Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Cormac
Watching Arianna come on my hand is one of the best things I have ever seen.
This innocent woman who I wronged. Who I don’t deserve. And yet, she gave that part of herself over to me.
Arianna shakes one more time before her body relaxes into the couch. The sight of her lithe body makes my cock hard. I want to fuck her. There’s no doubt about that.
But I don’t want to hurt her. I know that deep in my gut it would be the wrong thing. She’s someone that deserves flowers and candles and shit and I’m not that kind of man.
I pull away from her before I do something I’ll regret.
Arianna stiffens and after an awkward beat, pulls her pants back up. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” It’s me. I want her to be mine. Truly mine. But that would mean being ok with the Italians. It would mean going against everything I believed in.
Is that wrong though? It was causing nothing but misery for me. This is my second chance at happiness. My father saved me by marrying me to Arianna. I can’t fuck it up by accidently hurting her. Again.
My eyes flick to her wrist. “You’re hurt though. You should rest. We should stop.”
“Ok,” she whispers. “But do you want to stop?”
“Do you want to stop?”
“I didn’t say that. I asked if you wanted to stop.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m trying to not be an asshole here. Not after what I did to you.”
She sits up and tentatively touches my arm. “Cormac, talk to me. This marriage only works if you talk to me.”
“We should stop. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me how? You made me feel good.” Her blush makes her cute features stand out even more. Which in turn makes me want her even more.
“I want to fuck you,” I admit.
Her eyes widen. “Oh.”
“But I don’t want to scare you. I did before. But not anymore. Not now that you’re my wife. I have to do right by you. And letting myself lose control with you wouldn’t be good. You could get hurt and I could end up dead because of it.”
“I’m already hurt.” She holds her wrist up. “And I survived. You helped me. Stopped Josh from hurting me more. Took me to the hospital. Those are all good things.”
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
She sucks in a breath and her eyes lower to her lap. “Like right now? No. I’m not ready for that. This is all so new for me.”
“I figured. I’m just trying to not fuck up even more. I don’t know what to do.”
“You can start by not pulling away from me,” she says, placing her hand on my chest. It feels… right. Like she fits all of me. “I am a little intimidated by you. But I’m learning that I don’t have to fear you like I once did. Maybe we talk instead. Get to know each other better.”
I let out a slow exhale. “Ok. Like what?”
“Like…” She bites her lip which only makes me want to kiss her more. “Like what was it like growing up for you?”
I huff. “I wasn’t expecting you to ask me that.”
“Well, you have so much anger inside of you. It must come from somewhere.”
“My dad is a hardass. Well, when it comes to me. When it comes to Ciara, he’s always treated her like a princess.
He disowned me when all I did was try and save Ciara from Marco.
” I glance at her. “Which I see now I was wrong about. Ciara didn’t need saving from Marco. I still fucking hate him though.”
“Why do you hate him so much? Other than he married your sister.”
“He waltzed into our lives like he owned the place. My sister was forced into that marriage with him. She wanted him dead at first. But then she… somehow developed feelings for him. And then she didn’t need me to save her anymore.
But I didn’t want to listen. I wanted to win.
Which is why I took you. To hurt Marco. To teach him a lesson: that he didn’t get to have everything.
That he didn’t get to take over my life. ”
“What do you mean your life?”
I sigh. “I mean… he made a deal with my dad. Married my sister. I was pushed out of my life. My dad once told me that I was expected to listen to Marco. But I never wanted to listen to him. Not when I was taught to hate the Italian mafia. Not by my dad but by a lot of the Irish mob. A lot of them hate the Italians. It’s just part of our culture.
I didn’t take Marco invading my life easy. ”
“So it wasn’t about your sister. It was about you?”
Arianna’s question catches me off guard. Instinctually, I want to defend myself and protest that I did everything for Ciara. But I know deep down that that isn’t true. I went after Marco and his family for myself. Because of my own anger.
“Maybe,” I admit. “I just couldn’t stop being angry.”
“And now?”
“Now… I still hate Marco. I still hate that he gets to win. But… meeting you, I see that I was wrong about the Italians. They’re not all bad. You’re a good person and I never should have kidnapped you.”
“I take it you’ve never kidnapped someone before me?”
“Never. You’re the first. I don’t normally hurt women.”
“Well… you couldn’t hurt me,” she murmurs. “You tried but you couldn’t seem to do it and I’m grateful for that.”
I run my hand down my face. “I know I need to let this anger go. I know it almost got me killed. I just don’t know how.”
“Stop worrying about my uncle and focus on us instead. We’re married. This should be the focus. Maybe then your anger will go away.”
I stare into her sweet, innocent eyes. The eyes that got under my skin the first time I saw her. The eyes that have awakened something inside of me. The eyes that speak to how much of a good person Arianna is.
“I want to kiss you again,” I say in a gruff voice.
Her innocent eyes widen but she doesn’t look upset. “I want you to kiss me again. I didn’t want you to stop touching me.”
“I thought you weren’t ready to have sex.”
“I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to touch me.
I’ve lived by my parents’ rules all my life.
They wanted to keep me safe but in turn, they kept me sheltered.
I wasn’t allowed to truly live my own life for myself.
But now that we’re married, I guess I do get to live my own life away from them. And I want to explore it. But…”
“But?”
She bites her lip again and it takes everything in me not to kiss her right in this moment.
“But I don’t know how to make sense of my feelings for you.
You kidnapped me. Scared me. And yet, you also showed me pleasure just now.
You saved me from Josh multiple times. You could never hurt me. So I don’t know how to feel.”
“Maybe you also need to let your own anger go. Maybe we both need to get out of our heads. We feel what we feel.” It’s freeing to say this.
I’ve been bound by my hate for so long that I haven’t know much else in the past few months.
A weight lifts off my shoulders and it only took having Arianna, an Italian, in my life to do it.
Her lips quirk up. “Maybe.”
I cup her face between my hands. She doesn’t pull away – in fact, she seems to lean in closer to my touch. “I’m going to kiss you again.”
The kiss this time isn’t as passionate as the one before. Instead, it’s more sweet. More open and vulnerable. I’ve never shared this much of myself to another person but it just feels… right with Arianna. She makes my world feel a tiny bit brighter. She makes me less angry.
I never thought any of that would be possible for me.
Before I can even deepen the kiss, a knock at the front door pulls us apart.
“Expecting someone?” she asks. I can tell she’s worried it’s Josh and Sam again but I sent them away. They’d be fucking idiots for coming back here.
“I’ll see who it is.” When I reach the door and look through the peephole, I see that it’s Marco and Antonio on the other side. Of course it is. They must be here to make sure I’m not torturing Arianna. I’m sure they both want any excuse to see me dead. With no other choice, I open the door.
“We’re here to see my daughter,” Antonio says, trying to barge past me but I step in his way.
“You don’t just get to barge into my home.”
He scoffs. “You kidnapped my daughter. You don’t get to stand there and act better than me.”
He has a point. With a sigh, I motion him inside.
Marco eyes me over warily but I’m not going to hurt him.
It’s pointless now. It would only lead to my sister hating me.
Ciara and I haven’t had the chance to talk after I kidnapped Arianna.
I get the sense that she’s already angry with me and not willing to forgive me. Killing her husband won’t help matters.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” I say.
“And I won’t shoot you either.” Marco joins his brother in the living room. It’s then that I hear Antonio make a loud sound.
“What the hell is this?”
Slowly, I head into the living room to find Antonio pointing at Arianna’s hurt wrist. “Why do you have a brace on? What happened to your wrist?”
Arianna’s eyes flick to mine and back to her father but before she can say anything, Antonio whirls around to face me.
“Did you hurt my daughter? You were not supposed to. Your own father said we could kill you if you hurt her. You’ve been married for one day and she’s already hurt.” He grabs my shirt, pulling me closer to him. For a fifty year old man, he does have some serious strength within him.
“I didn’t hurt her,” I growl.
“Bullshit. She has a brace on her wrist. She’s hurt. What else have you done to my daughter?”
“Dad,” Arianna says. “I tripped on the carpet and I fell to the ground. I used my hands to brace me but it ended up spraining my wrist. Cormac took me to the hospital. He helped me. He didn’t hurt me.”
“Is this true?” Marco asks.
“Why would I lie?” Arianna turns to her dad. “You don’t need to kill Cormac. I don’t want you going to war with Patrick over this. I’m fine. My wrist isn’t even broken. I’m ok, Dad. I promise.”
He glares at me for a long moment before shoving me back. “You mean this, Ari?”
“Yes. It’s the truth.”
“So he hasn’t hurt you?”
“He hasn’t hurt me.” Her eyes find mine. “And he never will.” It’s a threat of sorts. Arianna just saved my life by not telling her father the real reason her wrist is hurt. Even though it was Josh’s fault, I still let Josh inside my house. So in a way, it’s still my fault Arianna got hurt.
“You and Uncle Marco should go,” she says. “We can talk another time. Things are too tense right now. But I’m ok. I promise.”
“We should listen to Arianna,” Marco advises. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt today. Let’s go.” Marco manages to get Antonio to follow him out of the apartment. I lock the door behind them.
“Why did you lie?” I ask Arianna. “You could have told your dad about Josh.”
“But then he’d still want you dead. And I can’t risk my dad dying. And…”
“And?”
“If I’m being honest, I don’t want you to die either.”
Her admission rocks me to the core. “I don’t want you to die. I don’t want you to be hurt.” I mean it with every part of my being. I’ve never meant anything more.
“So then make sure you never let me get hurt again.”
That’s a promise I’ll try to keep but a part of me is worried I won’t be able to.