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“Your lips are frozen blue, Bella.”
Another foot lifts, coming down slowly.
He starts to remove his puffer jacket. I shake my head ‘no.’
“Sweets, you’re shivering so much. Can you confirm if you want me to place the jacket over you or not?”
While my teeth dance and chatter together, I’m incapable of a reply.
Santino stops walking, no longer following my lead. Damn, I’ve hit an imaginary brick wall.
“Gina, I’ll take that as you’d like some help.”
His arm settles beneath my ass, and he scoops me up. Limbs like a popsicle, I rigidly hold formation as he takes less than ten gigantic steps back into the cabin.
“Bella, you’re colder than ice.” He pulls me around until he’s cradling me. My frame’s inflexible against his, half-frozen over, half fighting contact. Santino’s palm at my back drives the first bit of warmth into me. But his physique is the hot stone I’d craved. Yearning washes over me. I melt into him.
While I’m vibrating with chill, he comes to the rug before the fire, holding me tight. He squeezes so hard, controlling the spasms as if keeping me from falling apart.
Santino strips from his jacket. I expect another layer to surround me over the ridiculous makeshift curtain. It doesn’t. Instead, he’s out of his shirt and now muttering about unwrapping me. The cloth is pitched behind him. Then the flannel jacket.
I finally spit a command, “St-stop!”
Once we’re both naked, Santino’s body planks over mine. The shakes are dying slowly.
“Santi, let me go.”
“I said your fucking lips were purple. Shut your mouth for once, Bella.” His hands slide over my frame, smoothing and heating. “I don’t want anyone else to kiss these rebellious lips or hold you in their arms.”
“I ha . . . hate . . .”
“You fit perfectly against me. Your body belongs to me. My arms are warming you, bringing you back to life, Bella,” he drones in Italian. “I don’t want anyone else in your heart.”
I let out an audible sigh of relief; then instantly tears wash over my cheeks. This rush that I feel unfolded in his safe arms hurts. We could lay for hours, him holding me and my soul gaining comfort in the quiet between us. The thin shield of his boxers and my cotton panties is the only thing keeping me from fully breaking.Breakingdown. Relenting. Letting him back in.
Santino clamps my face, his cock stirring between us. He purrs, “Look at me.”
“Why? So, my heart swells and my entire body warms over? I’ll smile in a way that only you can make me. Then I’ll recall how you make a whole lot of women—”
“Stop fucking doing this to us, Gina!”
“Okay, I’ll stop. This is a fairytale; right?” I ask sarcastically.
“Yes! This is a fairytale. We’re both terrified, Gina. Me—I’m the linebacker, right?” His straight row of all white teeth are gorgeous when he gives his psychotic laugh.
45
Santino
As I’m laughing, Gina shoves against me. I crush her body, not with the fullness of my weight, just enough to pin her down and keep her there.
My knees scoop over to her hips, holding her captive. One hand at her cheek. All this to steal her attention. To get it through her thick fucking head.
I slap a hand at my chest. “I’m telling you my great, fucking fear—losing you.Same as you, Gina. We can’t live without each other. If what we have isn’t a fairytale, then I don’t know what is!”
In Italian, I tell her how my soul was looking for her. “We have a connection, Gina. I fucked up. If we talk about it, discuss it, then we can go back to—”
I catch her defiant fists, bring her wrists over her head.
