Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ican't sleep.
I've been staring at the ceiling for an hour, maybe more, listening to the cabin settle around me and trying to convince my body that it's tired even though every nerve ending I have is still firing from the day of being in the same small space as Enzo Bianchi and slowly losing my mind.
The sheets are too warm. Then too cold. The pillow is wrong. The darkness is too quiet.
I give up.
I sit up, push my hair back, and look down at what Rafael packed for me.
A tiny, a thin-strapped cotton nightdress that barely reaches mid-thigh, soft and pale and completely impractical for a woman trying to convince herself she feels nothing.
I put it on anyway because it's either this or sleep in Enzo's shirt again and doing that is not something my sanity can survive another night of.
I pad barefoot to the door, open it quietly, and head downstairs.
The cabin is dark except for the living room, where a single lamp burns low, casting everything in amber. Rafael's door is closed upstairs. The fire has burned down to nothing.
And Enzo is sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of something dark in his hand, his elbows on the wood, his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, staring at absolutely nothing like he's been doing it for hours.
He hears me on the stairs.
He looks up and the look on his face when he sees me stops me on the bottom step.
It's not subtle. It's not controlled. For one unguarded second before he locks it down, his eyes drag down the length of me and something tightens across his shoulders, I see his jaw tick like he is holding back, and the silence in the kitchen becomes a completely different kind of silence than it was ten seconds ago.
"Rafael packed it," I say, because I feel the need to explain myself even though I don't owe him an explanation. "It was this or nothing."
A muscle works in his jaw. "Go put something else on."
I bristle. "I don't have anything else. You know that."
"Then put my shirt back on."
"Your shirt is upstairs and I’m not going upstairs." I glare at him, daring him to try and make me.
He looks at me for a long moment, his glass halfway to his mouth, and I watch him consciously drag his eyes back up to my face with what looks like considerable effort.
"Fucking hell, Isabella. You know you shouldn't walk around men looking like that," he growls, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms, which I immediately realize is a mistake because of what it does to the neckline of the dress, but I'm committed now. "Relax. We both know you see me like a little sister." I keep my voice light and easy. "No need to overreact."
Something changes in his eyes.
But I choose to ignore it because I don’t want to know anything.
I don’t want to guess what changed in his eyes, I don’t even know what he’s thinking.
He sets his glass down on the table without drinking from it, and I watch his hand stay there, curled around the glass, his knuckles pressing white.
"Sit down, Isabella."
"I couldn't sleep."
"I can see that. Sit down."
I cross the kitchen and pull out the chair across from him, dropping into it and tucking one leg under myself, and the dress rides higher when I do and I watch him look at the ceiling briefly before looking back at me.
Good. Let him suffer. We can suffer together.
The bottle between us is half empty. Whiskey, dark and expensive looking, the kind Matteo keeps in the cabinet for emergencies.
I reach across the table and pick up his glass.
He goes very still.
I bring it to my lips and drink from the exact same place his mouth was, keeping my eyes on his over the rim, letting him watch me do it deliberately, and I feel the whiskey burn down my throat while the silence between us burns hotter than that.
I set the glass back down.
He hasn't moved. Hasn't blinked. His eyes are fixed on my mouth with an intensity that makes my skin feel too tight.
"What are you doing?" His voice comes out low and rough and careful, like he's measuring every word before he lets it out.
"I don't know."
It's the most honest thing I've said since we got here.
He picks up the glass. Looks at it. Sets it back down without drinking.
"Isabella."
"Enzo."
"You need to go back to bed."
"I told you I can't sleep."
"Then sit there and don't—" He stops. His jaw tightens. "Just don't."
"Don't what?"
He doesn't answer. Just looks at me with those dark eyes that are doing things to my nervous system that should probably be illegal, and the air between us pulls taut like a wire being stretched to its absolute limit.
I should listen to him. I know I should listen to him. I know exactly where this road goes and I know exactly how it ends and I know that nothing about this situation has changed even if everything about the last day has made me forget that.
But I'm tired of being sensible. Tired of building walls. Tired of lying in bed upstairs staring at the ceiling and pretending I don't know exactly what I want.
I reach across the table again.
Not for the glass this time.
My fingers brush the back of his hand, just barely, just the lightest possible contact, and I feel him go rigid like I've pressed a live wire to his skin.
"What do you want, Isabella?" His voice is barely above a murmur.
"I told you. I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
"Maybe."
He turns his hand under mine, slowly, and for one suspended second I think he's going to take my hand properly, fold his fingers through mine, pull me closer.
Instead, he wraps his fingers around my wrist and holds me there, not moving, his thumb pressing against my pulse point where my heartbeat is giving away absolutely everything.
"Your heart is racing," he says quietly.
"I know."
"Isabella—"
"Don't." My voice comes out softer than I intend. "Don't tell me to go to bed again. Don't tell me I don't know what I'm saying. Don't—"
He stands.
Not away from me. He stands and comes around the table and I tip my head back to look up at him as he stops in front of my chair, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that I can see the exact way his chest is rising and falling slightly faster than normal.
His hand is still around my wrist.
"Stand up," he says quietly.
I stand.
We're close enough now that there's barely any air between us, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up even more to hold his gaze, and his hand shifts from my wrist to my jaw, cupping it the way he did before, except this time we're not in a room with Rafael, this time there's no crisis to use as an excuse for why he's touching me.
This time it's just us.
His thumb traces my jaw slowly and I feel it everywhere, feel it in my throat and my chest and low in my stomach, and a small sound escapes me before I can stop it, barely anything, barely a breath.
His eyes darken.
His other hand finds my waist and I feel it through the thin cotton of the dress, feel the size of it, the warmth, the way his fingers press in just slightly like he's fighting the urge to grip harder.
"This is a bad idea," he says. He's not moving away.
"I know," I whisper.
"We're going to regret this."
"Yes, we will."
"Isabella." My name in his mouth sounds like a warning and a prayer at the same time. "Tell me to stop."
I reach up and curl my fingers into the front of his shirt instead.
I see his resolve break at that moment.
His hand tightens in my hair, fisting the strands at the back of my head, tilting my face up further, and I gasp at the sharp delicious pull of it.
His other hand slides around my waist to the small of my back and presses me closer until there's no space left between us at all and I can feel every hard line of him, can feel exactly what I've been doing to him all evening.
Oh.
My breath comes out in a rush.
His jaw is against my temple and his chest is heaving and we're standing tangled together in the amber light of the kitchen and I don't know which one of us is shaking but at least one of us is.
"I hate you for making me feel like this," I breathe against his jaw because it's the only defense I have left.
A sound comes out of him. Low and rough and not quite a laugh.
He turns his head and I feel his mouth on the side of my neck, not a kiss, not quite, his lips pressed to my pulse point, and then his teeth grazing the skin there just barely, just enough that I make a sound that I'm immediately embarrassed by, a soft broken gasp that I press into his shoulder.
He goes very still when he hears it.
His breath is ragged against my neck. His hand is still fisted in my hair. I can feel his heart pounding against my chest.
"Don't make that sound," he says against my skin, rough and desperate. "Don't—"
"Enzo—"
He pulls back.
Not far. Just enough that he can look at me, just enough that I can see his face in the low light, and what I see there makes my chest ache. His eyes are dark and his jaw is clenched so tight it must hurt and he looks like a man standing at the edge of something he's been circling for years.
His hand is still in my hair. He seems to realize it at the same moment I do, his fingers loosening slowly, carefully, like he has to think about each one.
"I—." The word sounds wrecked coming out of him.
"Don't." My voice is barely a whisper. "Don't apologize. Don't tell me this is a mistake. Don't—"
"Go upstairs." His forehead drops to mine and we stand there breathing the same air, his hands now cupping my face, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones, his eyes closed. "Please. Go to bed."
"Enzo—"
"If you don't go now," he says quietly, "I'm not going to be able to let you go. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
I understand.
I understand completely.
I step back. His hands fall away. We stand there for one more second that stretches out long and aching between us.
Then I turn and walk to the stairs on legs that don't feel entirely solid, and I climb them without looking back because if I look back I will not keep walking.
Behind me, I hear him exhale. Long and slow and completely controlled.
Like it costs him everything.