This got their attention. Their pace slowed, or at least quieted, for good.
Scarlett stood straight, her scalding look finding the plane. Every man and woman turned away, pretending to do something else. She went to Carmen and apologized, telling her that Rocco wasn’t usually like that.
My fists clenched at my sides; she was apologizing for his behavior. I let it slide this time, but never again.
“Tell me what you heard,” I said as she slammed the door, locking us in the bedroom again.
“Nothing!”
“I can’t do this tonight, Scarlett.” I pinched the bridge of my noise. “I fucking can’t.”
She looked up, her body warring between desire and the fight. Vibrating, she hummed with emotion like a little bee preparing to battle over its honey.
“You can’t do this?” she said, appalled. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“You won’t touch me!” Her fierce glower turned toward the door for a second. “I know men—”
“You mean you know what kind of man I am.” She didn’t respond. “Who do you think I fucking am? I’m not Rocco. I’m not Everett. Just because we don’t have sex seven times a day doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop wanting you or need it so much that I’ll stray.”
“Hmph!” She turned her nose up and crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up. The gold cross she wore glinted against her skin from the darkness around us.
“Tell me what to do, Scarlett. And I’ll fucking do it. Cut my heart out? Jump out of this airplane? Remove my eyes? What? What do I need to do to prove to you that I’d never hurt you that way? Say the words and I’ll fucking do it.”
“You have needs. And for some reason you won’t…make love to me.”
I took her by the arms, forcing her to look at me. “You are my only need.”
Her body went limp. I took the opportunity to set her on the bed. Taking a seat on the edge of it, I lowered my head, too tired to even keep upright anymore.
“You’re treating me like glass,” she whispered. “I see the way you’ve been looking at me. I know that look, Brando. You’re preparing for something. You put your finger underneath my nose when I’m sleeping to feel my breath. Your hand comes over my heart at night to make sure that it’s still beating. Uncle Tito still wants me to have blood work.”
I shrugged, not sure what else to say.
“Have you—” She scooted closer on her knees, coming to rest her front against my back. She urged me to lose my shirt, and I did, because I knew she wanted to be close. She rested her head against my neck, and a sigh came from my mouth. “Have you been having dreams,mio angelo?”
“Yeah.”
Her tears ran down my back, fresh and warm. “Our connection is stretching to the point,” she said, her voice small, hardly audible over the sounds of the plane, “where the thinness of it makes my heart speed and my stomach feel hollow. It’s always been so—thick. Like blood. Even when we were apart, it was there, asleep in my veins. Now…” She held on to me tighter. “I could be a ribbon, holding on to the wing of this plane by a thread.”
Icould be.
“Tell me if what you feel has to do with me,” I said, already knowing the answer.
“No. It’s different. I don’t know what it is. I’m scared because I don’t want to lose you. It makes no sense, which scares me even more.”
She loved me so damn much that she never took the time to consider that she could be losing herself.
“You’re mine to love and to protect, to shield with my body. If I could carry you inside of me, I would, just to keep you safe.” She flinched at the words. I kept still, commanding her thoughts with sheer force of will. “I’ll never leave your side. You’ll never leave mine. Do you hear me?”
She nodded, the tears coming faster.
“Riccardo told Donato that you were sore and not yourself during practice. After the night at the opera.”
“Donato spoke to—”
“The bruise on your stomach.”
