Mimi let the moment stretch, wary of pressing further but wanting to know.
He rubbed a long finger over his temple, his hesitation crystal clear. “Massimo got into trouble with some rival fraternity club at uni and ended up in jail.”
Her mouth fell open, and she snapped it shut. “Is he okay? Did you get him out?”
“Not the first night, no.”
“Oh.” She frowned, confused. “Pia used to go on about how powerful your family was. Which I now realize is mostly you. But you weren’t able to get him released?”
A half smile touched his lips but didn’t reach his eyes. At least the reason behind his brooding was partly clear. “Pia was right. I slogged to build up the DiCarlo name to what it used to be during my grandfather’s reign. But Massimo, like my father, has gotten used to that privilege far too much. From everything I learned, he was the one who started that fight after several warnings from the provost. Beating someone up as if he were a street thug…” A vein pulsed in his temple. Exhaustion coated his words when he spoke again. “He deserved to rot in jail for both nights and learn a lesson, but Mama’s tears were endless. I got him out after thirty-six hours.”
Mimi’s stood up suddenly, eager to touch him. She nearly toppled into him before he steadied her with his hands on her hips. “I’m sorry that you had to make such a hard decision,” she said, sitting by him. “But I’m sure it’s for his own good.”
“Such implicit trust, Mimi?” His lips quirked into a tight smile. “Even my own family won’t afford me that. Papa…” the one word dropped into the silence with all the weight of a thousand-pound anchor “…whipped them all into a frenzy about how harsh and ruthless I was growing. Apparently, all this power is going to my head. And Massimo should be forgiven however many mistakes he makes because he’s of the tender age of twenty-two.”
Her heart ached for the sliver of hurt in those words. “I don’t care what they think. But I do trust you, Renzo. Luca’s fortunate to have a father like you. Santo would have loved him, but you will also teach him how to be a good man.”
He looked so stunned that she felt heat creeping into her cheeks. “If I haven’t made that abundantly clear already, I’m sorry.” She tapped his knuckles gently. “Our son is very lucky. As am I, at least temporarily.” She hated adding the last bit but forced herself to. It tasted like dust on her tongue.
He gave a curt nod and again, that tension rolled back in like a relentless cresting wave.
“Will you be gone for more nights?” she asked, trying and failing to not sound like a clingy wife.
“Probably not.” He pushed his hand through his hair, though the movement lacked the usual grace. “But there’s mountains of work to get through, and you seem to—”
“Why do you never lie down fully beside me? Why do you always leave, whatever the time of the night?” She was needling him. And he didn’t deserve it, tonight of all nights. But she couldn’t stop.
Perhaps it was the way the moonlight caught the hard lines of his jaw, or the fact that their little cocoon was gone, and she was stepping into his world. She wanted some token of connection between them before they were swallowed up by the world and even Luca.
The realization both startled and freed her.
He stared at her, as shocked at her questions as she herself was. His mouth worked, as did his Adam’s apple, framed by the white collar of his shirt. Mimi had the most maddening urge to press her mouth there.
“Are you allergic to sleeping by someone?” she taunted him to cover up her own nerves. “Does no woman on the planet get the full Renzo DiCarlo treatment?”
Another half smile and then a roll of those hard shoulders. “You want the truth?”
“Yes, please.” She laced her fingers in her lap. “Whatever it is, I can take it.”
“I didn’t want to make you aware of my…ever-present desire.” Self-deprecation coated each word. “I’m furious with Massimo for having no control over his temper, and yet my body behaves like a teenager around you. After everything you’ve been through these past few months, it feels crass to even hint at what I would like to do to you. Even subconsciously.”
It was the last thing she had expected, and she felt like a floundering fish out of her depth. But they had come this far, and she wasn’t going back. “What do you want to do to me, Renzo?”
His gray eyes flashed with such simmering heat that her belly flip-flopped again. “So that you can call yourself the victor in this battle?”
“What? No. Of course not.” She was so eager to make him understand that she nearly crawled into his lap. “Renzo… I’ve been worried that I was clinging to you and stifling you with my demands and forcing my hands onto your rock-hard abdomen every night. I even wondered if whatever attraction we had before wore off on your side because you saw me give me birth, and then I had to take off points from you for being that shallow. God, all these days…all I wanted was to beg you for just one more kiss, and—”
She got her wish without having to beg.
His soft, cold lips trapped hers in a hard, hot kiss that made a hundred champagne bottles fizz open in her belly. Large hands cupped her hips and easily lifted her until she was sitting sideways in his lap. The shocking evidence of his half-mast erection made her gasp, and he swooped in, tasting, licking every corner of her mouth. As if he meant to plant his flag there and declare it his kingdom.
He cornered the tip of her tongue and sucked at it with such expertise that her toes curled in her pumps. The twin feelings of being tethered to the ground while flying overcame her. She clamped her arm around his shoulders, trying to burrow into him.
“Come, Mimi. Play with me,” he said in that commanding voice that could melt her insides like they were made of chocolate, and she lost the last layer of inhibition.
Sinking her fingers into his hair, Mimi kissed him with all the pent-up desire she had been feeling for months now. Each rub and slide of their lips sent a spark shooting through her, teaching her about her own body’s new contours and fresh needs. The taste of him—whiskey and sin—filled her to overflowing. She felt like a new woman in a new body, even one with a little wear and tear.
For the first time in her life, she was doing what she wanted, without a thought to anyone else’s wishes.
