I pushed back from the table and reached for my empty glass. “I’m sorry to be a party pooper, but I’m tired. I think I’m just gonna head to bed.”
Felicity gazed up at me with concerned green eyes. “Really? It’s early yet.”
“Yeah.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Didn’t sleep well last night.” To Marco, I said, “Thanks for dinner.”
I could tell from the scowl on Marco’s face that he knew I was retreating from the conversation, but I didn’t care. And I didn’t even look toward Natalie because I was afraid if I did, my self-control would shatter and I really would drag her up those stairs with me.
I set my empty glass on the counter in the kitchen and gave a halfhearted wave as I headed for the stairs. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
“Night, Luc,” Felicity called.
“Night,” I heard Marco say.
And from Natalie, I got nothing. Which was probably for the best. Because I had no idea what I was going to do with my wife.
Which made me feel like absolute shit, because more and more, I was thinking it would have been better if she’d left me that night in Italy and never come back. After our conversation the other day about kids, that had become glaringly clear to me. I could go on fooling myself that I wasn’t ruining her life, but I couldn’t avoid the cold, hard truth.
I was ruining it. Every day she had to sacrifice something else for me. And I was sick over that fact.
Sick and disgusted, because short of murdering everyone in my fucking House, I had no idea how to make any of this better.
I was wide awake when Natalie came to bed sometime later. I wasn’t sure how long she stayed downstairs with Fee and Marco, but I didn’t dare look at the clock. I just lay still on my side and tried to feign sleep while she moved around the room in the dark.
Maybe it was cowardly, but I wasn’t in the mood to rehash any of what Marco had hit me with earlier. And the last few days I’d been so on edge, I didn’t trust myself to look at Natalie, much less touch her.
She moved into the bathroom and closed the door. Breathing slowly, I shut my eyes and imagined my island. The rolling waves against the shore. The swish of the water over the sand. The swaying palms in the breeze. Usually, it was enough to get me to relax. But tonight, all it did was make me remember Natalie reclining on that lounge chair by the pool the last day we’d been there together—decked out in a skimpy pink bikini and a wide-brimmed straw hat, with her toes painted a soft shade of purple and her skin golden from the sun.
Heat rolled through me. A familiar heat I did not need right now. The bathroom door opened and closed. The light flipped off. Then Natalie’s soft footsteps echoed through the room as she moved around the bed.
The covers moved, and the mattress dipped as she got settled. Then everything stilled and grew quiet. As the silence stretched, I imagined her closing her eyes and falling asleep, and I drew a deep breath that did shit to cool me down, because this close, I could smell her intoxicating scent of grapefruit and honey that only pushed me closer to the edge and made me realize there was no way I was getting any sleep tonight.
Fuck it. Maybe I should just move into another room. Or give up altogether and head out to the beach for a run. I didn’t care that it was the middle of the night and only forty degrees outside. I was a mass of coiled energy that couldn’t seem to settle down, and no matter what I’d done the last few days, it was only getting worse.
The mattress dipped again, then Natalie’s hand closed over my arm, and she gently pushed me to my back.
I opened my eyes in the dark. “What are you doing?”
“How does your back feel?”
“Fine.”
“Good.” She straddled me, grasped my arms, and pushed them above my head, then closed something soft around my left wrist.
“What the heck?” I tried to move my arm only to realize it was hooked to the iron headboard behind me. As I twisted to see what she’d done, she snapped something furry and soft around my other wrist and hooked that to the headboard as well.
My eyes grew wide when I realized they were handcuffs. Fur-lined handcuffs I was pretty sure were pink. All that heat I’d been fighting amped up a notch, but I fought it back and leveled her with a look to let her know I didn’t think this was funny. “Take these off me right now.”
“Uh-uh.”
Holy hell, she was challenging me. In my current mood, that was not a good thing.
“Natalie.” I exhaled slowly and worked like hell to keep my temper in check. “I’m not kidding. I’m not in the mood for—”
“I don’t care what you’re in the mood for.”
She shifted so her weight was perched just above my lap, and, motherfucker, she felt good there. Too damn good. And too close to where I really wanted her.
Bracing her hands on my arms so I wouldn’t try to pull them out of the cuffs, she said, “I’m sure you already realized these are novelty cuffs and that if you pull hard enough, you’ll snap the chains, so I’m not all that worried about you getting upset about me restraining you. But you won’t snap those chains, because after the last few days, you owe me a few minutes of your time, and we both know it. So you’re going to lie there and listen to me, and you’re not going to interrupt until I’m done. Are we clear?”
My heart hammered against my ribs as I stared at her in the dark. There was no sweetness in her features, no comfort or even kindness. She was dead serious as she stared down at me. Serious and take-charge and all business. And that twisted part of me I’d been denying the last few weeks fucking loved it. Loved it and couldn’t wait to see where this went next.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked, her icy blue-eyes locked on mine.
“At the moment, I think it’s safest for me to stay quiet.”
“Smart man.” She let go of my arms and sat up, balancing her weight right over my hips. She was wearing one of my T-shirts—a gray one I’d worn yesterday that smelled like me—and silk panties that were making me all kinds of hot where her pussy pressed against my lower abs, distracting me from everything but the thought of tearing them off her so I could feel her naked flesh.
“I’m not stupid, Luc. I know what you’re doing. And I’m here to tell you it won’t work.”
I blinked up at her, unsure what she was getting at, but unwilling to ask.
“You’ve been keeping your distance from me ever since you dropped that little bombshell on me in the middle of the night, and I’m not putting up with it anymore. I get that you’re feeling guilty that kitten might end up pregnant from what they did to you, but that doesn’t give you the right to—”
“Whoa. Back up. Pregnant?”
“I realize you don’t want to talk about what happ—”
“No one’s pregnant, Natalie. At least not from me. I can’t have kids.”
“What?”
Shit. This was not how I planned to tell her. “I’m sterile.”
Her brows drew together. “How? Since when?”
“Since I left Italy twelve years ago. I had a vasectomy.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because I never wanted my family to use any kid of mine the way they plan to use me. I’m not a person to them, as they made pretty obvious recently. I’m just a way to cement their legacy.”
She stared at me in silence, and as she did, all that guilt I’d been feeling the last few days steamrolled right back over me, killing whatever arousal her little bondage scene here had stirred inside me.
“Cazzo.” I looked up at the ceiling. “I should have told you before but everything was complicated, and...” Shit. I gathered my courage. “Then I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to give you a reason to leave when things were finally starting to work out. It was selfish and it was wrong, and I should have realized what a big deal it would be to you. That’s why I asked you the other day if it was a deal breaker for you, because if it is, we can still get Fee to—”
Her l
ips pressed against mine, hard, cutting off my words.
“You jackass,” she whispered, easing back just a breath so her words tickled my lips. “I’ve been going out of my mind the last three days, stressing over whether or not that girl was pregnant and the fact you clearly didn’t want to have children with me.”
Another wave of guilt slammed into me, and I tried to reach for her, only my damn arms were pinned above my head. “If I could have kids, angioletto, I would only want to have them with you. I should have made that clear. I’m sorry. I just...”
“You were just being an idiot.”
I drew a breath. “Yeah.” As we stared at each other in silence, my heart beat faster. “You’re not mad?”
“Oh, I’m plenty mad. I’m mad that you thought avoiding me was the best way to deal with this. I’m mad that you didn’t tell me all this sooner. And I’m especially mad because we could have been having no-condom sex a hell of a lot earlier than we were. What were you thinking?”
A relief I didn’t deserve whipped through me, dragging my eyes closed. “Why the hell are you so easy on me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I love you.”
I blinked and looked up at her. “Are you really okay with the fact I can’t give you children?”
“Luc.” Her fingertips skimmed my jaw. “I never even thought about having kids before I met you. My parents weren’t exactly the greatest role models. They were selfish and self-absorbed, and I was a burden most of the time. If I thought about kids since meeting you, it’s only because you have all the traits that would make a great father.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You’re kind and loving, patient and protective.”
“And a jackass, as you pointed out.”
One side of her lips curled. “That too. But I don’t need kids to be happy. I just need you. And I need you to let me in, because if you keep holding back and pushing me away every time something comes up, we’re never going to make it.”
“No one knows, Natalie.” Emotions I didn’t understand overwhelmed me, and my eyes burned with a familiar sting, making me close them all over again. “My family, my House...none of them know I’m sterile. I’m expected to produce heirs. Things could get sticky if they found out. When they find out.” Because I knew they would. Eventually. When years went by and Natalie never wound up pregnant, they’d start to get curious.
“We’ll deal with that when and if it happens.”
I didn’t know how that would work. But I didn’t want to think about that right now.
I blinked damp lashes up at her. “I should have realized what you were worried about. I’m sorry I didn’t.” My throat grew thick, but I forced myself not to look away. “That girl’s not pregnant. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any of...”
The words dried up in my mouth.
“I know.” She leaned close and pressed her lips to mine again, brushing her soft breasts against my chest in the process. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t know how. Talking to you about it makes me feel...vulnerable. And I don’t want to be vulnerable with you. I want to be strong so you always know I can protect you, because I will.”
“I already know that, Luc.”
“Knowing and believing are two different things. What you saw changes—”
“Look at me.” She tipped my chin up so our eyes were level. “What I saw changes nothing. What they did or say or will ever do still changes nothing. I know exactly who and what you are. You are strong. You are resilient. You are honorable, and you are faithful.”
Her words were like daggers stabbing straight into my chest, because I didn’t see myself as any of those things. Maybe once, but not now. And the fact she still saw me that way... It squeezed my chest so tight, it hurt to draw air. Unable to keep looking into her sweet blue eyes, I let mine drift closed and breathed through the pain, knowing if I didn’t, in a minute I wouldn’t be able to hold back the waterworks.
“No, look at me.”
She tipped my chin up higher, forcing me to open my eyes. And I blinked through blurry vision and watched as she smiled down at me.
“You’re also mine,” she whispered. “Which means the only person in the world you have to answer to is me. And I promise you this. If you try to pull away from me, for whatever reason, just know I’ll drag you right back, each and every time. Even if I have to handcuff you to do it.”
My heart felt as if it might burst right out of my chest. I was nothing. I had nothing to offer her, not even the possibility of a family down the line, and yet, she still loved me. She still wanted me. I didn’t understand why, but I was too weak to fight it. I needed her. I needed her strength and her love, and I needed her to save me. To go on saving me, just as she’d done since the first moment I’d met her.
“I love you.” Blinking against the wetness, I lifted my head and captured her lips. “I’m an idiot who loves you. Don’t give up on me, angioletto. Please don’t give up on me.”
“I won’t.” Her fingertips slid across my jaw, and her lithe body pressed into mine as she kissed me. “I promise I never will.”
I groaned as she slid her tongue into my mouth, and when I tasted her and all her succulent heat surrounded me, I felt as if my soul was coming to life. As if my mind was finally clear. As if she was the key not only to my sanity, but to my very being. And I wondered how the hell I could have ever thought staying away from her would ever make things better.
She tipped her head and deepened the kiss, and when her hard little nipples behind the thin T-shirt scraped my bare chest, all the blood in my brain shot straight into my groin. The only thing I wanted was to bury myself deep inside her where nothing mattered but us.
“Unhook my arms,” I whispered against her lips, not wanting to stop kissing her, even for a second. “I want to touch you.”
Her lips curled against mine, then she pressed a hand against my chest and eased back, grinning down at me with a mischievous look I couldn’t define.
“Uh-uh.”
“What do you mean, uh-uh?”
“There’s one other thing we need to address before I let you go.”
She climbed off me and moved around the bed in the dark. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but a shuffling sound echoed through the room, and when she climbed back on the bed, she held a rectangular box in her hands.
“What’s going on?” I asked cautiously as she straddled my boxers and her steamy heat pressed against my already throbbing erection.
She set the box on the bed near my hip, but I couldn’t tell what was in it in the dark, and her expression gave nothing away. “Do you remember our first night together in Rome?”
“Yeah,” I said warily, wondering where she was going with this.
“Do you remember what you told me before you touched me?”
Fuck. She was thinking back to that conversation. When I’d told her I was a beast. I didn’t want to talk about that now. “I—”
My words faltered when she tugged my T-shirt up and over her head, then tossed it on the ground, leaving her wearing nothing but her succulent skin, not even the silk panties I knew she’d been wearing earlier. Just the sight of her bare breasts, the gentle curves at her hips, the small thatch of hair between her legs where she pressed against me made the wires in my brain completely cross so I couldn’t even remember what she’d asked me.
“You said”—she braced both hands on my chest and looked down at me in the dim light—“‘I don’t make love, Natalie. I don’t fuck. I dominate.’ Do you remember that?”
I blinked up at her, fuzzy-headed and hot. Really fucking hot. But also vaguely aware my own words were about to get me in trouble. “Yeah. But that was before we were involved.”
“Very true.”
She leaned down and kissed me, and I breathed a sigh of relief when our lips met, because I’d just dodged a bullet.
“I knew that first nig
ht in Rome you were lying to me.” She scooted back, lifted her weight off me, and grasped my boxer-briefs to drag them down my legs. Tossing them on the ground, she held my gaze as she crawled back over me, careful not to touch my already stiff cock even though I was aching for her to do so.
She settled her weight back over my belly once more as she looked down at me again. “Yes, you dominated me, but you also made love to me on that couch when you claimed you never would. You fucked me in the shower like you couldn’t get enough of me. And every time we’ve been together since then, I’m always excited and eager to know which Luc I’m going to get—the sweet man who can make me melt with a soft touch, the voracious lover who can’t wait to fuck me into next week, or the assertive Dom who can very nearly make me come just by ordering me to my knees.”
I sucked in a sharp breath because I knew now just where she was going with this. And all that arousal I’d been feeling threatened to overwhelm me. To control me. To push me to a place I didn’t want to go. “Natalie—”
“The thing is, Luc...” She leaned down and pressed her lips against the center of my chest. “I love making love with you. This last week has been amazing. Like discovering a side of you I only saw glimpses of before. But it’s not really you. Not all of you.”
I shifted uncomfortably beneath her, tried to pull my hands down, but the stupid cuffs held them in place. “Natalie...”
“I told you before if you pulled away, I’d just drag you back to me again. Consider this part of me dragging you back.”
She reached down for whatever she’d set by my hip, and brought it back in front of her. I squinted to see what she had in her hands, but it was still too dark to tell. She held her hand out over my chest, then something slick and cool dripped over my skin.
Oil. I bit back a groan as she massaged the oil into my skin, using her fingers to knead muscles I didn’t even know were sore. Okay, that, I definitely hadn’t expected.