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I bite my lip because his words make his intent extremely clear. If that wasn’t enough. His hand moves up my thigh. His fingers drape over the inside of my leg until his thumb is pushing into my thigh and his index and middle finger are brushing against my center. I feel wet between my legs, know it’s pooling in my panties and against my skin and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
“Marco.”
Wow. Was that my voice sounding like that?
I thought before I sounded different, but now my voice sounds as if I’d just had a three hour work out with my vibrator and was still hungry for more.
“I like that, sweetheart.”
“What?” I ask confused.
“The way you say my name when you’re turned on. I’ve missed it.”
Oh God.
“That’s because you gave us a taste of what we both wanted and then you pulled a Marco, ending that,” I snap, finding my anger again and holding onto it for dear life.
“Pulled a Marco?” he asks mildly, cocking an eyebrow up as he brings my wine glass back to my lips.
“I can do that myself, you know,” I huff.
“I know. I like doing it. Now, what is this pulled a Marco?”
“Disappeared again. It’s your modus operandi. You give me just enough to keep me hanging on, hoping things will get better and then, they get worse.” I should have stopped there. I know I should have, but instead, I open my mouth to keep explaining. Stupid me. “In doing this, you also continually prove I’m an idiot, because I keep falling for it. I keep doing it, hoping I see what I saw when I was little,” I mutter.
“What did you see, Ena?”
Shit. Stupid, stupid, me.
“It’s not important. Can I go back to my seat now. People are staring at us and our food will be out soon.”
“I want you where you are. I’ll feed you.”
He’ll feed me? Have I entered a twilight zone?
“I’d rather feed myself,” I counter.
“We’re in a public restaurant, Marco.” Telling him something he already knows.
“So?”
So? “Do you see other people in here feeding their dates, Marco?”
“I haven’t looked. As always when you are around, sweetheart, everyone else disappears.”
Damn it. I hate when he delivers lines like that. Mostly because I know they’re lines, but I like them—a lot.
“Then, look around,” I invited with a wave of my hand. “Everyone is staring at us. There are rules you should follow in public, Marco.”
His face lost its playfulness—and yes, that’s exactly the type of expression he had since he began holding me. Then, he sighed and what he did left me speechless. I wasn’t sure, but I think I was speechless, because for the first time ever, I got the complete truth out of Marco Stratakis.
“Helena, I’ve spent twenty-two years of my life, living under my father’s thumb, eating shit, obeying every fucking thing he said. I did that to protect my sister. Now that the motherfucker is feeding the worms and my sister is safe, I’m done with following the rules. I don’t care who makes the rules, I’m not abiding by them. What I am going to do is do whatever the fuck I want—when I want. Right now, that means, I’m holding my woman, I’m feeding her and I’m doing that while she’s in my arms because it makes me happy.”
Wow.
Okay there’s a lot to take in with that. I just don’t know how to process it. What I did know is I liked Marco calling me his woman. That goes in the definite positive column. On that note, it seemed everything he said was because he wanted it. I mean, it was hot, but definitely kind of in the vicinity of the negative column.
With that in mind, I found I needed that answer. I brought my hand up to touch his cheek and I let the pad of my thumb brush against the skin there. “Is it always about you, Marco?”
He frowns. “What are you asking, sweetheart?”
“What if it’s something I want?”
“What do you want?”
“Well, for starters, I think I’d be more comfortable sitting in my chair instead of your lap. While we’re in a restaurant.”
“I’d be willing to barter,” he murmurs.
Something about the way he’s looking at me, makes me feel warm all over. I clear my throat. “Barter?”
“If I let you go to your seat for dinner instead of getting the pleasure of feeding you, then when we get home, you sleep in my bed.”
My body jerks. Of everything he could have said, that was not what I was expecting.
“You did not just say that.”
“I did. The choice is yours, sweetheart.”
“We are not sleeping together. I barely know you,” I argue, even though there was a big part of me that wanted to say yes—craved to be in his bed. Still, there’s a reason I wanted out of this marriage. I didn’t want to be the woman who was ignored by her husband. The more I saw Melina with her Antonio, the more I knew what I wanted. I wanted a man who would stop at nothing to save me. I don’t want a man who knows I’ve been kidnapped, gets on the plane, and barely pays attention to me. I know his sister had been in danger and his brother was shot, but still, if I was important to him, shouldn’t he have come to me?
