We both went through the process of washing our hands, Lino dragging the rings off our fingers and setting them in the bay window above the sink that looked into his backyard. It was the only hint at what the home might have been before Lino modernized it, and I loved it. On days when the dreamer in me felt stronger, I had visions of watching over our kids while they played outside, and I drank my tea.
Lino turned me to the counter, wiping it down with a clean cloth for a moment. Then he took a glass measuring cup and filled it with water, popping it in the microwave while I watched. Donning his own apron, he grabbed the flour and reached his arms around me to pour a decent-sized pile on the island counter. When the microwave went off, he grabbed the measuring cup and added two tablespoons of salt to the water, carting it over to the island and setting it near the workspace. "Can you crack eggs?" he asked with a chuckle.
"If you don't mind the shell in your ravioli, sure I can." I smiled, giggling when his face pressed into my shoulder from behind and his body shook with laughter.
"Alright. I'll do the eggs then. Make a little pool in the center of the flour."
"It gives it texture," I teased, and felt him shake his head at me. His massive fingers clasped an egg in each hand, and he tapped them against each other gently over the pile of flour. Cracking one open fully and setting the shell aside, he continued until he had four eggs in the middle.
"Add a little of the salted water. Slowly," he said. I nodded, reaching for the measuring cup and pouring a tiny stream of water into the wall with the eggs. "A little more."
His body pressed against the back of mine, taking my hands in his and setting the water to the side. It felt like he surrounded me, felt like h
e was everywhere as he guided my hands into the well and used them to mix up the eggs and water. I grimaced. I didn't think I would ever get over how gross raw food felt when you touched it.
Lino smiled into my neck, seeming to sense my displeasure. "Everything's better when it's wetter, Samara," he rasped. I snorted a laugh and felt how my laughter shook my body vibrating against his abs through his shirt and apron. "And this is about to get a lot messier." Taking my hands to the edge of the flour, he scooped some to fold it into the eggs. Flour coated our hands, sticky and messy and caked against my skin. Under any normal circumstances, I'd probably have quit. But quitting meant losing the feel of Lino pressed against me, of his breath at my ear and his hands tickling the back of mine as he guided my movements. It felt like just for a moment, we were as connected physically as we'd always felt emotionally.
I couldn't lose that. Couldn't lose the connection to my husband on what was technically my wedding night. I'd been honest in saying I didn't know if I could give Lino my body. I also highly suspected we wouldn't be exploring that territory just yet.
We went through the motions until the eggs disappeared and left us with flaky dough that Lino added more water too, and another egg. Kneading and pressing, every movement slid him against my back. When he pressed a light kiss to my neck just behind my ear, I thought I might melt, but he just continued kneading, as if the gentle touch hadn't turned my world upside down. But there was no doubt it had been intentional. Lino was using the contact through forming the dough to touch me, just the same as I was.
I didn't dare be the first to back down.
So I shifted my body, letting it take control in the way it had wanted since the moment Lino pressed against me. My back arched slightly as I let him guide me, the dough forming into a solid blob that he kept folding over itself and continuing on.
The groan he gave in my ear when my change in position made my ass rub against him shouldn't have felt so good. It shouldn't have vibrated through my entire body like I felt it down to my soul. But being recognized by Lino, being seen as something inherently female was something I'd wanted for so long, there was no stopping the visceral response I felt.
"Dough is done," he whispered finally, giving one last, lingering kiss to my cheek and backing away.
We went to wash our hands, feeling like just maybe the moment had passed. But while I washed mine, Lino leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my lips that was one hundred times better than the kiss to my neck.
Because it lasted.
I tipped my head up farther, ignoring the way the hot water dropped from my hands as I turned my body to face him and encouraged the kiss. When his mouth opened to mine, it was all I could do not to moan as his tongue touched mine. Tentative. Like he remembered my words about not being touched since Connor, about being uncertain what I could take.
Lino wouldn't risk hurting me, wouldn't risk taking something I wasn't yet ready to give. But he could give me this, the reassurance of his kiss he was there, that he cared about me, and that we were in it together. No matter what hardships we faced along the way, or how we got things twisted up and danced around each other.
We'd never given voice to the tension between us, never acknowledged it. I didn't know why Lino refused, but it no longer mattered, apparently.
He was my husband, and I was his wife.
For better or worse.
Twenty
Lino
Samara seemed almost happy to be spending time with Enzo, and that didn't sit right with me. If I hadn't trusted the man, I might have hesitated to leave. Not that I didn't trust Samara, but even I couldn't deny that our marriage hadn't been traditional. No matter how many times I might have tried to communicate my feelings for her, it always seemed like I'd be pushing too much too soon if I told her I loved her.
I couldn't afford to chase her off, and a confession of love was serious. I'd never said the words to a woman, never had the opportunity or the inclination when I'd been young enough not to fall to my father's restrictions. Young enough to think he wouldn't kill Samara if I touched her. Our friendship was offensive enough to the man, but he tolerated it so long as I didn't shame my family's name.
Because a woman with a housekeeper for a mother, a Hebrew mother at that, was just too much for him.
I would marry a good Italian woman, in his mind. It didn't matter that I never intended to marry. Matteo and I had made that promise to each other, drunk on whiskey the night before he dumped Ivory in High School. We wouldn't settle in unhappy marriages, as a fuck you to our fathers’ interference when we'd been too young to fight back.
I very much looked forward to telling my father that Samara was my wife. Given Matteo's swift rise within the organization even before his father's death, which had only grown more since, my father would have no hope of telling me who I could or couldn't marry any longer. That was the point. Matteo and I had sworn that we would never be powerless, never let someone control us in any way from that day forward. We'd swept the power right out from under the old men, all so we could do as we pleased, but it had taken years.
And by the time we had enough power, Samara had married Connor. Ivory had an entire life after years without Matteo, and the stubborn man had decided his life was far too dangerous to involve her in it. So the protection continued, but at least it had been his decision that time around.