Page 32 of Savage Love

Isabella doesn’t push further, and I’m glad. She doesn’t press me about too much, not this afternoon and not in any of the ones that follow, over the few days that Levin and I stay until I feel ready to start looking for a place of our own.

He doesn’t touch me again. Not like that. I tell myself every night when he kisses me lightly on the cheek and rolls over in bed that we wouldn’t have done more than sleep anyway, not in my sister’s house, but I don’t entirely believe it. There’s something sneakily romantic about the idea of stealing quiet kisses and slow, hushed sex, about having to bite back moans and stifle our sounds of pleasure because someone might hear. I want that—having to keep quiet because we want each other so badly that we can’t wait—but it’s not going to happen. I’m sure of it after the first night.

It’s made more difficult because every morning, I wake up with Levin pressed against me. He makes an effort to put distance between us at night—moving over to his side of the bed as he turns off the light. I got a glimpse of what I think is his nightly routine the first night—he changed into pajama pants and a t-shirt, slipping under the covers with a book, and read for about an hour before setting the book aside and glancing over at me.

“A lot of nights, I have work that I take to bed with me,” he said wryly. “Papers Viktor wants me to look over, files, reports. This almost feels like a vacation.”

What that told me was that he typically readsomethingin bed before switching out the light.On the nights when no one else is in bed with him.I had to force that thought out to keep from going misty-eyed, imagining some strange woman in bed with him.Was there anyone in New York, after he left me here?It’s not a question I can ask him, if he’d slept with anyone between bringing me here and when Niall had called him to tell him he needed to come back. Even if I felt like I could, I don’t think I want to know the answer.

I’d set my phone aside when he switched off the light, and Levin had leaned over. For one wild moment, I had thought he was going to kiss me, that despite the fact that we were in my sister’s house, he wanted me enough to not care.

And then his lips had grazed across my cheek. “Good night,” he said softly, then rolled over, half an arm’s length between us, as my chest tightened and the lump in my throat nearly choked me.

The two following nights were the same, as was every morning. No matter how careful Levin is to put space between us when he goes to sleep, I wake with him spooning me, his broad chest against my back and his hard cock wedged against my spine, his arm slung over me as if in his sleep, he can’t stop himself from holding me close.

That hurts more than anything else—the realization that subconsciously, Levin wants me. That he wants more than what he’s so carefully cultivated into the beginning of our marriage—something courteous and caring, but ultimately detached.

I don’t say anything about it. Every morning, I squirm away from him, out from under his arm and over to my side of the bed before he wakes up. I’m not entirely sure why, exactly. A part of me thinks that it’s because I’m afraid that if he knows, he might start sleeping in another bed. It might be because I’m afraid that in his sleep, he thinks it’s someone else that he’s holding. Or maybe—

I can’t really put my finger on why. I just don’t want him to know. So I savor the feeling of being in his arms for just a moment—the heat of his body sinking into mine and the safe, secure sensation of his arm wrapped over me, before I move away from him and return back to reality.

The morning of the fourth day after our wedding, I get up after I slip out from under his arm. We have houses to view this morning; the realtor that Isabella contacted gave us the lockbox key number for each of them—and we’re supposed to set out in a couple of hours. I leave Levin quietly snoring in the bed while I pad down the hall to shower, throwing on my robe afterward before coming back to what I’ve started to think of asourroom, no matter how hard I try not to.

Soon, I’ll be waking up inourhouse. The thought fills me with a strange mixture of dread and excitement, because it’s not something I ever thought I’d have with him. Even when I’d imagined the arranged marriage I’d expected to have, before all of this, it would have been me going to my husband’s house. Notours. Not something I would have chosen with him.

This is a new experience for me.

Levin is awake when I come back in, sitting halfway up in bed and rubbing a hand over his face. He’s wearing a t-shirt with his pajamas, as always—I think it’s more a means to keep us from doing anything he’s trying to avoid rather than how he actually usually sleeps—and I can see his muscles flex under it, making my mouth go a little dry.

Four days since our wedding, and it feels like a lifetime since our wedding night. I feel wound tight with desire, aching for him. Spending every night in bed with him and not doing more than sleeping feels like torture, and I can’t help but wonder what he would say if I told him that. Once again, I wonder what constitutessatisfied?I’m not sure what would satisfy me when it comes to him. I’ve never once felt like I had enough of him.

I wish he felt the same about me.

“House-hunting day?” Levin glances at me, looking at the slim black pants and cream-colored peplum silk blouse I slipped on with a pair of sandals and pearl earrings, fancier than what I usually wear during the day. “You look like you’re going to an interview.”

I shrug. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to wear to something like this. I thought I should look nice.”

“You look beautiful.”

His voice is sincere, and I freeze with my hand halfway to my ear, one pearl stud still clutched between my fingers. I look at him, a flood of emotion rushing through me.

“Thank you,” I whisper, not knowing what else to say. I want to hear him say it again. I want him to get out of bed and walk over to me and kiss me, whispering it against my lips. Instead, we stare at each other over the gulf of space between the bed and where I’m standing, and my chest aches all over again.

Levin gets up, but he doesn’t walk to me. He walks past me, collecting clothes out of the dresser, and I can envision him doing that in our own bedroom, wherever that ends up being.This is going to be my life, every morning, for the rest of it.It should make me the happiest woman in the world. Instead, it makes me feel as if I’m drowning. Not because I don’t want it to be Levin that I spend those mornings with, but because Ido.

“I’m going to shower. I’ll meet you for breakfast.” He glances at me, and I see the flicker of a moment where he almost moves towards me, as if he instinctively wants to cross to me for a kiss.

And then he’s gone, disappeared into the hallway.

I sink down onto the edge of the bed, the pearl stud still in my hand.Don’t cry,I tell myself firmly. I can’t spend every morning of my life crying. I have to find a way to make this not hurt so much, because I won’t make it otherwise.

It will be easier when the baby comes,I tell myself.You’ll have something to occupy your attention, then. Something that demands so much of it, you won’t even notice when Levin walks past you without a kiss.It won’t hurt so much, then.

I just wish I really believed that.

Elena

By the time we walk through the third of the five houses we have on our list to look at, I don’t know how we’re going to pick one.

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