Page 41 of Matteo

Her small, pink tongue slowly slides along her bottom lip, almost touching my thumb. Fucking hell, I want to beg her for the feel of her tongue against my skin. “I understand, Matteo.”

How I don’t come, I have no fucking idea. Amy is my woman, and she wants to be my woman. In agony, I set her back on the bed. Letting go of her is like letting go of my dreams finally come true. Soon—but not yet. “Good.”

“I’m going to change my shirt,” I mutter as I walk away. Before I give in to the need, clawing at my gut, I get as far away from her as I can.

I make it into the shower without stopping to even undress. With a flick of my wrist, the water is on a temp I don’t care about. Tearing my clothes off, this time I’m a two-pump chump, coming hard—almost violently.

Christ. My hair isn’t even wet.

Damn, my head goes down. I should be embarrassed, and I am. But I’m also fucking exhilarated. Amy understood I wanted her, and she wasn’t pushing me away. Not only was she not pushing me away, she wanted me too.

Thank fuck.

My happiness lasts for the ten minutes it takes me to dry off and get dressed again.

Amy is wide-eyed in the kitchen as I walk toward her. She’s hesitant. “Are you going anywhere tonight?”

I’m confused by the question. “No, why?”

“It’s New Year’s Eve. You don’t have any plans at all?”

Did she really think I would be anywhere but here with her? “No, my brother asked if I wanted to go to his place at Christmas. I wanted to turn him down then. Another night spent going over the available women in a fifty-mile radius isn’t how I want to ring in the new year. I texted him yesterday with the excuse of being worried I was coming down with something. Told him about all the strep going around at work. He might have wondered if I was lying. However, he decided not to push it.”

“I’m surprised your brother is good with loaning you his nanny.”

“He’s not loaning me his nanny. His nanny is nice enough to work on her day off. And she’s nice enough not to mention it to Rafe. I’m not ready for him asking me if I’ve gotten your background checked and verified for himself that you have no ulterior motives.”

Chocolate eyes go wide with hurt. After considering my words, the hurt dissipates, and she nods. “I get it. It’s just being on the receiving end of the mindset is…odd. When you know you aren’t. I wish I had done a background check on Danny. He had a previous charge for domestic violence and another for assault. Maybe I wouldn’t have said yes when he asked me out.”

I open my mouth to agree, only to catch myself. “I hate you suffering at his hands. But to wish you were never with him would be to unwish Layla. I couldn’t do that.”

Shaking her head, her smile lights up her beautiful face. “How do you always know the right thing to say?”

“Practice. Talking to families going through literal hell as they watch their child…I couldn’t not say anything. But what can be said? Fourteen years of practice.”

She loses her smile. “I’m glad they had you as their doctor. And I bet they were, too.”

“You’re too kind.” I clear my throat. “Since we’re not going out, how about our own version of celebrating? Every New Year’s Eve, our nanny would let us go nuts with all the bad stuff she never let us have during the year.”

For the first time, she’s scared. “Like what kind of bad stuff?”

“I don’t know, maybe a cake, some candy. Is there any ice cream my mom left on the shelf?” I rush to explain. “What are you thinking?”

The tension goes out of her. Why was she scared? Her shoulders lift, clearly embarrassed. “Danny drank every day. At first, it was just on the weekends. He said he was just celebrating the end of the week. In the few New Year’s Eve parties I’ve been to, there was liquor everywhere. I assumed…sorry?—”

“Hey, don’t apologize. Like I said before, you went through so much I couldn’t imagine. There’s no switch that flips that makes you no longer wary of something bad happening or certain the other shoe is about to drop because it can’t stay good. It’s a trauma response. It keeps you safe. Don’t be sorry for protecting yourself and Layla. For the record, I’m not much of a drinker. Since I considered myself always on call for my patients, I rarely drank. When I’m with my brothers, I’ll maybe have two fingers of scotch. It’s not often, though—especially if I’m driving later.”

She blinks and shakes her head as she wipes away tears. Turning away from me, shaky air comes out of her. I’m aware she’s trying to get herself together. I hate she feels the need to hide from me as she does it.

“Please stop making me cry. You summed it up so perfectly. I finally stopped wondering if I’m going to wake up from the best dream ever. But now I’m—” Another shake of her head. “Okay, I’m definitely calling your therapist.”

I force a chuckle I’m far from feeling. “I’ll make sure she knows your call is coming. So, is that a yes or a no on creating a delivery order that will have the shopper wondering if a kid got ahold of their mom’s phone?”

Laughing, she nods. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

And it is. I find she loves sour candy and isn’t a huge fan of chocolate. She’s never had salt and vinegar chips and has an addiction to spicy chips. My mom also left a few flavors of ice cream on the shelf—we ordered three more.

We settled onto the couch while we waited for the order, and I put on the series we watched while I braided her hair. She did want to do the jigsaw puzzle. As we sorted through the pieces, I found out her favorite color is cobalt violet, not purple or blue, but something in between the two.

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