Weren’t we going to snuggle against each other? It was something I’d wished for from a marriage.
In the last few years, snuggles had been absent from my life. I wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend, who might have given them to me, and I was too old to seek that kind of closeness with my father. My mother had never been the type to show her affection on a physical level to begin with.
I’d hoped that marriage would open the door to affection that went beyond sex. I wanted to be held and cuddled. Maybe I had been foolish to think Cassio was someone who would be up for that.
Cassio twisted his head to me, but remained on his back. “What is it? You don’t have to be scared of me seeking you out again. We fulfilled our duty.”
Duty.
Honor. Duty. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d heard those two words in my life.
“That’s not it,” I whispered. “I just… I…”
Cassio’s dark brows drew together. “I’m not a mind reader, Giulia, and I don’t have the patience to guess your thoughts.”
His voice was rough.
Tears stung in my eyes at his rebuff.
He let out a small sigh, pushed up on his elbow, and peered down at me. “Are you in pain? Did I hurt you more than I thought?”
Of course, he’d think it had to be something physical bothering me.
“Giulia?” His strong hand touched my bare shoulder, and I shuddered under the gentle touch. Misunderstanding my reaction, he pulled his hand away, but I grasped it.
“Can we—” I couldn’t ask a man like Cassio to snuggle. Instead, I moved closer until I could sense his warmth, my fingers still clutching his hand. “Be close like this for a little while?”
For a moment, he didn’t react, only regarded me with those ocean-blue eyes. Then, without a word, he lowered himself to his back, but this time he raised his arm, opening up a spot for me. I slid even closer until I was pressed up to him, my face on his strong chest, one of my legs thrown over his muscled thigh. He smelled good, so good. Strong, warm, and manly. I held my hands awkwardly pressed against my breasts, unsure where to put them. Cassio curled his arm around my body, loosely at first, but then more tightly when I let out a small sigh. Gathering my courage, I rested one hand on his chest. Soon my fingers grew restless—curious.
Until this day I hadn’t been allowed to touch a man, to discover his body. I idly traced the smattering of hair on his pecs, realizing that I liked the feel of it. In the media I’d only ever seen guys with smooth chests and tried to imagine how they would feel. Cassio was all man, strong and with body hair. Not that he was overly hairy… he wasn’t. My fingers glided lower, over the ridges of his stomach, following the trail of hair until I bumped against his waistband.
Cassio gripped my hand. “Giulia.” It was low, dark and almost pained. He pulled back, dipped his head at the same time as I tipped mine up. He scanned my face.
What had I done wrong? Didn’t he like to be touched like that?
I felt the groan more than I heard it. It was on the verge of a tortured laugh. I blinked, trying to figure out my husband. He lifted my hand and firmly pressed it, palm flat, against his sternum. “It stays there.”
He lowered his head back to the pillow then extinguished the lights.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”
Cassio grunted, almost a chuckle. “I’m not uncomfortable, and I know that you don’t mean to make me feel the way I feel. That is the problem. Now sleep.” The last was an order.
I gave up trying to figure out the meaning of his words. I wasn’t a mind reader either. Yawning, I settled more firmly against him and closed my eyes. Silence settled over us and my breathing eventually slowed as tiredness overcame me.
Cassio tensed. “Are you going to fall asleep like that?”
“You wanted me to sleep.”
“I do. On your side, not in my arm.”
My stomach dropped. This shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. Cassio was my husband, but only by name. I didn’t have strong feelings for him—or even knew him at all. Not saying anything from fear of giving away more than I intended, I scrambled as far away from him as I could.
My side of the bed was cold, not warm like Cassio’s. I swallowed my hurt and my longing, trying to breathe evenly. Still, tears fell from my eyes.
I could make out the outline of Cassio’s head and knew he was watching me. The knowledge that the dark hid my expression from him gave me little consolation because I had a feeling he knew I was crying from the way my breathing had sounded.
“I can’t sleep with someone close to me. Anyone,” he murmured.
I nodded, because words were out of the question.
“I guess it’s fitting that my second wedding night ends the same way my first did—with my crying wife in bed beside me.”
I wasn’t a fan of physical contact at night and had often not even shared the bed with my deceased wife. Not that she would have ever dreamed of wanting to have me close at night. She never bothered to hide her reluctance to have me near her, least of all when we slept together—unless there was something that she wanted from me.
Giulia had asked for my closeness and I’d denied her.
The early morning light illuminated her puffy face. Her lashes stuck to her skin with dried tears. She was close, had moved closer in sleep until we were almost touching. I felt the unreasonable desire to touch her—and not in a sexual way. Propped up on my elbow, I watched her peaceful sleep. As with many nights before, Gaia’s blood-covered body had haunted my dreams. I hardly ever dreamed about the people I’d killed, and yet my dead wife still filled my nights.
Giulia stirred, lips parting in a soft sigh. I pushed myself up and swung my legs out of bed, turning my back to her.
The bed shifted. I threw a glance over my shoulder at Giulia who was sitting up, rubbing her face framed by messy hair. Noticing my attention, her eyes met mine. She smiled hesitantly. The early morning light wasn’t kind to me because Giulia looked absolutely lovely in a very teenage girl way.
Damn it all.
I stood. “We need to get ready. The women will retrieve the sheets soon.”
Giulia took my watch from the nightstand. “It’s only eight. Do you really think they’ll disturb us this early after our wedding night?”
They probably wouldn’t, but I had no intention to waste time in bed. I had scheduled several meetings throughout the day, the most important with Luca for lunch. I needed to use the opportunity of having him in town. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and sent Mia a message that they could pick up the sheets in thirty minutes. Her nosy reply came immediately.
Won’t you even sleep in after your wedding night?
Stay out of my business was all I wrote back.
I put the phone back down, ignoring Giulia’s appraisal. I’d caught her watching me last night and now this morning. Her reaction surprised me. Of course, it was a pleasant surprise that she seemed attracted to my body and not appalled like Gaia.
“Mia and the others will come by in thirty minutes. Do you want to shower first? I can shave in the meantime.”
Giulia bit her lip, looking away before she nodded. “All right.” She shoved the covers off and stood. My eyes took her in, and for a moment I considered telling Mia that they could wait after all. Giulia was impossibly beautiful, and the idea to bury myself in her tight pussy once more was far too enticing, but the bloodstain on the sheets reminded me why that wasn’t going to happen.
Fifteen minutes later Giulia was showered and dressed, and I headed toward the shower. She’d chosen one of the dresses I’d sent to her parents, an elegant long-sleeved knee-length red piece that hugged Giulia’s slender body. It still didn’t make her look close to my age, but at least not quite the teenager she was.
“Should I cover my puffy eyes with makeup or do you want people to know I cried?”
I paused, one foot inside the shower. Turning back to my wife hovering in the doorway to the bedroom, I frowned. “I didn’t want you to cry. Why would I want people to know you did?”
She gave a small shrug, searching my face. “I thought maybe you’d want people to think you hurt me enough to make me cry.”
I considered it. The men downstairs would draw the wrong conclusions and fear me for it. It wasn’t a decent thing to consider, but the men downstairs weren’t decent, and I wasn’t either. “I’m feared as it is… and for good reason. I don’t want my sisters on my back like they’ll undoubtedly be if they see that you cried, so cover it up with makeup.”
She regarded me a moment longer, and I couldn’t tell why. It was unnerving.
“Okay. I don’t want to keep you from showering. I know how busy you are today.”
The hint of disapproval rang in her voice. She hadn’t reacted when I told her I was going to spend the day in business meetings until we’d head to my mansion and children in the late afternoon. “I work a lot, Giulia, and I won’t explain myself to you. As a woman, your only job is to raise my children, but I can’t afford that luxury.”
Anger flared in her eyes, but she turned and left.
I wasn’t in the mood to consider her teenage antics. She’d better get rid of them soon.