I wished for a magical glass jar.
I wished I could lasso the full moon over the groves.
I wished to take the night and the moon and all of the laughter and the warm weather and bottle it up for as long as I lived. And then after I died, escape to it as my heaven.
It was mine. It was his. Ours.
The only disturbance was Harrison’s arrival and that Gigi character’s presence. I was told that Harrison wasn’t coming, and given the circumstances, I thought it was best. He hadn’t showed up at the church, but he decided to crash the reception, in a way.
Harrison asked me to dance, and I did, but reluctantly. I didn’t want an issue. I had never had a perfect night before, much less day, and this was coming damn close to it.
“You look beautiful, Strings,” he said, moving me, but in a way that was different from Capo. With Harrison our moves felt familiar, brotherly. With Capo, I couldn’t still my heart or the butterflies. “Are you happy?”
I looked up at him. “I am, Harrison. I really am.”
“For now,” he said.
I went to remove myself from his hold, but he refused to let me go. “Don’t do this,” I pleaded, keeping my voice low.
He watched me for a moment and then leaned down to kiss my cheek. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the hurt in his.
“If you say you’re happy, I’m happy. But when he hurts you beyond repair, I’ll be waiting to take you home. Remember that, Mari.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand, Harrison. It’s not that simple. I’m in—” Whatever words were about to pour out of my mouth stopped right before they did. It was none of his business anyway. “I’m where I belong.”
Capo cut in then, taking me from Harrison’s arms. I could tell Capo was irritated. When he said he didn’t share, he meant it. I knew he was trying to give me what I wanted, the people I considered my family at my side, but there was no patching what had happened at Harrison’s house. And I didn’t miss the intense looks Capo gave Keely’s Mam.
When she had made a comment about how close he was to his family, he gave her the definition of family, and then tacked on at the end, “People who are there for you through thick and thin, not only blood.If they’re neither one of those, they mean nothing.”I got the feeling he was telling her that she meant nothing. Whatever his issue was with her, I hoped it wouldn’t come between Keely and me. There was already an issue with Harrison.
After Uncle Tito cut in on Capo, I watched as Gigi took the opportunity to dance with him. She fit with him. Silky black hair. Razor sharp features. Feline-shaped eyes. She wasn’t tall, but she was built, curves in all of the right places. Her lips were usually siren red. When Capo caught me staring, I turned away and back to my dance with Uncle Tito.
I decided not to give her room in my head. Capo had married me. We had an agreement, and no matter how much history existed between them, because I could tell there was, we had agreed to be exclusive.
Why does it burn me up that she’s that close to him, though? That he might think she’s prettier than me?
Scarlett saved me from the maddening thoughts. A fast song replaced the one we’d been dancing to, and she pulled me further onto the dance floor. Surrounded by all of the women from girl’s night, we kept time to the beat.
My skin was slick with sweat, my cheeks burning from the strain of smiling so much, and for the first time in my entire life, I was thankful for hurt feet. I had danced so much that my arches were killing me.
Capo took me to the side, set me down on a bench under a grape arbor, and sat next to me. He took my heels off, placed them on the ground, and then started to massage my feet. I closed my eyes, making noises that were indecent, but it felt so good, I didn’t even care. At his touch, the ache seemed to melt.
“It’s nice to have a friend,” I said with a smile, “who has good hands.”
“Good hands, ah?” I couldn’t see him, but I could tell he was grinning. “It’s nice to have a friend,” he said and pressed even harder, making me moan softly, “who reacts the way you do when I touch you.”
“Friends are not supposed to make friends make embarrassing noises.” Then I exploded with laughter at my lame attempt at a joke.
A second later it faded when Capo leaned forward, took me by the back of the head, and pressed his lips to mine. My hands ran up his chest slowly, to his shoulders, and I tried to pull him even closer.
I was starved for something that ruled me.
His tongue twirled with mine, slow and soft at first, but when I opened up to him, he became rough, demanding, our mouths at war. My attraction to him was out to destroy me. When he kissed me, I lost all sense of myself and somehow faded into him. Nothing, not a damn thing, mattered.
Scarlett had once told us at girl’s night that people in ancient times believed that when you kissed, you lost your soul. There was more to it than that, but that was the gist of it.
The more Capo kissed me, the more I lost a vital part of myself to him.
I was once willing to trade a kidney for a piece of steak. I was willing to trade something that helped my body run properly for something that would feed my need for life.
