I cocked one eyebrow.
“I’m serious, Savio,” she said quietly. “I know this seems like a game, but… I want a marriage, a partnership. I want to get to know you better. I want us to become a team.”
Serious conversations weren’t my specialty. I tended to avoid them but Gemma had a point. We were married now. “Nothing’s stopping us. We have our whole life.”
Fuck, I’d really said it.
“Yeah,” Gemma said quietly, then looked around. “This is strange.”
The strangest thing about this situation was that outside, the party was in full swing while I was talking to a girl in my bed almost fully clothed. “I know.”
My eyes trailed over her slender shoulders, the way the outline of her breasts teased me through her shirt. “I don’t know what to do,” Gemma admitted. “Or how to act.”
“How about we start with lying down?”
I stretched out and propped my head up on my arm, then waited for Gemma to do the same. She lay on her side, facing me. “Still strange.”
I reached out and touched her cheek. “How about you come closer?”
Suspicion flickered across her face.
I guessed I deserved that. “Only to cuddle.”
“Cuddle?” she repeated with a small laugh, finally relaxing.
“That’s what Greta calls it.”
Gemma slid over to me and I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her closer. She tensed briefly when our fronts pressed against each other, probably expecting my cock to dig a hole into her belly, but I had more self-control than that—at least if I wanted to.
She peered up. “For you, this is probably business as usual, having a girl in your bed.”
Being in a bed with a girl, definitely. But this? “You’re the only girl who’s ever been in my bed.”
“Really?”
“Really. This is my place, and I never felt like having anyone invade it.”
“And now I’m here.”
“You are.” I stroked a curl away from her forehead. I didn’t mind having her here, quite the contrary. Gemma’s presence didn’t feel like an invasion of my privacy. “I want to kiss you.”
Gemma gave a small nod and I took her mouth, dipped inside. Her eyes fluttered shut, and I closed mine too, something I rarely did, but fuck, I only wanted to feel. And Gemma felt perfect in my arms. Her body molded with mine, our legs scissoring until the heat radiating from her pussy seemed to scorch my thigh.
My palm pressed into her lower back, tempted to move lower, cup those round globes. I wanted to take this further, all the fucking way, but more than that, I wanted to prove to Gemma that I respected her decision. If this was a test, I would not fail it.
When I pulled out of the kiss, Gemma’s lips followed my mouth until she caught herself and opened her eyes. In her eyes, I could see desire—her body was practically screaming for more, but if I knew one thing about Gemma, it was that she could be stubborn as fuck, and she’d obviously set her mind on punishing me for my track record with other women.
With an audible swallow, she lowered her leg from mine and brought a couple of inches between us. Her heat lingered and my cock throbbed with every beat of my heart.
“What will our life be like?”
That was something I hadn’t really given much thought either. For a long time now, my daily routine had been the same. Workout in the morning, breakfast with someone from the family, then a few visits to restaurants and bars that paid for our protection, seeing how they were doing, making sure they didn’t forget who kept them safe. Meetings with my brothers, making sure the Camorra ran like a well-oiled engine. Fight training. Dinner with the family, then partying and finding a fuck for the night. Rinse and repeat. In the last two months, only minus the fucking part, which led to another evening workout to blow off steam and had made me even more ripped.
“I really wish I knew what you were thinking,” Gemma said quietly.
“No, you don’t, trust me.”
She mulled over that for a while, allowing me to take in her face. Her skin was flawless, every inch of her beautiful. I really liked her face without makeup when in the past with other girls, their morning face if I had been too hung over to disappear right after sex, had made me want to hurl. “Whom do you trust, Savio?” Her eyes were trying to reach deeper, see beyond the mask I showed to people.
I turned off the light because this was reaching a level of personal I preferred to discuss in the dark. “My brothers, absolutely. Fabiano, of course.” Even Adamo. He’d changed since his year in New York and had made up for some of the shit he’d done.
“Are they the ones you go to when you need to talk?”
I didn’t do the kind of talking Gemma was referring to, not even with my brothers. I sorted things out for myself. Humor and sarcasm had been my weapon against any attempt of my brothers, especially Nino, to talk about some of the things we’d gone through in the past. Eventually, he gave up.
Gemma waited. “That’s all?”
“Kiara, to some degree.”
“Not Diego?”
“To some extent, but it’s a different level of trust than with family.”
For me, trust was a conscious effort. I had to allow someone to earn my trust. I rarely bothered. My brothers and I had almost paid with our life for the one time we trusted someone after we returned to the States after our father had been killed. Friendship was a shaky construct, one that often broke under the weight of a better opportunity.
“Isn’t he family now?”
Her voice was soft, probing, but also drowsy and I hoped she’d fall asleep before she could dig deeper.
“He is. You are.” Yet, how could a simple vow, a wedding, turn people into family. It took more than that. Like trust, it took effort. Fabiano had become family without shared blood. He’d given everything he had to offer and killed and bled for us.
“But not really, not yet,” she whispered. “Will you ever trust me like you trust your brothers?”
I wanted to say yes. I didn’t want to lie to her. The silence hung over us like the humidity in the air before a summer storm.
“You can trust me. You can talk about everything with me.” Her fingertips brushed over my wrist.
“Kitty, don’t you think that’s enough serious talk for our wedding night? I didn’t sign up for a psychological exam.”
Gemma tensed. “You are right. You wanted to get inside me, not allow me to glimpse inside your head.”
Frustration swelled in my chest, but I shoved it down. Soon Gemma’s body softened, her breath evened out.
I slipped out of bed and left the bedroom. The party outside had quieted down, but I stayed clear of the garden, not wanting to encounter one of the guests. Instead, I headed into the kitchen to grab a sweet snack, the only sweet thing I’d be allowed to eat tonight.
I paused when I spotted Remo, leaning against the counter with Nevio on his arm. The kid looked exhausted but was obviously refusing to sleep. The way he hung in my brother’s hold, his chin resting on his shoulder, showed he wouldn’t last much longer. When he was half-asleep, he was a cute kid, but sometimes he managed to freak me out despite his only four years. “Already done?”
My mouth tightened.
Remo raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t let you in?”
Nevio looked between his dad and me.
“I bet that gives you a sick kick.”
“I couldn’t care less if you score or not, Savio.”
I leaned beside him, knowing the longer I stayed, the more Remo would see. Even without sharing my darkest thoughts with him, he always seemed to know what went on. “Do you trust Serafina completely?”
Remo’s dark eyes did their X-ray thing, but I didn’t look away. If there was one person on this planet whom I’d allow to dissect my twisted heart, it was him. “I do,” he said quietly, a dangerous truth for a man like him. Few men in the States were more hated than my brother. Trust was a risk he shouldn’t allow himself.
“How did you allow yourself to trust her?” How could you?
“It happened. She saved me when she should have killed me. She forgave me for destroying the life she’d grown up in. She betrayed her family for me.”
I laughed darkly. “None of these things is going to happen with Gemma, so…”
He narrowed his eyes. “If Gemma wasn’t trustworthy, she wouldn’t be allowed to live among us, among my children, Nino’s sons, Fabiano’s daughter. I’d never risk either of their lives only so you can get a taste of virgin pussy. So you better tell me now that you think she’s deserving of our trust, of your trust.”
Leave it to Remo to deliver a threat that made me feel better. “She is trustworthy, don’t worry. Gem has a heart of gold.” Repeating the words her mother had said to me, I knew they were true, which made me feel like an even bigger asshole because she deserved better than me.
“Then what’s the problem?”
I gave him an ironic smile. As if he didn’t know. “Me. The problem is me.”
After my talk with Remo, I returned to my wing. Two emotional conversations were the maximum of what I could take. I froze in the dark of the bedroom, hearing whimpers.
Within a second, I was beside Gemma, feeling her shake, imprisoned by a nightmare. I cupped her head. “Gem, wake up.”