Golia grunted.
In the entirety of my life, I had maybe heard him say a dozen words. Every Made Man of the Morelli Famiglia understood those grunts, deciphering the meaning from the sounds. We didn’t treat him as any less human for it.
“Thank you, Golia. You’re dismissed.” As I set my things on the kitchen counter, the giant lumbered to the door, grunted twice, and left.
A smile twitched at my lips. I wondered what my wife thought of her bodyguard.
Since there was nowhere else for her to hide, I crept to the bedroom. A soft meow greeted me. Bianco rubbed against my leg before trotting to the sofa to take his evening snooze. But my other boy? The grey one.
He was curled in Amanda’s arms, watching me with a fierce glint in those emerald eyes.
I stripped to my boxers, stepping into the bathroom to wash my hands before pulling back the covers. The fitted material of the shorts tightened around my thighs as my dick twitched eagerly at the sight of her slumbering form.
I drank her in.
Amanda was sleeping, well and truly asleep. No medication buried her in a pool of unconsciousness. I hated to disturb her. After shutting off the kitchen light, I tucked my gun under the pillow and eased my weight onto the bed.
Resisting her was an impossible fight. I curled on my side, fisting my hands to my chest to keep from reaching out. She hadn’t invited me back, but I’d stayed away as long as I could. After battling fear on the streets, there was only one place I could go.
One place where I felt truly safe.
Tomorrow, I would apologize for returning before she summoned me. For tonight, I needed to hold her. To pretend that she was mine.
She wasn’t. Not truly. Not in the ways that mattered. Yes, her body responded with a fierce passion to me. I just gave her what her body needed in those moments. And while she might still thirst for that release, I craved her choice. She needed to want me as badly as I wanted her. Because I did.
Per sempre.
After our rushed disaster of a wedding, I used every opportunity to give her space to adjust. Fate, it seemed, had other plans. That fickle fiend forced us together, over and over. I dealt with the changes as best I could. And truth be told, I was glad to be the one who could keep her safe. Be her rock. When I came back from prison with every intention of destroying her father, I never planned to destroy her world—but other forces did that anyhow. Which made it more important to have her desire freely given. No tricks. No playing on her body’s carnal desire. Having her truly want me would be the ultimate victory, and that required self-sacrifice.So, I lay there as she slept, drinking her in from the short distance, resisting the urge to touch my beautiful wife.
Maybe I would be able to sneak out before she woke up. Then she wouldn’t know I’d been weak. That I couldn’t do the one thing that I said and stay away.
Chapter 42 –Amanda
Rough pads kneaded my cheek. Sleepily, I pushed the ball of fur to the side. But Grigio was done cuddling. With a strangled yowl, he leapt over me and vanished to wherever he needed to go. Maybe my insomnia just needed a cuddle partner.
Or maybe you needed to cut your hours in half….
I huffed to myself. It was the middle of the week. There were no emails, urgent or otherwise, when I checked my phone. The automatic response to checking the damn thing still made my fingers twitch. While having no to-do list was nice, and while I was enjoying the break from the endless documents, time-consuming meetings, and general rush of being a high powered lawyer, I knew it was going to drive me to insanity having nothing to make me leave the bed.
There wasn’t even the problem my father created by going into debt with a warlord. That was all being handled, and the strict instructions I’d been given were to stand down.
Me.
Stand down.
I tugged the blanket, ordering myself to snooze for ten more minutes before getting out of bed and finding something useful to do. Most people enjoyed free time. To me, it could lead to depression and other destructive behaviors. I might need rest and a mental break, but I also needed stimulation and purpose.
A complicated balance.
The blanket didn’t budge.
I was about to curse the cat for snagging the blanket when a deep sigh preceded the bed dipping. I froze. Common sense laughed that a cat couldn’t keep the blanket away…but a fully grown man could. The realization of how warm it was spread through me. That body heat wasn’t coming from me.
I cracked my eyes, but the blackout curtains didn’t reveal the outline of hard muscle I knew was there. Sliding my palm across the mattress, I flinched when I felt hot skin.
Vincenzo burned.
Once, long ago, I loved snuggling in the protective orb of that heat. I joked that we could keep the windows open all winter, and I’d still wake up toasty. Those were the days he’d snuck into my room, leaving before the sun was up.
