Page 48 of The Don

“I don’t—”

“It wasn’t a question. I’ll get you some water.” Once again, she rushes away from me in agitation, and once again, I follow her.

It’s only as we walk toward the kitchen that I realize her nudity. The way her ass and thighs shake with each step, the tattoo at the base of her spine that I remember from the day we met, the soft rolls of just a little more flesh on each of her hips.

“Bella,” I groan.

She turns to glare at me over her shoulder. Even angry, she’s beautiful.

“I thought you would be happy to see me.” I mean that to be a joke, but I realize that the absence of her happiness hurts even more than my ribs.

She walks right to the refrigerator and pulls a bottle of water out. I try to reach into an upper cabinet for a glass, and a pained hiss seeps from my lips.

She slaps my hand out of the way and grabs the cup instead. “I thought you were right behind me,” she says, the rage still heating her words. She pours me some water and then glares at me until I do as she said and take the tablets she’s given me. Only then does she relax and let me fold her carefully into my arms.

She presses her mouth to the center of my chest and then rests her cheek against my skin. “Promise me this’ll be over soon.”

Her voice sounds as fragile as I thought she looked the first time I saw her, but I think I know her a bit better, just enough to hear the steel underneath those words.

“I promise.” It’s a dangerous thing to make promises in my line of business, but I haven’t lied to Shae once. So, I’ll just have to make sure that anyone who might make me a liar isn’t long for this world.

“Let’s go bathe,” I say.

She shivers against me and then finally completely relaxes. She shakes her head, and then we walk back to our bedroom together.

20SHAE

Not to be tooSuzy fucking Homemaker, but for the next couple of days, I treat Salvatore like he’s made of glass.

I cook all his meals, and we both pretend that my food is as good as his. I make sure he’s comfortable at all times, shoving pillows and blankets around his side. And I watch the bruising around his ribs darken to a terrifying blue-gray. I try to convince him to go to the hospital. He might have a broken rib or three. I pretend not to be queasy when he tells me that he knows exactly what a broken rib feels like and his are just bruised. For a couple of days, I treat Salvatore with kid gloves, and to be honest, I love it.

Zoe would take my feminist card away without a second thought, but back home I know my mom’s brain is tingling as if she knows that somewhere I’m cosplaying as the kind of wife she thinks all women — even Zoe — should aspire to be. It won’t last, but I hope this vague awareness makes her feel good, because I don’t plan to ever let her see me behaving this way.

And okay, sometimes I might treat Salvatore like a glass dildo, but in my defense, he doesn’t mind at all. If I don’t climb very carefully on top of him first thing in the morning, he bunches his eyebrows sadly at me and asks if something is wrong. And when I ride him slow and steady, careful where I put my hands, he massages my hips and watches me use him with the softest, most contented smile I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know what’s more shocking, that he lets me take care of him or that it makes me feel good to do so. But I do know, more and more every hour of every day, that I want exactly this life with him.

Well, not exactly this.

The only part of those two days I don’t like is feeling like something is hanging over our heads. Because it is. Salvatore doesn’t tell me what happened at the club after I left, and I don’t ask. I decide that I don’t need to know too many details; I just want whatever is happening to end.

“I want to live in the States,” I say to him first thing the next morning. I’m straddling his hips, and he’s just grunted and groaned while coming inside me for the first time today.

“What?” he asks, still gasping for air.

I place my hands on his chest and snake my fingers through the hair there. “When this is over, I want to move back to the States. I want to raise our baby close to my family.”

His hands are caressing my thighs, but as soon as I mention the baby, one moves over my stomach, stoking my arousal even though our groins are still wet with my most recent orgasm; his tender protectiveness never ceases to turn me on.

I start to grind against him and babble without thinking. “We can, like, split our time between here and—”

“No,” he says gruffly at the same time he presses his hips up into me.

I moan and move a little bit faster than I’ve allowed myself in days.

“We will go to America,” he says. “I don’t care where we live as long as we’re together.”

I move my hands to the bed and make sure not to grip his sides too hard with my knees, but I’m moving my hips on top of him in very determined circles, chasing another release before we’ve even gotten over the last one.

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