The idea of more shopping made me a little sick, but this was the city. There was never a shortage of places to go or things to do. I could, I don’t know, take a class or join the gym, something that would give me a reason to leave the house more often so I didn’t start going stir crazy since it didn’t look like Primo was going to want me to work. And, quite frankly, why should I? He was the one who forced me into this whole mess. He could be the one to finance having a wife.
Decision made, I flicked on the TV to drown out the voices in my head, then curled up and went to sleep.
But what did I do?
I dreamed of him, of course.
The sweaty kind of dream, too.
Because my body needed more of that.
Right before we got to the really hot part of the dream, though, I felt hands grabbing me, leaving me to wake up with a gasp to find myself being lifted up into Primo’s arms yet again.
“Stubborn ass,” he mumbled as he cradled me to his chest.
“Put me down, Primo,” I demanded, voice sharp.
“No.”
“Put. Me. Down,” I demanded, emphasizing each word with a jolt of my body, hoping he’d get annoyed and put me onto my own feet again. But, nope. This was Primo we were talking about. In his giant arms, I might as well have been a flailing toddler.
“You sleep in my bed. We’ve been over this,” he told me, walking toward the stairs. “I don’t give a fuck if your ego is bruised, you sleep next to me.”
“My ego is not bruised,” I grumbled, leaning as far away from his chest as I could get with how hard he was holding onto me, even if a small part of me wanted to lean in and take a deep breath of the body wash that smelled just like his cologne that was clinging to his skin.
“Fine. Then you’re in a pissy-ass mood because I wouldn’t let you come. Whatever way you want to put it.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Primo. I don’t need you to help me come,” I told him, bitterness slipping into my words. “I’ve managed just fine without you in the past,” I added as we went up the stairs. “By myself… and not.”
“Don’t,” he snapped, stopping in his tracks and giving my body a little shake. “Do not talk about other men you’ve been with to me.”
“Primo, if you wanted a starry-eyed virgin who would mistakenly believe your cock is the best one in the whole wide world, you chose wrong,” I told him, enjoying the way anger had a muscle in his jaw ticking. Maybe it wasn’t smart to poke a bear like him, but I took a little bit of comfort in knowing I could get a rise out of him, that he wasn’t the only one who wielded a little power in this relationship.
“I bet you would be singing a different tune if I ripped off your panties and started to fuck you.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I said, shooting him a saccharine smile.
“I bet if I slipped my fingers into your cunt right now, you’d be dripping for me.”
“Feel free to imagine any sort of absurd situations you want, Primo. But if there is one thing I am sure about right now, it is the only way you are going to fuck me is if I am practically passed-out drunk. I want absolutely nothing to do with you physically,” I told him, tone seething. It was a nasty enough sound that he looked taken aback by it.
Good.
I hoped he was sweating.
I hoped he was wondering how the hell he was going to get an heir if his wife wanted nothing to do with his hands on her ever again.
“We’ll see about that,” Primo said, dropping me down onto the bed, then going around to climb into his side.
We each turned our backs on each other.
And as I lay there not sleeping, I wondered if this was going to be how our marriage would always be.
Anger and resentment and trying to one-up the other one in a battle of wills and biting comments.
It was going to be a long life if that was the case.
But I couldn’t see any way around it.
Because I was pretty sure I hated him then more than I did when he’d been threatening to murder my family in front of me if I didn’t agree to marry him.
I didn’t think there was a way to come back from this.
CHAPTER NINE
Primo
Living with Isabella taught me that if I ever needed someone with ice in their veins to do a job for me, I probably should source out to a woman.
That first morning after the shower and tub thing, I woke up without her sprawled over me. Which seemed weird since she’d done that involuntarily in the past. It wasn’t until she got up out of the bed and I ran back upstairs to grab my watch that I realized she’d kept herself on her side of the bed by placing a line of books between us, so she would roll into them, wake up, and get herself back on her side of the bed.
I probably should have let the woman come.
I’d miscalculated when I thought it would only make her want me more.
It was my mistake, forgetting for even a moment that a huge part of her was determined to despise me because of the circumstances of our marriage. When I caught her in a soft moment, I should have been taking full advantage of it, not fucking around with her. That was the only way I was going to eventually soften her to the idea of actually being a wife in a real way, not the front we put on for others while she hated me in private.
It was going to take time.
The problem was that I wasn’t exactly a patient man.
I had to keep reminding myself that this was for life, so if she needed to waste a week or two giving me the cold shoulder, I could deal.
Even if my balls felt ready to burst. Especially now knowing that even if her head didn’t want to be in on it, her body absolutely responded to me. I would have been better off not knowing that yet.
It was just after seven on a Friday night a week after the bath situation. I’d planned on getting home and inviting her out to dinner. A peace offering, of sorts, since I’d been just as stubborn as she had since then, refusing to be the one to break the silence first. I figured that if we got out of the apartment together, maybe she would loosen up a bit, hold a conversation with me, and we could move forward.
I walked into the scents of cooking in my apartment.
Moving in, I could see Isabella in the kitchen, busy at work.
She was never fully casual, but this was as close as she got, wearing dark wash bootcut jeans and a simple lightweight camel-colored sweater. Her silky hair was pulled into a loose braid down her back, likely to keep it out of her face while she cooked.
I didn’t know what she was making.
But I did know one thing.
She wasn’t going to make enough for me.
She never did.
It was actually impressive that she managed to fight against what had to be a lifetime of Italian-mom-training to be a good future hostess, someone who always made more than enough for everyone around her.
But I had to give her credit, she sure as fuck managed.
Every single morning, I would walk down to her making just enough breakfast for herself. I wasn’t typically home early enough to catch her making dinner, but there were never any leftovers in the fridge for me, either.
Interestingly enough, though, she did apparently cook for Dulles and Dawson when they were pulling guard shifts. I knew because they’d raved about my wife’s cooking skills and I’d needed to hastily change the subject to avoid having to admit that she despised me so much that she would rather let me starve than feed me.