Page 225 of Forced Vows

Chapter 78: RÓISE

Miceli pulls from my body with gentle slowness before shifting me so I'm sitting sideways in his lap. Then he washes me as carefully as he would a newborn.

Everywhere. Which destroys the baby metaphor but not the tender attention behind it.

My legs are filled with jelly instead of muscle and bone right now, so I don't even put up a token protest when he also dries me off.

I object though, when he slides a finger between my butt cheeks to smear ointment on my still fluttering sphincter.

"Shh. Let me take care of you, vitù."

Realizing there's no point in arguing when he's almost done, I nod.

There's so much approval and warmth in his smile, my heart flutters.

Miceli guides me to sit on the vanity bench before he starts picking up the impressive array of weapons littering the floor along with our clothes and the things I'd stuffed into my shorts' pockets from my trunk prison, thinking I might need them.

My fiancé checks all three guns to make sure there are no rounds in the chamber before placing them on the bathroom counter.

After he stacks as many knives beside the firearms, I shake my head. "I think I need a better personal arsenal."

"It is my job to protect you." Miceli looks me straight in the eye. "I might have failed today, but I give you my vow that I never will again. "

"You didn't fail. No one could have foreseen the guy working for Gabriel Lion on my uncle's payroll." I will never call that man grandfather again. "And you got me back."

"You were well on your way to saving yourself."

I shake my head. "They knew I was heading for the warehouse, though I don't know how they guessed I would go there and not one of the apartment buildings."

"I'll be sure and ask them," Miceli says grimly.

"The point is, I'd run out of options when you guys showed up."

"I have no doubt in your ingenuity." He leans down and picks me up bridal style. "You would've gotten away."

"Well, I'm glad you got there when you did."

He's all about what a badass I am. And I like knowing he thinks that, but the reality is, I'm a fine arts major, not a mafia soldier. No matter how much training in self-defense I have done over the years.

And none of those abilities had any impact on what happened to me today.

Miceli pulls the covers back and lays me down on the bed before joining me there and tugging the summer weight comforter over us.

He traces the contours of my face with a light fingertip. "Tell me everything from the second that asshole jerked you off the dock."

"Why? Don't you want to forget about it? It's probably not healthy for you to dwell on something you consider a failure."

"But it is healthy for you to talk about it. So, talk."

I mean to argue again. Say something about going to a therapist, or visiting my mamo which is pretty much the same thing.

But instead, when I open my mouth, words start spilling out. How the men took me, what it felt like underwater before I got the darkened diver's mask and access to oxygen.

"I was scared," I admit. "And angry. So angry."

Miceli kisses my forehead. "And so fucking brave. Keep talking."

I do. For more than an hour. I tell him everything in more detail than I even think I could remember. I can see the banked fury in his eyes, but not once does he interrupt me.

---