He nodded.
My breath came shallower with the way he was looking at me. The thought of telling him about Iggy forced me to move away from him. He snatched my wrist and only allowed me to go so far. I turned back and looked at him. He pointed to his lips. I grinned and leaned in for a kiss. Although he released my wrist after, his power seemed to cling to me, always around me.
It did not take him long to leave his work and meet me in the private suite.
His custom-made suit hung from the doorway, my formal dress next to it.
We were, no doubt, headed back to Italy.
The plane shook with turbulence. The lights flickered.
My husband’s fine frame blocked the doorway, the glass of whiskey I made him glowing amber in his hand. “You said the magical word.” He took a deep drink of the glowing liquid, and it glistened on his lips. “Bed.”
My body craved the taste of it from his mouth. I longed to lick it from his lip. Taste the fire of it from his tongue.
Iggy.
The fire beginning to rise inside of me was doused by the equivalent of cold water.
Iggy.
I huffed. “Bed. Floor. Wall. Bedroom. Kitchen. Bathroom. A magical cave in Fiji. Our cabin in Wyoming, or our ranch in Grosseto.” I waved a dismissive hand, and he caught it. His eyes peered down into mine. “It does not matter where we are.”
“As long as we’re fucking alone.” He rolled his teeth over his bottom lip. “No one seesmywife. No one hears what is mine alone.” He hit a hand over his chest.
Our eyes held until I looked away.
I felt his warmth next to me, although the bed did not move. I set my hand over his, entwining our fingers. I looked down when I noticed in my peripheral vision that he was holding something out for me. His infamous book.
My eyes flew to his.
He nodded at it. “I was going to burn it, turn my past to ash. There was something inside I wanted you to see, though.”
My hands trembled from the anxiety of telling him about Iggy.
Now this.
The book was filled with numbers. Numbers, no names. A lot of numbers. I lifted it.
“This the only one like this?”
“No,” he said. “Those I did burn.”
“I see,” I breathed out. I was not sure where to put all these rampant feelings exploding across my chest like a herd of elephants, except the herd was running from me—I had turned into a jealous lioness on the hunt for carnage. I stood abruptly from the bed, and he went to touch me, but I put a hand up. “A minute.”
“Away from me,” he said.
“Away…” I could not even form a coherent sentence. Perhaps this would make it easier to crush him with the meeting with Iggy. Burn for burn.
“Look beside the numbers,” he said.
“I do not want to look at the numbers!” I shouted.
“Fucking look at the numbers, Sistine.”
I opened the book, reading the numbers out loud rather childishly. “Which page in this book of conquests do you want me to start on? The middle? What is that? Page one thousand?”
“There are not that many pages,” he said.
