CHAPTERTWELVE
Vivia
We fallinto a sort of rhythm over the next few days. And I have to admit… it’s nice. Really nice.
He hasn't really gotten any more lax with me… he's still strict and bossy, but that's just in his nature. It's what I'm used to, having grown up the way I have around the Rossis and Montavios, but with him it's more that I just need to be in control. I know he's dedicated to my safety, and I'm not exactly sure why, like what’s in it for him… but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth either.
In the mornings, we make a simple breakfast. Oatmeal or fried eggs, and when we have a small sink full of dishes, we boil water with dish soap, wash them, then rinse with warm, clean water. We fall into traditional roles—I wash the dishes, help with food, and he does the dirty work like cutting wood and building fires.
Even though I've never done this sort of work before, and there’s a bit of what I’d call a learning curve, I have to admit I sort of like it. There's something so simple about seeing dishes come clean under a stream of running water, washing them dry on a dish towel, eating simple meals by the campfire, and wiling the time away by gathering kindling.
I'm starting to actually almost understand why people like to vacation this way. Almost. I mean, I wouldn’t choose it myself, but I kinda get it.
I definitely would not call this vacation. It’s nothing like our trips to Bali, or Maui, or Turks and Caicos. Nothing at all. But it is a sort of retreat, away from the demands of my family and society. And there's something invigorating about the clean, brisk forest air, the soothing smell of burning fire, or even eating a meal cooked by your own hands.
He feels it, too, I know he does. Three days after we arrived, I sit in the cabin and watch him prepare to go fishing. It's a warm, sunny day, and he’s bare from the waist up. I don't even bother to hide the way that I gawk over every inch of his masculine physique before he tugs on a tee. Bummer.
“It’s a good time of day to get some fish,” he says. I don't care about the perfect time of day to get fish, which direction they swim, or how he's going to get them, but I like listening to him talk to me about it. He's like an overgrown Tom Sawyer, barefoot and suntanned, with muscles in places I never knew could grow muscles.
There's a little ache inside me, though. And I don't know exactly what causes it. I don't like having emotions I'm unfamiliar with, so I push it aside while I watch him.
And far back, in the recesses of my mind… I know we can’t stay here forever. I know there will come a time when we have to leave here, and the future’s so uncertain it’s got me on edge.
“…and yesterday morning, I noticed a whole school in the inlet that stayed longer than usual.”
I nod, pretending I’m listening. I think this is cathartic for him, too. I’ve seen lesser men buckle underneath the demands of the job he has. Here, without the ever-present pressure from his Don and brothers, he can breathe a little more freely. Dario has one task, and that task is me.
He's got a small bucket of little minnows in water and a smaller plastic container of worms he's captured for bait. I've grown a little less squeamish in the past couple days and actually watch the little minnows dart around in the water like bolts of silver lightning.
“You're actually going to use little fish to get bigger ones?" I feel my lips turn down.
“Do you have any idea how many of those you'd have to eat for a real meal?" He shakes his head. “You’d be better off boiling roots than trying to make a meal of those little things.”
“Still, it doesn't seem fair. What did they do to deserve to be fed to the bigger guy?”
"It's the circle of life," he says, a corner of his lips tipping upward. “And both of us know how that works.”
We do. Sigh. Do we ever.
“You’re adorable when you pout.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“You are, though. You don’t like the idea of a squiggly fish on a hook.” I think what I’m trying to do is not lose the contents of my belly.
He gives me another little half smile. I wonder what he thinks about me.
Things have… heated up.
Every single night, he's made me come—on his hands, on his mouth, and last night he went so far as to let himself climax on my belly. After, we bathed together by heating water, soaping up and washing each other off, then rinsing in the outside shower under silvery moonlight. He told me it would ward off vampires, but I think he’s the one that’s warding off anything that could threaten us.
But after all that… we haven't had sex. We've done everything but. And most of the time he spends on my pleasure and not his. I feel as if he's trying to build trust, or do something to make me less wary of him. But what he doesn't know is that building trust sexually is the least of my concerns. I'm so inexperienced, it's barely on my radar.
It's all the other ways he builds trust that mean so much more to me.
“Get your shoes on, baby."
I don't even think to question him at this point. He likes to command, and I like to obey. Him, anyway.