“What appointments, darling?” he asked absently as he watched the contestant on the screen make a stupid choice and scoffed at them. “Idiot.”
“Just things like my hair and stuff.” She didn’t want to say she wanted to go back to New York to see the doctor. She didn’t want him to worry, not unless there was a reason for it. For now, it would be best to keep her worries to herself.
“You can get your hair done in town.” Absently, still, he reached for her hair. “It looks fine anyway. What do you want to be done to it?”
“Just a trim.” Her eyes went back to the screen, but she couldn’t stop the way she pulled her lip in between her teeth. Or the way she frowned. He hadn’t actually answered her.
Sometimes she still felt like a prisoner because he wouldn’t answer questions she had. He’d deflect, change the subject, or make some other comment that just wasn’t an answer. It was like she was on house arrest, with only the illusion of freedom.
She frowned at her thoughts, which weren't really fair. He was trying to keep her safe, and not just because she’d been attacked. The aftermath had been rough on her, the gunshot, the ensuing internal damage, the surgery, the healing, it had all been rough on someone that had been through so much already. The stress had been immense and, luckily, he was quite aware of that.
He knew she wasn’t used to such cold temperatures either. Even if she’d spent the last winter in New York, it felt different out here, like something that you couldn’t escape sometimes. The bathroom had been cold earlier, so cold she hadn’t wanted to get into the shower. Then she didn’t want to get out of it, even though her hand had stopped trembling. The cooling of the water forced her out, though.
That meant she was a prisoner of the cold, a prisoner of Matteo’s worries, and a prisoner of her recent worries, too. The urge to get up and pace hit her, but she didn’t want to get out of the warmth of the down duvet on the bed. Matteo had found it in the closet and put it on the bed this afternoon. It made getting into the bed heavenly after her shower.
Instead of getting up to walk around the house, she turned to her husband. “Matteo?”
“Yes?” He was still watching the show and didn’t turn to look at her. Hmmm.
A quick wiggle of her right hand told her that her fingers were warm, so she slid them across his stomach until she reached the top of his pajama pants. The black fleece easily pulled away from his skin and he looked down at her, his attention now solely focused on her and where her pinky was. “Hi there.”
“Oh, you see me now?” She grinned up at him from his right side, her chin on his chest.
“I do indeed. How could I miss you when you’re being so… exploratory?” His words came out quietly, even though they were well away from the space Anton inhabited in the attic above. Matteo was a private man in many ways. Even if he liked to press his luck by continuing to fuck her just as Anton came back, as he’d done earlier.
“How long,” she paused to slide her hand lower, “are we staying in Montana?”
His breath caught and his eyebrows rose as she found his very hard cock. He was always ready for her, at even the slightest touch. Even just a few words could bring his body to life, which was something she dearly loved about him.
“Oh, I don’t know. Until the threat is neutralized, or before that maybe. It just depends on how quickly we find out who put the contract out.” The last of his sentence came out as a gasp as she began to stroke him with her hand.
“Right. So, I could make a few appointments here?” She waited for him to nod his head before she pulled away. “Thanks. That’s all I needed to know.”
The evil but naughty grin on her face as she pulled her hand out of his pants made him turn suddenly and pull her beneath him. “Is that how it is? You try to seduce me to get the information you want and once you have it, you just leave me to suffer?”
“Oh no, darling,” Marie replied as she put her arms around his neck. “I knew exactly what would happen, and this is it.”
She didn’t get to say anything else because his mouth covered hers as the passion grew into flames between them. She’d think about it all tomorrow. For now, all she could think about was him.
The next few days were taken up with installing the new security gate, bringing in more wood, and watching films on Netflix. She watched an entire series in one sitting some days. Sometimes, if it wasn’t too cold out, Matteo would walk around the property with her, just for the exercise.
They used a virtual private network to hide their location when they were online, a really good one that cost a pretty penny or a dozen, so she was able to talk to Trina sometimes, even if she wasn’t allowed to tell her where they were. It was nice to hear another voice, but still, the worries over her condition she kept to herself. Trina might tell Matteo, and she wasn’t ready to bring that subject up again.
She’d bought a kit at the store the last time she was in town, a kit that promised she would have one perfectly crocheted hat when she was finished, and she worked on that while she watched television. It wasn’t the perfect example shown in the picture, and she’d had to watch some videos online to find out exactly what one of the stitches was, but she got through it.
When she’d seen the kit, she thought it might improve her fine motor skills, and keep her arms moving. The whole thing was an attempt to stave off what she saw as a threat to her whole life. If she could just keep her balance, her range of motion, she could beat the disease. Marie knew it didn’t work like that, but there wasn’t much else she knew to do.
Matteo often asked her what was troubling her, he knew something was, but she didn’t want to talk about it. They were playing rummy, watching the snow fall outside of the kitchen windows when he brought it up again.
“What’s troubling you, Marie? You keep brushing me off, but you sigh a lot for a woman that’s got nothing on her mind.” He placed a card on the pile that she needed to make a trio of threes, so she took it and put the trio down, which left her with one card.
“I want to see a doctor. I think maybe I have a pinched nerve in my neck, something like that.” She finally admitted something, though it wasn’t exactly what her problem was. Well, not what her fears were.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, his brows knitted together as he leaned towards her? “Maybe some ice, or heat, would help?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt. My arm just keeps going… numb.” She looked down at her remaining card, afraid he’d see the truth in her eyes.
“Oh, okay. Well, I’m sure there’s a doctor in town that can have a look at you.” He pulled a card from the pile and looked at what was in his hand. “It sounds like a trapped nerve to me, if it’s going numb.”
“Yeah,” she answered and felt stupid because that was all she could think to say. She sighed again and stared out of the window while he decided what to do with his cards. Her free hand came up to touch the necklace he’d given her. It was so special to her and touching it brought her a lot of comfort.
“You’re a really sweet man for such a tough guy, Matteo.” She changed the subject entirely and looked back at him as he put down a four that she didn’t need. She reached for another card and threw it away.