She sniffles again, and I lean in and rub my nose up the curve of her neck. Then I press my face into her nape, her soft curls brushing my cheeks. “I want your joy,” I murmur, burrowing deeper against her. “I want your tears. I want your pain. I want your pleasure. It all belongs to me. And you’ll give it to me before I take you.”
Despite my declaration, one niggling thread of doubt winds through my head. Every minute Sal is alive is another minute I haven’t held up my end of the deal. It’s another minute she might think of leaving me, and I’ll never allow her to go.
16
Valentina
I can’t stop crying, and every time I so much as sniffle, Adrian stiffens and his fingers tighten on me. Remembering my cousin and best friend is dead a few minutes before I have to walk down the aisle is not how I imagined my wedding day. Hell, none of this is how I imagined my wedding day. But to be fair, I’d avoided thinking about it because my fiancé was never my choice. Despite my tears and the sorrow rolling through me, Adrian is my choice.
It might not be a marriage in the traditional sense, but I am trying to believe he’ll keep me safe. Even from himself. I swipe at the tears on my cheeks and blink up at his face. This probably isn’t the wedding night he envisioned either. His fingers dig into my hips—not painfully, but it feels like he’s waiting. If it’s a holding pattern for me to be ready for sex, it’s definitely not happening.
All over again, Rose’s face flashes in my head, and another round of tears starts pouring out of my eyes. Adrian tugs me tight into his chest so I’m lying with our legs intertwined and my lips almost against his sternum. So much of his bare skin drags me from my grief. I latch onto it, pressing my fingers into his very solid pecs. There’s a slight smattering of dark hair across them, but it’s soft against my cheek.
I focus on his skin and breathing. Hoping it’s enough to keep my thoughts on hold so I can stop crying.
“I understand you’re upset,” he says, his voice deep and rumbling in the confined space between us. “But you’re stronger than this. You need to be stronger than this.”
It’s not a censure; his voice isn’t hard or scolding. He says it matter-of-factly, and somehow, it’s his frank tone that makes me scrub the tears away again and lift my chin to look at his face.
He’s staring down at me, and there’s no pity in his gaze. No sympathy yet no give either. I swallow hard and whisper, “I don’t want to have sex right now. I just can’t.”
“It’s our wedding night.”
I move to push away from his hold, but he tightens his grip. A spike of fear shoots through me. Is this when he shows his true colors and turns into someone like my father, someone like Sal?
No sooner does the thought drift into my head does he shove me away hard and climb off the bed. It takes me a second to catch up, then I sit up to study him. If I don’t watch him, I can’t protect myself if he comes at me.
But he doesn’t. He only paces back and forth at the end of the bed, clenching his fists. I’ve made him angry because I won’t sleep with him. I realize this is a part of our deal, but the thought of sex right now, after the memory of Sal’s hands on my naked body burned its way into my brain only a couple of hours ago, sickens me. It physically makes me nauseated.
I swipe more tears away, impatiently, and watch him pace. Should I apologize? Throw myself down on the floor and beg him not to take what he’s already bargained to have? I thought I’d accepted what is happening between us, but now, on the other side of my memories resurfacing, it all feels so much heavier, so much more real.
And I want Sal so much more dead. It hits me all over that his death is why I made this deal. Why I married a stranger today, and why I’m currently sitting in his bed in only a scrap of lace. I can’t risk him backing out on that because I can’t kill him. As evident by the fact that he almost killed me, and I barely put up a fight.
“I’m sorry,” I say barely above a whisper.
I have no idea if he hears me or if he’s just ignoring me, but he doesn’t stop his pacing. Tears squeeze out of my eyes again, and then he swipes a lamp off a side table, and it hits the floor in a shattering crash.