Hours later, after we’d showered and dined with Evie on our suite’s private terrace, he took me to bed again. And as we lay together, exhausted, his hard chest pressed against my back, his hands stroking the mound of my pregnancy, the baby kicked.
‘Il bambinois restless tonight,’ he murmured against my hair.
‘I think maybe you woke him up, Mr Insatiable,’ I announced, loving his deep chuckle of response.
‘I think maybe he is concerned that his mother is not fully mine yet…’
It took me a moment to make sense of the rumbled words through the endorphin haze, but when the meaning of them registered, I heard the regret in his tone, as well as the demand.
I shifted around so I could see Vito’s face in the moonlight coming through the terrace doors. ‘What do you mean, Vito? You know I’m yours, always.’
He clasped my cheek to brush my sweaty hair back from my face.
‘We must be married, Mia, for you to truly be mine always.’
I stared at him, not sure what to say.
It wasn’t the first time he’d demanded I marry him. But I’d put him off, not because I wasn’t sure about him or about my love for him, but because I knew we both had a lot on our plates at the moment. He was still figuring out how to deal with Dante and end the blood feud his father had started so long ago, and I was concentrating on the birth of our baby. A wedding on top of that seemed like too much.
‘Vito, I…’
He pressed his finger to my lips. ‘Do not tell me no again, Mia.’
I shook off his finger, not liking that dictatorial tone of voice. ‘I didn’t tell you no. I just said we should wait until…’
‘If this is about a wedding,’ he interrupted me, ‘that can wait until you are ready, but I want to declare you as my wife, Mia. In front of man and God, before the baby arrives, and we are running out of time.’ His hand slid down to my belly to stroke the distended flesh, his thumb cruising along the line which had appeared bisecting my belly button. ‘I brought a priest with me from Rome for us to exchange our vows tomorrow night.’
I sat up in bed, frowning, the prickle of irritation growing that he wasn’t giving me a choice, that he was pressuring me. ‘So, are youaskingme to marry you, ortellingme, Vito?’ I demanded.
He sat up too, but instead of meeting my anger with anger of his own, he clasped my neck to drag me to him. He covered my mouth with his, stifling any more protests. The kiss was deep, demanding, forceful, and as possessive as always, but when he dragged his lips away, leaving us both panting, both aching, he pressed his forehead to mine and rested his hand on my belly.
‘If you are truly mine, Mia, why is this wrong?’
The gently asked question and the confusion on his face were my undoing. And all my objections dissolved in a rush of pure, unadulterated love.
Tears scalded my eyes. And my bottom lip began to quiver. ‘I guess…it isn’t,’ I managed, conceding defeat, even as joy wrapped around my heart. ‘I want to be yours, always. Let’s make it official.’
‘Brava ragazza,’ he murmured, a sensual smile making my heart pulse hard in my chest. He kissed me again, licking the tears off my cheeks, then wrapped his arms around me to lift me against his broad chest and hold me tight.
The next evening, we were married in front of Evie and Lorenzo and several of his other men, while the household staff arranged a feast for everyone.
I said my vows in my faltering Italian, and then the priest—who I suspected Vito had probably strong-armed from Rome—blessed us both.
Later that night, Vito sealed our union by taking me in slow, sensual waves, rocking into my body again and again, filling my heart and soul to bursting as he brought us both to a shattering orgasm.
I was a mafia don’s wife, and I couldn’t have been happier.
Vito
Three hours later
The sound of banging had me waking up too fast, shattering the blissful dreams of Mia, my wife.
‘Shhh…’ I heard her stir beside me.
I threw off the bed sheet and stalked through the suite, ready to eviscerate whoever the hell it was hammering on the door. But when I tugged it open, Lorenzo stood there with a machine gun in his hands, his eyes wild.
‘What the hell is going on that you would disturb our wedding night?’ I demanded.
