And I do. I come harder than I have in months, maybe years, gasping into the air as Axel works me through it with steady, practiced strokes. I spill over my stomach.
“Better?” he asks, his voice casual, like what we did was completely normal.
“Yeah,” I manage.
He chuckles softly, then turns away from me. He comes back with some tissue paper. He pats my stomach carefully, the touch oddly tender, then tosses the paper to the side, and curls beside me. “Go to sleep.”
Within a minute, his breathing evens out: he’s asleep. Just like that. Like he didn’t just take my entire understanding of our relationship and throw it off the bed along with my boxer briefs.
I stare at the ceiling until my pulse stops racing. Maybe the oxytocin and prolactin are doing their thing, just like Axel said.
I remember Axel’s hand on methere.His voice lingers in my mind:I could never hate you. Not really.
I smile.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Enzo
I’m naked. Why am I naked?
I sit up in an unfamiliar room, my gaze catching on pajama bottoms and boxer briefs crumpled on the floor—and then I remember last night.
Axel touched me. He jerked me off. I can still feel the ghost of his hand.
Oh, God.
Why did he do that?
I hurriedly put on my pajamas and venture into the kitchen. Bright spring light floods through the windows, sharper than any morning since I arrived in Boston. The rain has stopped. The harbor shimmers in the distance.
“The rain stopped,” I say. Brilliant observation, Bellanti. Really contributing to the conversation.
“Uh-huh.” Axel grins up at me.
Patricia is smiling too. I expected her to look confused—I’m coming out of Axel’s bedroom, and I’m wearing pajamas, but instead she hands me a green smoothie. “Mr. Knight told me you don’t like beets, so I made you one with mangos and spinach.”
“Oh. Thank you, Patricia.”
“Take a seat.” Axel pats the chair next to him. Luca gives me a shy smile.
This is fine.
Maybe I imagined last night. Maybe I dreamed it, which well… is not excellent. I shouldn’t be having sex dreams about the man I’m raising a child with, especially dreams which end with my pajamas on the floor.
It’s not an improvement if I took them off myself while sleeping.
I steal a glance at his face, bracing myself for his regret or embarrassment.
Axel winks.
My face heats. “Have you been up long?”
“Luca was up early,” Patricia says apologetically. “Mr. Knight came to help me.”
Axel clears his throat. “Axel.”
