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“I adore you.”
It’s as close to I love you as you can get, but neither of us is ready for that. At least, I’m not. I could be sooner than I imagined, but not yet.
“Chellie, I haven’t wanted to be in a relationship ever since I realized just what my life means. You’re the only woman I’ve wanted to let into my life since I was a teenager. I dated some women in college, but it always ended before it could get serious. The first hint that they wanted to know more, to become more involved emotionally, I shut down and shut them out. I don’t want to do either of those things with you.”
“Good. I don’t want you to. Just the opposite. What you said about wanting all of me? I won’t settle for less from you.”
He eases me off him until he can roll onto his side and look at me. Then he sits up and hurriedly strips off his shirt.
“Put this on. Seeing you naked is way too tempting and distracting. All I want is to suck your tits and make you come on my cock. We need to have a serious talk, and I can’t do that while you’re like this.”
I grin but take the shirt. I slide it on and am about to lie down.
“Button it.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
I cock an eyebrow, and he pounces. He pushes me onto my back.
“You are two seconds from me fucking you until you’re so sore you can’t think about anything but me inside you for the next week. You’re two seconds from me coming inside you, and once I do — condom or not, birth control or not — you will be mine in a way no woman ever has been. I won’t trap you and refuse to let you go. But I won’t be the one to walk away. The only way to end this once I come inside you is for you to break up with me.”
“Then do that. Four dates is arbitrary and frankly stupid. That’s not what I want. I don’t need four dates, and you clearly don’t need them either. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want to walk away. I only want to get closer and not just physically. I know enough about Laura’s life to know about what I’m getting myself into. I haven’t run from you, Enzo. I’m not going to. You say you won’t let me go, but all you’re doing is holding me away from you. We’ve just been pretty fucking intimate, and you know I mean more than just you fisting me — which dear Lord above was — fuck — so good. I want more. I need more before I can give you more.”
“If that’s what you want, then we definitely need to talk before we go further.”
He sits up, and dread replaces the bliss I felt. When he turns, so he can see me as I sit up, I know whatever is coming is far more serious than I expected.
“Chellie, I don’t know how much of Laura’s life you really know. But I can promise you it’s a fraction of reality. There are things about her marrying into the bratva that you can’t and never will know. If we get more serious, there’s only one reason in my mind. I want us to be us permanently. I know that alone is a lot to digest. If that happens, there are things about my family and our life that no one can ever know. You and Laura can’t bond over similarities. You can’t share them. You can’t tell anyone, which means you’ll keep secrets from your family and friends. It means there are secrets I can’t risk telling you. There are lies I’ll tell you — either by word or omission — because knowing them endangers you, my family, the people who depend on me.”
“And you.”
Shit. This is a lot like what Laura told me right after she got married. I didn’t think she was exaggerating, and I don’t think Enzo is either. But it’s a lot to know I’m taking this on. Not I might. I am.
“Yes. I won’t lie about us, but I will have to lie about work.”
I know what work means. At least, I have a pretty fucking good idea what it is. Drugs, guns, stealing, bribery, extortion, killing. How the fuck am I okay with this? When I think about the actual things he must do, I should be appalled. I should run. I should call the cops or the feds. I can reconcile myself to it. Is it because bad guys deal with bad guys? Bad guys — am I five? But what else do I call them? Sociopaths? Psychopaths? I can’t see Enzo as those, and I don’t want to try. Who he is with me is someone different. Who he is with me makes me feel better than I ever have with anyone. Romantic or not.
“Chellie?”
I hear the nervousness. I take his hands in mine.
“Enzo, I won’t ask you to confirm or deny what you do. But you know I must have a good idea. If not from meeting the Kutsenkos, then from watching movies and remembering things from the news. The latter might be exaggerated, but it had to be based on some reality. I don’t want to know the truth about that. I’d rather it be something there that I can accept but am not in the know. I can keep the two parts of you separate even if one overlaps and sometimes has to overshadow the other. I believe to my very core that you will never purposely endanger me. I don’t think you would ever agree to let me get involved in any of it. Just the opposite. It scares me you’d probably die to protect me. I trust you.”
He stares at me for a moment before bringing my hands to his lips. He brushes the softest kisses over my knuckles before kissing my palms. He laces our fingers as our hands rest between us.
“That’s all true. But I need you to understand more. I can never leave this. Not only would it make us targets immediately and leave us undefended, it would make the rest of my family vulnerable. I was born into this and that might mean my children are too. We’ve talked as a family now that Luca has a baby, and none of us — not my parents’ generation or mine — want her or any of our future children involved. But we just don’t know.”
“So, our children.”
That’s a pretty big thing to say.
“If you want the same future as I do, then yes, ours. I’m a shitty Catholic, but I still am one. I won’t have kids without being married, and I won’t get divorced. Carmine’s parents live separate lives, and we’re all happier for it. But they will never divorce.”
“I’m lapsed Lutheran. We’re about as close as you can get to Catholics without being Episcopalians. We accept divorce, but I don’t want one. I won’t have children without being married either. I’m not opposed to it or disapprove of it. I just don’t want that for me. I need to think about whether I can live with knowing our kids could become what you are. I want to say I can, but I need to think about that.”
“That’s fair. Until I met you, I never imagined this would be a conversation I needed to have. Even with my brother, cousin, and friends getting married, I still didn’t think about whether I would be in this position one day. I told you I will lie. Sometimes I will tell you I’m some place I’m not or with someone I’m not or doing something I’m not. Sometimes I just won’t tell you what’s happening, and you’ll hopefully never be any the wiser. You need to know and accept that there are very few things I won’t, can’t, or haven’t already done. I draw the line at women and children. They aren’t part of this business, and we should never drag them into it. Archaic, and just how I want it because of you and my sister and the other women in my family. I also draw the line at infidelity. I will never stray, Chellie. If I commit to you, it’s because you’re the only woman I will ever want. I won’t seduce anyone to get them to do what I won’t. I won’t sleep with someone to get what I want. I will walk away before I have to do that. I won’t betray you.”
The fidelity part is the most adamant he’s been since he started talking. I don’t know his family, but somehow I think that’s a value they uphold. I think he knows that as desperately as that would hurt me, it’s something his family wouldn’t forgive, either. I widen my legs to stretch them beside his and scoot forward. He does the same and lifts mine over his.
