Not toward the chair. Not toward the window. Toward me, slow and completely unhurried, and I scramble back against the headboard and I open my mouth to say something devastating and before I can find it he has my wrists. Both of them, caught in one hand, not painful, not threatening, just absolutely inescapable, and he presses them lightly to the mattress beside me and leans in close enough that I can smell his cologne again and see the exact shade of green his eyes are in the low light of the room.
"You're my wife, Little Gia," he says. Quiet. Even. Like he's reminding me of something I've temporarily forgotten. "In my bed. In my house."
He is extremely close. He is so close I can feel the warmth of him and my heart is doing something completely unacceptable and the cardigan was supposed to make me feel shielded and it is doing absolutely nothing, it is a completely useless garment. I want a refund.
I become aware, with a specific and unwelcome clarity, of exactly how close the rest of him is. The weight of him, not quite on me, but near enough. The press of him against the layers of fabric I put on specifically to prevent this exact awareness.
Oh.
Oh no.
I am in so much trouble.
My face is doing something. I can feel it doing something. I make it stop.
"T-Three feet," I say, and my voice comes out even, which is the single greatest achievement of my entire life.
He looks at me.
He looks at my mouth.
He looks back at my eyes.
Oh no.
CHAPTER SIX
GIA
Oh no.
The full-body, heart-in-throat, everything-has-gone-wrong kind face.
He is still looking at my mouth.
Stop looking at my mouth. Look at literally anything else. Look at the ceiling. Look at the wall. Look at the chair where you put my slipper, which by the way you caught without even looking and I haven't forgiven you for it.
"Three feet," I say. It comes out smaller than I intend. "Please."
Something in his expression changes. Something that moves through his eyes quickly, and then his gaze drops, just for asecond, to where his hand is wrapped around both my wrists, and back up to my face.
And I know he sees it.
I know because I can feel it on my own face, the thing I cannot keep off it in this specific moment. The fear sitting underneath the attraction sitting underneath the fury, all three running at once and none of them winning. My heart is beating too fast. My breathing has gone shallow. I am pressed against a headboard in a room I don't know with a man I married a handful of hours ago and my body cannot decide whether it wants to lean in or get out.
He sees all of it.
His hand opens.
Just like that. No pause, no hesitation, no making me ask twice. He releases my wrists and straightens up and takes one full step back from the bed, and the sudden distance hits me like cold air through an open window.
I breathe.
He looks at me with something level and steady that I don't have a name for yet.
"I'm not going to force you," he says. Flat. Factual. "I don't do that."
I look at him.
