Page 235 of Forced Vows

He stops on his trek toward the bedroom. "Say that again."

Miceli calls me by all sorts of endearments. Aphrodite. His sweet flower. Good girl. But I haven't used any with him, except Ares. I don't know why.

No that's not true. I do know why. I didn't feel like I had the right. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but I know he is mine now.

In my family, endearments are special and only used with people you love. And I didn't want to reveal my love for him.

"My love."

That earns me another scorching kiss, but eventually I convince him to ooh and ahh over my hard work.

He likes the desk nook created by a bookcase divider open on both sides in the living room. "No more working in a spare bedroom?"

I shake my head. "You have an office two floors down if you need privacy or solitude to work. But this way, even if I'm studying over there and you're working here, we're still together."

I know he's going to like this. We're both a little obsessed.

The look of approval on his handsome face says I called it. "That's perfect. I didn't like being cooped up in one of the bedrooms while you were out here."

"But working on your laptop on the coffee table is not ideal."

He shrugs. "Worth it to spend more time with you."

"I don't care if I am supposed to be independent and want time to myself or if you're supposed to be hard and aloof with me. I want us to be just like we are. Always."

"Good because having you breathe the same air as me keeps me alive." He kisses me. "I love you." Another bone melting kiss. "I need you." He pauses, his dark gaze filled with emotion I never thought to see there. "You make my heart beat, and losing you would make it stop."

"Always with the morbid with you."

His laughter is still on his lips when he presses them to mine, but I insist that Miceli finishes his inspection of the great room.

"I like your touches, it feels like a ho…" He doesn't finish the word because his eyes have snagged on my portrait above the fireplace.

Then he sees the grouping of book cover paintings on the wall behind the dining room table.

"You hung up my art. "

"Yes." I put my hand out to his. "Come with me."

I want him to see everything before we talk about that. We go back through the hall, but instead of going into the primary bedroom, I drag him down to the last room.

I open the door and step back and wait for his reaction.

The room is set up very similarly to the studio in lower Manhattan. There are two easels, cabinets for his paints, brushes, turpentine, linseed oil and everything else. Canvases of all different sizes lean against one wall.

The walk-in closet is now set up for storage of paintings as well as more art supplies.

He wiggles the doorknob. "There's no lock."

"This is your home. You don't have to lock away your need to paint from me." I don't want either of us to lock away any part of ourselves here.

"What if someone walks in here besides one of us?"

"If it means seeing my cousins and my moma elsewhere, so be it. If I see less of them, I'll deal. If it means not having your family over to visit, we'll visit them. But I want your heart here in our home."

"It already is. You're here."

"You're such a romantic for a big, bad mafioso." My sarcasm would be more believable if I wasn’t giving him a totally sappy, gooey-eyed look.

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