Aria tensed with a cry.
I stilled, my gaze flitting to her eyes, trying to see if I’d hurt her. “Aria,” I murmured.
A hesitant smile pulled at her lips and the fist around my heart loosened. “Give me a moment.”
I stroked my thumbs over her hipbones and higher, then back down, never taking my eyes off my wife’s face as she took a few deep breaths. She exhaled and moved her hips. Her moves were unpracticed, and it was obvious that they didn’t bring her much pleasure yet, but I held back, waiting for her to get used to the position even when I wanted to show her how amazing it could be.
Aria’s eyes met mine. “Help me?”
My chest constricted. I held onto her waist, my big hands touching her firm ass. I helped her rotate her hips as I made small upwards thrusts. I watched her closely to see the angle she liked best as I shifted my hips with each push.
Aria was gorgeous, and I loved how she trusted me to make this good for her, how she trusted me enough to ask me for help. She trusted me to hold back for her, and fuck I did. It wasn’t the best sex I’d ever had, if you counted only the physical aspect, but by god it beat everything else anyway, because by taking care of Aria, by shoving down my own needs, I felt a different kind of satisfaction I’d never felt before. It would have been easy to seek the ultimate pleasure with Aria, to take more than her body was capable of giving just yet. Aria might have denied me in our wedding night but, deep down, I knew that something had changed, that she’d yield to my demands now, no matter what I asked, and that was exactly why I would be twice as careful to honor her own needs.
And when Aria finally came on top of me, her body loose with pleasure, her blond strands trailing like silk down her back, and my own body tightened with release, I wondered how I’d ever enjoyed the senseless fucking, the uncaring pleasure-seeking of the past.
Aria fell forward, kissed my lips then clung to my neck and I held her tightly, feeling my heart speed up for no good reason at all, and overcome with something I could only describe as…fear. An emotion I’d rarely felt since becoming a Made Man and even less in recent years.
“I won’t lose you,” I rasped, confused by the chaos churning my insides.
“You won’t.”
Aria didn’t understand in how much danger she was. “The Bratva is closing in. How can I protect you?” The Bratva would target my weakest point, and every day it became more apparent that Aria was that weakness because I cared for her when I’d never cared for anything but the Famiglia. Protecting her would be difficult.
“You will find a way,” Aria said firmly. Again that unfailing trust in me. A trust I was bound to break at some point.CHAPTER 22My days in the next two weeks were filled with countless discussions with my father about possible ways to make the Bratva pay. We targeted another of their drug labs and killed a few of their dealers because Father was convinced that losing money would hurt them the most. The only light in my day was when I returned to my wife, saw her beautiful smile and worshipped her body.
Today, it became clear the moment I entered the penthouse that I wouldn’t be on the receiving end of her smile.
Aria’s face was a mask of fury when she rushed inside from the roof terrace.
She didn’t slow down until she was right in front of me and hit my chest with her fists, catching me off-guard. What the hell had gotten into her? I snatched up her wrists, holding her tightly. “Aria, what—”
Aria jerked her knee upwards, but I managed to evade a direct hit by jumping back.
“Get out,” I growled at Romero, who disappeared in the elevator at once. Aria glared up at me and actually tried to ram her knee into my balls again. Anger surged through me and I shoved her down on the sofa before I held her down with my body. “For god’s sake, Aria. What’s gotten into you?”
“I know about Gianna and Matteo,” she hissed, and then the anger slipped off and she began crying.
I let go of her and stopped holding her down. “That’s what this is about?” I couldn’t believe she was losing her mind about something like that. Her sister would have to marry anyway. I’d have thought she’d be happy to have her in New York.
“Of course you don’t understand, because you never loved anyone more than your own life. You can’t possibly understand how it is to feel your own heart breaking at the thought of the person you love getting hurt. I would die for the people I love.”