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He purses his lips.
A victorious smile curves my lips. “Thought so.”
“I don’t have to be arrested to imagine what it’s like.”
It’s hard to hold that smile when my mouth is so stiff from the effort. “You can’t imagine feelings you’ll never know.”
“You’re right.” His manner is demure. “I’ve never set foot in an interrogation room.”
“Then you can’t have any idea what it’s like to strip naked, to bend over, and to be examined by a stranger in parts too private for strangers to see. You can’t know what it’s like to be chained to a table and the floor in a room for hours. You don’t know how it feels to be so cold that the pain in your hands and feet becomes needles under your skin.”
The violence that flows so shallowly under the surface of the man who’s now my husband surfaces in the rage that contorts his features. In contrast, his voice is calm as he reaches for me again. “Then tell me.”
“Don’t touch me,” I cry out, trying to flee, but the bathroom is too small.
He easily catches me in the tender vise of his arms, breathing soft, insistent words in my neck. “Tell me.”
I fight his hold, not wanting his comfort. Not wanting him to be nice to me. Because this part of Angelo? I don’t trust it. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how he can be so cruel the one moment and so kind the next.
He gives me gentle words again. A cruel command. “Tell me,cara.”
The emotions that have been building since he walked into the church and married me at gunpoint reach a breaking point. My earlier meltdown after I pulled the trigger was about something different, about who I am deep inside, about not wanting to look at that woman too closely for fear of what I’ll find. Now? It all comes pouring out in a pathetic display of anger as I fight him for all I’m worth, flailing my arms and twisting in his hold to free myself. Because I’m too ashamed to admit what I feel.
“Tell me,” he says, pinning my arms to my sides and lifting me off my feet.
The helplessness only makes the anger worse. It spills over my lips in a truthful confession I never intended to give him. “It feels dirty,” I yell. “Like my body has been invaded.”
He stills. Another breath tickles my temple, disturbing wisps of hair. The only sound in the room is the water running in the shower. My shame is flayed open and laid at my enemy’s feet.
Carefully, he lowers me to the floor, but he doesn’t let me go when my toes touch the ground. He holds me against him, hugging me while the storm inside me does its damage, until my shivering stops and my body goes still.
“Sabella,” he says with something close to a growl. “I’ll fucking kill them.”
“Just stop saying that.” My shoulders sag. “Please.”
The storm wreaked its havoc. The aftermath is a quiet landscape of brutal devastation. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Not in one day. Not even a lifetime is enough.
Angelo is a man of contrasts. True to his nature, he gives me one wish while denying me the other. He doesn’t speak of killing any longer. Instead, he undresses me, not granting me the luxury of privacy.
He takes off his own clothes and carries me into the shower. Like the night I first gave myself to him, he cleans me, washing away the touch of unfamiliar hands. The humiliation. He wipes away my thoughts and replaces them with physical feelings, forcing me to focus on nothing but pleasure as he slides inside me slowly under a cascade of cleansing water. The rock of his hips is gentle. His grip in my hair is hard. The look in his eyes is fierce as he holds me in place, his gaze fixed on my face as he makes love to me.
The steel grip of his fingers is painful around my wrist as he pushes my hand between my legs. He holds it there, setting the pace while making me use my own fingers to rub my clit. I place the palm of my free hand over the black ink on his chest. His heart is the same color inside, yet it beats strongly under warm flesh. Sometimes, when I touch that picture, I expect it to feel differently—cold and dead.
When I come, he releases my arm and wraps a hand around my neck to hold me against the wall while he kisses me. His lips are warm and soft on mine, wet with drops of water. The kiss is tender and urgent at the same time, demanding all my attention. He grunts into the kiss and punches his groin against mine like he does when he finds his release. He’s still pumping inside me while tangling our tongues with his eyes wide open long after the spasms have rippled out.
Both the sex and the aftermath are different than before. Surprisingly, this gentleness takes everything from me. It’s not a punishment that requires resistance and pulling up walls around my heart. It allows me to let go. In its wake follows an overpowering knowledge that I’m ruined for other men.
The admission isn’t new. It’s just never stared me with so much finality in the face.
I lean on the wall, letting it hold my weight when he pulls out. Letting him wash between my legs. The earlier feelings are gone, someone else’s clinical touch eradicated by his heated gaze and meticulous passion.
He turns off the water and wraps a towel around me before securing one around his waist. I know the routine. He dries me first before taking care of himself. We’re silent, absorbed in our own thoughts as he towels his hair dry and I brush mine.
Back in the bedroom, I’m grateful for the warm, comfortable pajama set he takes out of one of the bags. It still has the price tag on.
“Where did you get all of this?” I ask, motioning at the rest of the women’s clothes in the bag.
He drops the towel and takes a pair of pajama bottoms from the other bag. “Personal shopper.”
