Her voice dropped even lower. “Yes.”
“How long were you with him?”
“Not long.”
“How long is not long?”
She gave an unexpected laugh, her face lighting with a beguiling mix of amusement and sadness. “So not long that it makes all your past relationships look like marathons.”
“Who was it with?” he asked in the same casual tone, even though the beats of his heart had grown weighty. “Anyone I know?”
“No.”
He didn’t know if he was relieved or not when she failed to elaborate. Tommaso had never been the jealous type, had never cared about the sex life of past lovers. But none of those past lovers had been Gabriella. None of them had elicited a fraction of the desire or anger she so effortlessly drew out of him. Or a fraction of whatever it was that had compelled him to wrap her in a towel and compelled him to continue drying her hair.
Inhaling deeply through his nose to drive out the feelings swelling in his chest, he started rubbing dry the last segment of her glorious dark chestnut hair. “I can understand why you would not have felt comfortable discussing something so personal with a fleeting lover, but that’s not what I am. I’m your husband.”
Chin wobbling, her eyes closed. “If you were my husband, Masino, I wouldn’t be locked away from the world. I wouldn’t be reliant on your goodwill and charity for personal necessities.”
It was the first time she’d called him Masino since he’d forced her to choose between life and death.
“Gabba…” He swore under his breath and put the towel he’d been using on the floor. Placing a finger beneath her chin, he waited until she’d opened her eyes to quietly say, “You know this is how it’s got to be. I can’t let you walk around with all the freedom in the world. This is the deal we made and the deal I made with my family to keep you alive.”
Now her lips were trembling too, her eyes refilling with tears. “I know.”
“Then know this – I will never withhold anything that you need.” Skimming his fingers over her cheekbones, he dove them into her hair and brought his face to hers. “I can’t give you your freedom, Gabba, but anything else you want that it’s in my power to give, tell me, and I will make it happen.”
Her plump lips trembling harder than ever, he did the only thing that made any sense and kissed them.
Chapter Eleven
The shockof Tommaso’s kiss ran through her entire body. Gabriella couldn’t move. It was like every single atom that made her had been stunned into paralysis. Her senses, though…
They were whirling.
Tommaso’s mouth was caressing hers, and sweet heaven, she could feel the sensations in all her paralysed atoms. Not just the sensations from his mouth, but from the soft bristles of his beard tickling her skin and the gentle massage of his fingers on the back of her head.
With silent, insidious tenderness, he coaxed her lips apart, and their breaths wove together for the very first time.
For the tiniest of beats, they both stilled. Gabriella’s heart was on fire, and when Tommaso’s tongue slid slowly into her mouth, her nerve endings caught fire too. Her bones melting, the taste of his breath and the musk of his skin infused into her dancing senses. A whimper danced from her throat. Winding an arm around his neck, she met his silken tongue, heard the guttural groan of reaction a beat before he broke the fusion and pulled his head back.
More intoxicated than she could have believed it was possible to feel, she gazed into eyes reflecting the fire raging inside her through the lashes of her drunken vision.
His breathing was ragged, jaw clenching and releasing. “I have to go.”
Unable to tear her eyes away from his, incapable of speech, she nodded.
He dragged his fingers through the length of her damp hair and pressed the lightest of kisses to her forehead. “Rest. I’ll be back later.”
Still too stunned to react with anything more than a small nod, she watched him leave the bathroom.
Only when she felt the emptiness she was coming to associate with Tommaso’s absence did Gabriella drag a long breath from her compressed lungs.
She hadn’t wanted him to go, she realised with dim horror.
Almost as terrified of what she was feeling now as to how she’d felt when he’d kissed her, she staggered to her feet. Her legs could have been made from noodles.
The bag he’d left for her contained two varieties of painkillers and enough variety of sanitary wear that it would be impossible not to find something suitable.
