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“I’m in no hurry.” Salvatore leans back, his expression impassive. “It’s been a long day, Gia. While you were out gallivanting on the beach, I was dealing with stressful matters back home. I’d like some peace at the end of my day. We are in paradise, after all. I’d like to be able to enjoy the calm.”
I’m nearly trembling with anger. He makes me sound like a fishwife, like a shrieking harpy that won’t give him a moment’s peace, and all I want is for my husband to treat me like a wife. For him to want me.
“Don’t you even care how it makes me feel?” I hate how my voice trembles, but I hate the feelings coursing through me just as much. I feel small and unwanted and trapped, confused as to how the man who married me could find it so awful to sleep with me. He claims it’s about honor, that it has nothing to do with desire or a lack thereof, but I don’t know what to believe any longer.
Salvatore narrows his eyes at me. “I’m well aware of how it makes you feel, Gia. You’ve told me at length.”
Except I haven’t. Not the most vulnerable parts of it, not the parts that right now are making me feel as if I’m going to burst into tears. And I don’t feel like I can sit at the table with him for a moment longer.
“Excuse me,” I blurt out, tossing my napkin onto the table with my unfinished dinner. I grab my wine glass, getting up quickly, and heading towards the door that leads back inside the villa, and a part of me wants Salvatore to call after me. A part of me wants him to tell me to come back, that we’ll talk things out.
But he doesn’t. I slip inside, glancing back once through the glass door, and I see him still sitting pensively at the table, looking out over the water.
I go to the living room with my wine, curling up on the couch and pressing my forehead into the back of it. There’s silence in the villa for a long time, except for the staff coming in and out to swap out the courses and clear away dinner. They don’t acknowledge me, and I sit there until I hear Salvatore come in from the deck, and the sounds of the shower turning on a few minutes later.
Once I hear the water, I go into the bedroom and change into one of my bikinis, slipping back out to the deck. The moon is high over the water, shining on the glassy surface of the pool, and I watch it break apart as I slip into it. All traces of dinner are cleared away, the deck empty and clean, and I set my wine glass on the edge of the pool as I swim. I half-expect Salvatore to come out after a while, but he doesn’t.
I’m tired after a long day, but I’m not ready to face sleeping next to him yet. I stay in the water for a long time, thinking about Pyotr, Salvatore, and my father, about all the ways I thought my life would go, and trying to imagine what might happen now.
It all feels uncertain, uncharted, but not in a good way. Not in a way I can anticipate. I just don’t know what will happen.
I don’t even know if I’ll be able to be happy.
I felt lonely after my father died, the first time in my life that I ever felt it. I thought that feeling would pass after I married Pyotr, that my life would be full again, that I’d have someone at my side to chase the loneliness away.
But now, I’m lonelier than ever. And to hear Salvatore tell it, I never would have had what I thought was possible with Pyotr and me.
Apparently, I was always going to feel this way.
Eventually, I go back inside and change into something to sleep in, after rinsing the chlorine off. Salvatore is already in bed, and I realize when I sit down on the edge of the mattress that he’s already asleep, snoring lightly. Somehow, that only makes the ache in my chest worse—that he went about his night as if I weren’t even here.
I slip under the covers and close my eyes, wishing that I could hope tomorrow will be better.
But it feels like it’s just going to be more of the same.
Gia
In the morning, I once again wake up alone. The sheets and blanket on Salvatore’s side of the bed are once again tucked up neatly and smoothed over. I frown, wondering how he once again managed to get up and leave without disturbing me at all. I typically sleep well, but either he’s actually being careful not to wake me—which seems like more concern than he actually feels—or the sun and relaxation of vacation has me sleeping more deeply than usual.
I sit up, glancing to see if he’s left another note for me, but there’s nothing. I didn’t take the card out of my bag yesterday, and I hope that it’s still there. If he retrieved it, I won’t be able to go out today.
Pushing back the covers, I stretch and swing my legs out of bed. I’ll have a quick breakfast, I decide, and then go see about those surfing lessons. I have no idea if I’ll like it or not, but it seems like fun. At the very least, the flirtation with Blake will be, especially after Salvatore’s attitude last night.
I pad to the bathroom, pushing the door open with the intent to take a quick shower—and freeze as I see Salvatore standing at the counter, not unlike that first morning that I walked in on him in our bathroom at home.
He’s shirtless, his soft sleep pants pushed down below his hips, low enough to show the deep cuts of muscle in his abdomen that carve down to the thick tuft of his pubic hair, his hipbones standing out in sharp relief, the swell of his ass just visible. His eyes are closed and his jaw set, his forearm flexed as his hand grips his swollen, lubed cock, sliding swiftly up and down the hard, straining length.
“What the hell?” I burst out before I can think better of it, staring at him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Salvatore’s eyes fly open. His hand goes still, clenched around his cock, and I see frustrated anger glimmer in his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Gia,” he snaps. “Do you ever knock?”
It’s hard for me to tear my gaze away from his cock. That’s been inside of me. It felt?—
It felt like it could have been good. If he’d slowed down, if he’d given me a chance to really feel it, if he hadn’t rushed to the finish because he wanted it over with. I bite my lip, and I don’t miss the way Salvatore’s gaze briefly flicks to my mouth.
God, he really is handsome. He looks like he’s been carved from stone, all chiseled muscle and tanned olive skin, that dark chest hair inviting me to run my fingers over it.
“Gia.” He growls my name in a way that makes a shiver run down my spine. “Get. Out.”
