Page 9 of His to Hold

Isabella casts her gaze downward. She fidgets with the hem of her t-shirt. I’m being an asshole, but it suits me to have her scared. I need her eyes to be open to the reality of her situation. Since she betrayed me, I owe her nothing. She’s lucky I’m prepared to offer another opportunity to make our marriage work.

I give her a scant thirty seconds to consider her options. “Well?”

“Okay, I’ll stay.”

I bark out a laugh. This woman has some nerve. She actually made it sound like she was doing me a favor.

“Then it’s settled and I don’t want to hear another word about you leaving, understood?”

She bobs her head up and down but that’s not good enough. I lean forward and cup a hand around my ear. “Didn’t catch that, Isabella.”

Like an angry kitten, she bares her teeth at me. “Yes, Antonio.”

“Good girl. Now, do you want to tell me what happened downstairs? Was the spanking really so painful?”

She shrugs and looks off to the side. Classic evasion. Though I don’t know my wife as well as I should, it’s clear she’s hiding something. She chews her bottom lip and stares off into the distance.

“Bella?” I prompt her.

“No, it didn’t hurt that much.” Her voice is so quiet I hardly hear her.

“So why did you run?”

She still doesn’t look at me, but the reddening of her cheeks reveals a lot. The way she squeezes her thighs together also gives her away.

“You were aroused.” I try not to sound as if I’m gloating, though I can’t deny a sense of triumph. “You enjoyed being spanked.”

Isabella lets out a slow exhale. “Yes, I did.”

“There’s no shame in that, Bella.” Her admission pleases me. “How do you feel now?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Restless, I guess.”

“I can help you with that.”

Finally, she lifts her eyes to meet mine. The corner of her mouth quirks up with the ghost of a smile. “Really? How?”

Now it’s my turn to grin. I know exactly what she needs. “Take that t-shirt off, lie back on the bed, and I’ll show you.”

CHAPTER 4

Isabella

No matter how great I know sex with Antonio will be, it can’t fix what’s wrong between us. Too much has happened, and we weren’t close to begin with. We never had a chance to get to know each other. We didn’t share our thoughts and feelings the way I imagine other couples do. In the brief time we were together, we didn’t sit down and talk about our day. We didn’t make plans for the future. Now that I think about it, we barely had a marriage at all.

The one thing we had going for us was mutual lust. We couldn’t get enough of each other. Antonio would come home at night and fuck me senseless. If it was late, he’d come to bed and wake me. Sometimes he was buried to the hilt inside me before I was fully awake.

At other times, he’d grab me wherever he found me. He’d kiss me breathless and then fuck me against the wall or over the nearest available surface. Afterward, we’d sleep, and in the morning, he’d be gone before I woke. There was little chance to talk. Although I hated that, I can’t say I didn’t love the way he mastered my body. Antonio showed me greater pleasure than I ever thought possible.

In the time we’ve been apart, the gulf between us has widened so much I doubt it can be bridged. Antonio thinks I aided an assassination attempt on him when I was just trying to protect someone close to him. I want to explain that, to assure Antonio I would never hurt him, but that would mean betraying someone else. Until I do, Antonio won’t forgive me. It’s a colossal mess, yet it’s been so long since I last experienced his intimate caresses, I can’t seem to care about the emotional consequences of giving myself to him.

I strip off the t-shirt and drop it on the floor. Despite not seeing my husband for almost a year, I don’t experience any shyness, as his eyes rake over me. He’s seen every part of me before. Besides, he just spanked my bare ass. After that, nudity isn’t such a big deal.

As I lie back, propping myself up on my elbows, I watch Antonio slowly unbuttoning his shirt. There’s a gleam of hunger in his eyes that says he wants to devour me, yet he takes his time undressing. It’s proof he’s in complete control. When he finally slips the shirt off his shoulders, I stifle a gasp. His body is mouth-wateringly magnificent. Though he’s lost some of the bulk he once had from lifting weights, his torso is still strong and muscular. This leaner look suits him better. While his brothers, Leo and Matteo, wear their muscles well, Antonio never did. He always looked a little top-heavy, not that I was complaining. Now, he’s absolute perfection.

At least he is apart from the scar on his shoulder, a glaring reminder of my stupidity in trusting Joey Gallo. Although Antonio can afford the best plastic surgeons in the country, the scar is a mess. It’s larger than I’d have expected and still an angry red color, even though it’s been a year. The skin around it is wrinkled and discolored. Why hasn’t he had it fixed? Can the damage be repaired? I have no idea.

As I stare at the scar, a strange urge comes over me to kiss it better. That impulse is immediately banished by a horrible thought. Have other women been tempted to do the same thing? Have they seen the hideous blemish and sympathized with him about his treacherous wife? Antonio has always had a healthy sex drive. I can’t imagine him abstaining for a week, never mind an entire year.

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