeps me pressed down on him with one arm banded around my lower back as he turns my face back to him.
I get lost in the ocean of his crystal-blue eyes.
“Have I, Gina?”
“No.”
“Not touching you the way I want has been torture for me, il mio sole. But I’m trying to be a good man here.”
“Maybe…” My tongue darts out to wet my lips. His eyes snap to the movement, and I feel his hardness grow even more. “Maybe I don’t want you to be a good man, Tommaso.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
I catch his gorgeous face between my hands and tilt it to mine. “Maybe I do. I might not have memories of you, but my mind and heart tell me that I trust you.”
“Gina—”
I try to get off him, fighting tears, and that cuts off whatever he was going to say.
He pulls me back down. This time, he pushes up with his hips, and the pressure of him pushing against my core is harder than ever. More intense and, most definitely, delicious.
I clutch his broad shoulders and gasp as he shifts me over him. “Tommaso.”
“You’re never to doubt that I want you, wife.” The last word is a hiss.
“Tommaso,” I moan as he glides my silk-covered core over the hardness in his pants. This is unlike anything I can remember ever feeling. Pleasure is erupting from that one spot, that epicenter, and radiating out into every cell of my body.
My head falls back, and my hips start to move; I’m not consciously doing it, it’s my body finding a natural rhythm. His lips fall to my throat, and the feel of them makes me want to weep in joy and ecstasy.
I want more. More.
I start to move harder and faster.
And yelp when he bites my neck.
“No intense exertion yet,” he growls the reminder of the doctor’s order.
“Tommaso,” I protest. But I see stars when he takes over the movement, gripping my hips tightly and moving me harder and faster over him. “Oh god, yes.”
My skin is alive and tingling. My breathing comes out in shallow little pants. My nails dig into his shoulder. I want his clothes off; I want to feel his skin pressed to mine.
Next time, we need to do this with significantly less clothing.
Next time… Yes.
I’m currently heading toward an orgasm, already knowing that one won’t be enough, because it will just feed this greedy need within me.
Tommaso stops moving me over his rigid length, and my eyes pop open. A sound mixed with distress, frustration, and anger spills from my lips, and he grins while a deep chuckle vibrates from his chest into mine.
“What are you doing?” I demand, but my next words fall into oblivion, forgotten and unnecessary, as he slips one hand into my silk pajama pants.
Our eyes lock as he runs his finger over the wetness that coats my sex. They remain locked on mine as I wait, suspended and aching, while he teases me by running his finger through my slick entrance, but not pushing in.
When he finally—and so achingly slowly—pushes inside me, I don’t look away.
I can’t. I’m locked in his gaze, seeing everything that’s been left unsaid.
His need and want, his love. And the promise that I’m his and he’s mine, and that he’ll always keep me.
Keep me safe, yes, but also, he will always just… keep me.
“I love you,” I whisper, not remembering the moment I fell in love but knowing I do love him with every fiber of my being.
My words cause something contradictory to pass over his face. At first, there’s his own declaration of love without even saying a word, followed by a dark look that’s so possessive. Obsessive.
He shifts from gripping my hip to wrapping his arm around my waist while using his other hand to move his finger in and out of me, and I feel my walls clench him tightly. “You’ll never leave me.”
Wouldn’t that be a question with most men? Or, at the very least, a plea?
With Tommaso, it’s a command.
A shiver rakes through me, and he pushes another finger into me, making me stretch and cry out in pleasure.