“Yes,” he agrees calmly. “But I’m not a monster.”
He steps back first.
Hands me a towel, then grabs another for himself, wrapping it around his trim waist without taking his eyes off me. Then he dries me himself without asking.
When we’re both dry, he circles my wrist with one large hand and tugs me after him into the dressing room, where he pulls one of his black T-shirts over my head.
It’s huge, the hem dropping just above my knees and the collar hanging off one shoulder, soft and warm and obscene. His eyes heat up to chocolate fires as he assesses me for several charged seconds before turning to reach for his own attire.
He tugs on lounge pants and leaves his chest bare, water still sliding down muscle and scar and golden skin.
I’m still breathing too hard, still shaking with the displaced adrenaline and encroaching exhaustion when I follow him out of the dressing room, numb and furious and exhausted.
But before we reach the door, he stops, yanks open a drawer. I see an insane amount of perfectly coiled ties and even an array of bow ties pristinely laid out.
I have no idea what he’s about to do until he catches one silk tie between his fingers, then nudges the drawer shut with his hip.
Then my breath stutters as pennies drop. “What’s that tie for?”
We’re halfway across the bedroom, heading for the bed, before he meets my eyes. “What do you think?”
My pulse spikes. “No?—”
“Oh yes. We sleep in the same bed,” he says softly, stepping closer, wrapping the tie loosely around his fingers. “And I’m binding you to me, because at some point I’m going to think I’m a fool for letting you keep trying to disappear.”
I swallow hard.
“And trust me,dragunidda,” he murmurs, looping the silk gently around my wrist, “I am no fool.”
Then, as I’m grappling with the effect of his warm wrist slapped against mine, he scoops me up again and carries me the rest of the way to bed, tosses me down and watches me bounce with nostrils flared and abs tighter than ever.
A predator holding himself in ferocious control despite everything testing his resolve. Heart bouncing between chest and throat, I watch him plant one knee on the bed, then the other.
Giovanni snaps the tie and the sound is like a horsewhip on flesh, absolutely just how he intended. He ignores my glare and lays down next to my upright form. “Lie down, Lucia. Don’t make me say this again.”
My body obeys before my brain thinks to protest, my breath punching out when he yanks me closer, my back to his front. Heat from his chest permeates the T-shirt, offering delicious warmth I struggle not to moan at.
And while I’m grappling with being this close to Giovanni in bed after almost eighteen months, he expertly binds our hands together. Not tight enough to hurt, yet not loose enough to escape.
I stare in stupefaction at the tight knot that I know will be near-impossible to undo without waking him, my breath catching all over again when he pulls me even closer and tugs the thick comforter over both of us.
“Sleep,” he orders quietly. “Or I will think of other, much more pleasurable and long overdue ways to occupy your time, and mine.”
With a crisp instruction, the voice-active lamps are doused.
I stare into the darkness knowing there’s no universe in which I should be able to sleep like this.
Not with my husband’s hot, muscled body pressed against mine and with fury still burning like comets through my veins.
Not with my life hanging in the balance out there in a world ruled by powerful, ruthless men.
And definitely not when my own skin feels too hot, too sensitive, too… everything.
And yet.
Somehow. Miracles of miracles.
I do.
