Entrapment (Morelli Family 7.5)

She wouldn’t like that, though, so I don’t. I lie in bed on occasion thinking about lighting the torch, but I don’t. I let her have peace.

Only right now, it doesn’t feel like peace is what she wants.

She fills the charged silence with words. “I have a lot of questions about a lot of things.”

My lips tug up faintly. “I can imagine.”

I have a lot of questions, myself. How many inches could I take right now? My hands are still firmly gripping her hips and they shouldn’t be. I was too relieved to control myself; I had to touch her in some way. I thought it might dim her, though.

I’d steal so many moments for myself if they didn’t cost her so much.

Last night when Meg went to brush her teeth, I wanted to touch Mia. I brushed past her just a little too close, and I could see her heart sinking in her eyes.

So many things I want to do with her and I can’t, because I had to have the poor fucking judgment to fall in love with a good person. Even now, her eyes swimming with feelings, her chest visibly working as she draws in breath, I’m afraid to escalate things. I’ve already pushed too far and cost myself her affections once. She avoided me like it was her religion until Meg came along. We had gotten back to a friendly place, but she only came over on Sundays with Vince. It became a fucking tradition of mine to retire to the surveillance room once she left and watch the tapes, pore over every single moment she spent under my roof to hold me over until I saw her a week later.

Right now she’s staying at my house. Last night, however platonic, she slept in my bed again. We’ve come a long fucking way.

On one hand, I want to push my hand into her hair, draw her close, and kiss her until she can’t breathe. Until she can’t think. Until her hands are tugging desperately at my clothes and she’ll let me lift this little sundress and bury myself inside her. I want her writhing with pleasure and screaming when I make her come—then I want to do it again, and again. I never want to stop. I want to fuck her for the rest of my life—even if that means never leaving this goddamn hotel room.

As if in response to my desires, she flushes. “I can’t believe you came for me.”

I can’t believe she thought I wouldn’t.

“As many times as you’ve come through for me, I think I owed you one,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes at me, like that’s an absurd thing to say. “I don’t do you favors so you’ll owe me. There’s no one keeping track.”

“I always keep track,” I tell her.

Of all the people I owe favors, Mia damn sure tops the list. It’s absurd that she doesn’t know that. She’s so fucking innocent. So blind to what’s right in front of her.

Right now it doesn’t feel like she’s blind to it. Right now, I have her in my bubble again. The ache she left months ago opens back up. I want so badly to give her a little shove into the abyss, that way she has to join me here.

I can’t, though. She already looks so tormented. I know I’m doing this to her. I know it’s wrong. She doesn’t deserve my bullshit. She deserves peace.

I’ve tried to fucking hard to give it to her, but she deserves more than peace. She deserves happiness. She deserves to go to sleep next to a man who knows she’s more valuable than all the riches in the world. She deserves to be with someone who knows what he has when he has her, not some asshole who actively tries to make her feel badly about herself.

She deserves better than Vince. She deserves much better than me, too, but at least I know no one else would ever treasure her the way I do. No one else sees Mia the way I see her. If anyone did, she wouldn’t be wasting her fucking time with Vince.

It’s not enough. It’s not enough to just have her in my life. It’s not enough to have her at my dinner table, to coax her into sleepovers with a person in bed between us.

I want more.

I glance at the bed in this hotel room. I could take more. I could take more right now.

It would break her, though. I recall the car ride home from the poker game when she couldn’t even speak to me. That was when Vince was the only collateral—when the asshole was getting a house out of it, and he never even had to know.

Mia can’t lie.

And I have Meg now.

I can’t do it. Mia won’t be able to fucking handle it.