Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“We’ll leave it to dry now,” I said. “Good job, everyone!”
Camilla wiped her hands on her shirt, which was already lost to paint, and slipped her hand into mine. The other one she offered to Matteo.
Late at night, I found my husband looking at himself in the mirror.
The bathroom light was the only one still on. Camilla was asleep down the hall in a temporary room while hers dried
Matteo stood at the sink without his shirt. The black-and-gold cane was hooked on the towel bar like he didn’t want it in the reflection. His weight was off the bad knee. I could see it in the line of his hip, in the way he held himself.
He was staring at his own leg like it had betrayed him.
I stopped in the doorway. I didn’t speak at first. I had learned that with him: if I rushed the silence, he put the mask back on.
He saw me. His eyes lifted to mine in the glass.
“You should be asleep,” he said.
“So should you.”
His mouth moved like he might make a joke of it. Nothing came out. He looked down again, at the scarred skin.
I stepped closer until I could see the faint rust-colored smear he’d missed at his wrist. Old habit. Violence coming home on his cuffs.
He exhaled through his nose. The sound was sharp. “You chose me when I could pin you to a wall and not shake doing it. You don’t have to stay kind about the version of me now. I would rather you say it.”
“I don’t need a smile I didn’t earn.”
I felt the old heat rise in my throat. Not fear. Frustration. The particular kind that only existed with him.
His jaw flexed. “I think you stayed because I got your sister out. Because I killed the man who hurt her.”
He tapped two fingers against his own thigh, hard enough that I flinched for him “Does this scare you?”
“Matteo… Of course not. Why would it?”
“Don’t.” He shook his head once. “Don’t make it pretty. I can live with a limp. I cannot live with you staying out of pity.”
I crossed the last of the space and put my hand on his chest. His heart was going too fast for a man who claimed he was only being practical.
“I wanted you when I hated you,” I whispered. I slid my palm up to the side of his neck, to the bare place where a collar would have sat on me. “That’s why we’re still married.”
I lifted that hand so he had to see the ring. The stone caught the bathroom light. He stared at the ring. Then at my mouth.
“Say you love me,” he said. Not an order. A test he was terrified to fail.
I stepped in until my hips met his, careful of his balance, not careful of his pride.
“I love you,” I said. His breath left him like he’d been holding it since the clinic.
“If I fall,” he said against my temple, voice raw, “you don’t get to pretend you didn’t see it.”
“Then don’t hide.” I reached past him, took the cane off the towel bar, and put it back in his hand. He closed his fingers around the handle. The gold warmed between us.
I kissed the corner of his mouth. “I chose you.”
He rested his forehead against mine.
“Say it again,” he whispered. “Please.”
“I love you.”
Matteo’s mouth curved, dark and almost smiling. “Say it dirtier. I’ve earned the filth.”
I dragged my nails down his chest. “I want your cock.”
“Fuck,” he breathed. “That’s my girl.”
He kissed me like he’d been starving for permission and just gotten it. His hand fisted in the back of my shirt. The other locked around the cane so hard the gold skull bit his palm. I pressed closer anyway, hip to hip, and felt him, thick and already leaking through his pants.
“Careful,” I whispered against his mouth.
“Don’t.” The word scraped. “Don’t treat me like I’ll break. I can still put you where I want you.”
“Then do it.”
He turned us using the cane the way he used a gun: no wasted motion. My back hit the vanity. He hooked the skull on the sink, both hands free, and lifted me onto the marble like I weighed nothing.
The mirror caught all of it. Me in his shirt. His ring flashing. His ink. The faint pink line on my cheek. The bare place on my throat where a collar used to sit. The hard line of him straining at his zipper.
“Look at us, baby,” he said, voice gone dark. “Don’t you dare look away.”
He shoved the shirt up, mouthed my throat, and sucked a mark on me. His hand shoved my underwear aside and dragged two fingers through me. I was already soaked. He cursed into my skin and pushed those fingers in, curling until my thighs jumped.
His eyes were on the glass, watching his knuckles disappear. “Pregnant. Dripping.”
He pulled his fingers out, shiny, and painted my bottom lip. “Lick.”
I did. He watched me do it in the mirror. His hips jerked. His mouth brushed my ear. He lined up. The head of him kissed my entrance. He didn’t slam home. He made me watch every inch in the glass: the stretch, the way my mouth fell open, the way his jaw locked.
He rolled his hips. Shallow. Mean. The sink bit the backs of my thighs. Every thrust dragged. Every retreat made me clench like I was trying to keep him. One hand braced on the mirror beside my head. The other found my clit and rubbed tight, filthy circles in time with his hips.
“Good girl. I can tell that pussy missed me,” he smirked. “Fuck.”
He drove in harder. The marble was cold. He was not. His thumb pressed my clit and didn’t let up.
“Come on my cock,” he said against my temple. “Now. I want to feel it. I want you shaking on this counter with my name in your mouth and my ring on your hand while you watch yourself drip down my balls.”
I pulsed around him in helpless little pulls, eyes locked on the mirror, watching my own face go slack while he kept rubbing, kept fucking me through it, kept whispering that’s my girl, that’s my girl, take it.
He followed with a groan he buried in my hair, hips stuttering, spilling hot and deep, so much I felt it fill me.