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“Nothing,” I say quickly, reaching for the maple syrup. He grabs my wrist before I can, though, and brings my hand to his mouth to kiss each pad of my fingertips.

“Don’t lie. Not after everything. Tell me.”

“I’m scared.”

“Of?”

“You. This. Us. Take your pick. I’m scared that I’m giving my everything to a man who has the power to destroy me.” I look away from his penetrating gaze, but he grabs my chin and turns my face back to look at him.

“Intimacy is scary, Mia. Giving yourself to someone isn’t easy or something that should be done lightly. But when twopeople choose to do it together, equally giving themselves to the other and being vulnerable, then it’s a little less scary, right?”

“So, we’re doing it together?”

“Yes, my bride, we’re doing it together,” he assures me. “And I’ll keep telling you no matter how many times you need to hear it, that I’m serious about us. There’s no second shoe that’ll drop. There’s no ulterior motive. There’s no second guessing. There’s no backtracking. There’s only us, moving forward and figuring it all out together. Do you think you can do that with me?”

“Yes, I can,” I tell him, and the corners of his lips lift in a boyish little smile. “And I want to.”

Santino leans down and kisses each of the corners of my mouth before kissing me fully, sealing the deal.

I spin towards him and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him down to kiss him properly. I kiss him like he deserves. I give him everything I can’t say yet in this kiss, showing him that I’m so far down this path with him that I didn’t even realize I can’t see the starting line anymore.

“Eat your pancakes before they get cold,farfalla,” he murmurs against my lips, kissing each corner again.

Chapter 25

Santino

“You look happy, San,” Emilio says, joining me on Albie’s couch to watch the game.

“I am, man.” I take a drag from my beer and settle back into the couch, propping my feet up on the coffee table. I spent yesterday relaxing with my wife, letting her body recover from the absolute primal and mind-blowing fucking we did all weekend, and then I held her all night and woke her up to fuck her slow and lazily before going to my meeting with Leo this morning.

Emilio, Albie, and I have a Monday night football tradition to maintain, and Mia insisted I keep it.

“It’s going well with Mia, then?”

I can’t stop the smile from taking over my face. “Yeah, it is.”

“Good, brother. You deserve to be happy.”

“So do you and Albie.”

“Eh, we’ll find women when we find them. Or maybe we’ll take a page from your playbook and just marry a random hot chick and fall in love.”

“She was never random,” I confess, and he goes quiet, his attention now on me and not the TV.

“What do you mean?” Emilio asks.

“I made sure marrying Mia was a part of my deal with Leo. I could’ve negotiated without her, but I’ve wanted her for months. I saw her at Leo’s wedding and have been waiting until theright moment to take her. The opportunity came sooner than I thought, actually.”

“Are you fucking serious, San?” he asks incredulously.

I look at him and laugh. “Yeah, why? You’re looking at me like I’m insane.”

“Because you are. Hey, Al, get in here!” he yells over his shoulder.

“What? I’m in the middle of making pizza.”

Damn, I don’t want to interrupt him when he’s cooking. For all that he lacks in time management skills and seriousness, he makes up for in his cooking abilities. When our mom would be off on one of her trips or out to dinner with her friends, leaving us home with dad, Albie was usually in charge of cooking. He taught himself when we were tired of take-out, and while we all can hold our own in the kitchen, he’s the best out of the three of us.

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