AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Here.” She holds out the bag, and I frown at her, confused. “We picked out a few things for you. Just in case your honeymoon goes—well.”
“You didn’t need to do that.” I bite my lip, taking my books from the cashier. “You didn’t need to spend money on me?—”
Angelica snorts. “Please. Like we don’t all have credit cards with someone else’s name on them that we can use pretty much how we want.”
I feel a small smile at the corners of my mouth. “Okay,” I relent. “That’s fair. Thank you.”
Bags in hand, we head back to the car. My driver heads to a parking garage where their individual rides are waiting, and we all hug, exchanging goodbyes, and promises from me to take lots of pictures.
The doors close, and I’m left alone in the warm leather interior of the car, my stomach instantly in knots now that I’m alone with no distractions.
Tomorrow, I’m going somewhere far away with Salvatore. Somewhere that I’ve never been before. I’m excited and scared all at once.
It’s making me realize that I haven’t had many new experiences in my life. For all that, I was happy with it, right up until six months ago, it was a quiet, sheltered life.
Now I’m going on an adventure. And despite the company I’ll be keeping, I can’t help but feel a thrill prickle over my skin.
Tomorrow, I’ll be somewhere I’ve never been before. He promised me somewhere warm, and I can’t help but fantasize about where we might go—warm sun on my skin and the taste of salt air on my tongue, the smell of fresh tropical air. I can already feel the thrill of adventure, and I don’t even know where it will be yet.
Regardless of who it is that I’m going with, this will be the most exciting moment of my life so far.
Gia
Salvatore is nowhere to be seen when I get home. I consider knocking on his office door, but I don’t actually want to talk to him; I’m just curious as to whether he’s even here. There’s an hour until we would usually have dinner, but instead of changing clothes and heading down to the dining room just before seven to see if he’s there, I go up to the bedroom instead.
Leah will bring up the rest of my shopping bags, but I grabbed the one with my books. I slip out of my jeans and cardigan, leaving my clothes in a pile on the bed, and go to draw a hot bath.
If Salvatore wants me to come down for dinner, he can come find me. I’m not particularly hungry after the big lunch I had with my friends, and the last thing I want to do right now is sit primly at the dinner table and try to dance around an argument with him.
What I want is to escape. And since I can’t do that physically, I do it with one of my books instead.
I sink down into the hot, almond oil-scented water, letting it close over me up to my collarbones, letting out a sigh as the heat sinks into my muscles. I reach for my book, feeling myself relax as I open it. I picked the vampire novel—a story about a reclusive vampire prince who falls in love with an ordinary human woman, instead of marrying a vampire princess. Despite everyone who tries to protect her from him, he sweeps her away anyway.
Romance novels have always been my guilty pleasure. Most of the ideas that I have about what happens in the bedroom come from them—something that Angelica has often pointed out would probably lead to disappointment in the end. But I didn’t think that would be the case with Pyotr.
It hasn’t been the case with Salvatore, either, that little voice in the back of my head whispers. Aside from the crushing disappointment when he left me alone on our wedding night, every time we’ve come close to being intimate has been?—
Stop it. I try to refocus on the page in front of me. I don’t want to think about Salvatore, or his dextrous fingers, or the rasp of his voice in my ear as he urges me towards pleasure. I want to vanish into the pages of my book—or if I’m going to fantasize about anyone, I want it to be Pyotr.
I used to do that, before the wedding, while Pyotr and I were still courting. I’d lie in the bath, or in bed, reading a book and imagining Pyotr in the place of the hero. I’d close my eyes after a particularly good part, and replay it in my head—only I’d be in the place of the heroine, and Pyotr would be the one touching me, kissing me, making all those wild fantasies come true. I didn’t even know if I actually wanted to do most of them, in real life. Some sounded better in theory than in reality. But the fantasy was always what was so good.
And I’d hoped that at least some of it could be a reality.
I try to think of Pyotr as I read. To imagine him storming the gates of Salvatore’s mansion, intent on stealing me away and taking me back for himself. I try to imagine him gently pushing my hair behind my ear, looking down into my eyes, and whispering to me that it doesn’t matter to him what’s happened since we’ve been separated. That I’ll always be the only one for him. That he would die to have me back in his arms.
But for the first time, it’s hard for me to picture Pyotr’s face. And as I read, suddenly it’s Salvatore that slips into my mind.
Salvatore, shoving his way past startled wedding guests, his face hard and determined as he stormed up to the altar. Salvatore, facing down the Bratva pakhan as he put a stop to a marriage that he believed would hurt me.
Salvatore, holding my hand in his rougher one, looking down at me and swearing to protect me, ‘til death do us part.
And when I think hard enough about it, when I remember that moment without the veil of shock turning it to a haze, I don’t think I remember seeing desire in his eyes.
What I remember is ferocity. Enough to stand up to an army of Bratva, if he had to, in order to make sure I walked out of that church with him instead.
What if I got this all wrong? I set the book down, closing my eyes. What if Salvatore was the one looking out for me all along?
I swallow hard, past the lump in my throat. This isn’t my fantasy. This isn’t what I had so carefully played out in my head.
