“I know.”
“It’s okay to cry.”
“I know.”
“Val…” I brushed a kiss across her lips. “What do you want? Just tell me.”
“You.” She sighed. “I want you.”
What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?—A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Valentina
SERGIO HAD ALWAYS been beautiful — masculine in the way the lines of his face met each other. Everything from the contouring of his cheeks to the fullness of his lips had me wondering if he was some sort of misplaced knight from a storybook.
What made it worse was his hair.
Just slightly past his ears, it curled near the nape of his neck, just begging for a girl to give it a little tug.
But wet.
Sergio. Wet.
Sergio. Wet and strong.
Sergio being my rock.
That was sexy.
Never in my life had I needed him to step up to the plate more… and never in my life had I doubted so much — that he’d fail to do it, after all, it was his dead wife.
I expected him to cry with me, to run off, to blame me, to pull at every ounce of bitterness he still had and toss it in my direction.
“Let’s go.” He tugged me against his chest as we walked side-by-side back to the house.
Once we were inside and the door was shut, he peeled off his shirt and tossed it to the ground, then shrugged out of his jeans and repeated the process until he was completely naked.
I went from sobbing to gaping. From cold, to sizzling.
“Here.” With a gruff curse he tugged my shirt over my head and moved his warm hands to my hips as he slowly rolled down my leggings, then pulled my boots off, tugging the leggings over my stocking clad feet.
How unfair.
He was naked and beautiful.
And I had on my bra, panties, and ugly wool socks.
“I think my grandma had a pair of those.” He pointed at them and smirked. “Which means they need to go.”
“Chicago’s cold,” I said with a tremor in my voice.
“Maybe if your husband wasn’t such an ass, you wouldn’t have to wear wool socks.” He leaned down, his muscled thighs tightening as he gripped one foot and tugged the sock off, then grabbed the other. “Because you’d be sleeping with him instead.”
“He’s only an ass sometimes.” I felt the need to defend him.
Sergio looked up at me from underneath dark eyelashes. “You don’t need to butter me up with compliments, Val. I’m already going to sleep with you.”
“Like now.” I grinned ignoring the way my foot felt in his hand, and how my skin buzzed with his tender touch. “Right now you’re only kind of an ass.”
“You smiled.” He stood to his full height then cupped my face. “Which means I’m doing something right.”
Sighing, I wrapped my arms around his naked body. “You do a lot of things right, it’s the whole after you do the right thing that really pisses me off… you know. Kissing, then running away, sleeping with me then slamming doors, sharing fun intimate details, then threatening to kill me— “I get the point.” He held up his hand.
“Are you sure? Because I think I have more examples.”
“I’m good.” He nodded. “Thanks though, makes a man feel good that you have all of those incidents stored right up here.” He tapped the side of my head. “Now… you said something about not being sad.”
“I’m not sad,” I lied as a choking wave of anxiety washed over me. She was his first. He was my first. “I mean I am. I’m sad. I miss her. And it makes me feel like I can’t breathe and then, when I’m done missing her, I’m angry.”
“Okay.” He picked me up as though I weighed nothing and carried me up the stairs. “I know anger, we’re practically best friends.”
“And here I thought you didn’t have friends.”
“I have you,” he whispered. “Now, stop attacking me, I’m not the one you’re angry with, at least this time.”
“That’s true, it would be easier if it was your fault.”
“Would you like me to take the blame? Be the punching bag? I can do that, if it helps. I’d be more than happy to be on the receiving end of a black eye; I imagine I’d be your first recipient.”
He walked us into his room then placed me on the bed and went into the large marble bathroom. There was glass everywhere, no privacy whatsoever. How did he live that way? I shivered at the raw sexuality he emitted by merely walking, the muscles in his legs shifted and tugged all the way up his tight as sin ass.
My body broke out in a cold sweat at the sound of water, and then he was walking back toward me. It was almost impossible to keep my eyes on his face when there were other parts of his body fighting for my attention.
At least it was a distraction.
He was a distraction.
Yet, every time I looked at him, I saw her touching him, loving him, pleasing him, and it made me sick to my stomach.
I wanted to scream with jealousy while at the same time sob with the unfairness of her death.