So much for having a head-to-head talk. The man was drunk. Further evidence that she affected him deeply. He was way too strong and self-controlled to indulge in excess drinking on a whim.
‘I want you to come to bed.”
He blinked. ‘With you?”
‘yes ”
He shook his head. you do not want me in your bed.”
‘I changed my mind.”
‘you cannot. You hate me. You told me this.” He sighed and looked at the empty glass in his hand as if trying to figure out how it had gotten there.
‘I must not forget.”
‘I don’t hate you. I was angry, but I didn’t mean it.” She’d been unable to tell him she didn’t want to marry him but she’d certainly been capable of spouting enough hurtful words.
‘You did not mean it.” He set the glass on the table, but it caught the edge and fell to the floor.
Luckily, it did not break.
She ignored it because he was swaying to his feet and she wasn’t sure he was not headed the same way as the glass.To the floor.
He stopped in front of her and grasped her shoulders. She put her hands on his waist to steady him and then smiled at the thought of her puny strength holding up his massive body.
‘You did not mean it,” he repeated. He sounded as if he was having a hard time grasping the concept.
‘Right. But I think we should talk about it in the morning.”
‘You’re drunk ” His brow furrowed.
‘I do not drink excessively.”
‘yes, I know, but this time you must have.”
‘you said you hated me.” He said it much like a first-grader repeating his memory lesson and slightly bewildered by it.
‘I didn’t mean it,” she repeated slowly, trying to get through the alcoholic stupor he appeared to be under stand ‘I want you to come to bed.”
His bleary eyes brightened. ‘you will sleep in my bed.”
‘our bed and yes.”
He let her lead him from the room docile as a Iamb. It almost scared her this unknown Salvatore but she liked it a little too. Usually he was so forceful, he would never let her undress him… at least not without doing some undressing of his own. This time he allowed her to pull his clothes off and press him toward the bathroom to brush his teeth before they went to bed.
Ten minutes later she was wrapped snugly in his arms and he was snoring slightly. Salvatore never snored. It must be the alcohol. They would talk in the morning. She would make him tell her his real feelings once and for all.
Salvatore woke with little men in hobnailed boots dancing inside his head. His mouth tasted as if it were stuffed with wadded-up cotton and he needed to go to the bathroom.
That was his first sense of awareness.
His second told him that a small, warm and very naked body was curled into his and that body belonged to Elisa. Her hand was buried in the hair on his chest, pressed against his heart. One of her shapely legs was tucked between his own and her stomach pressed lightly against his morning erection.
It bobbed in awareness and he groaned. She squirmed beside him.
He lifted his hand to his face, rubbing the rough stubble on his cheeks and wondering what this rapprochement meant.
How had she come to be in his bed? He remembered thinking briefly last night, during one burst of particularly drunken brainstorming, that he should go upstairs and carry her there. Had he done that? Hazy memories of her undressing him did not fit with that scenario. Surely she would not have put him to bed if he had carried her into the room against her will. Then he remembered. She’d come to the library. They had talked. He couldn’t remember the whole conversation, but certain things stood out.