wanting to do anything to ruin this moment, but needing to know that I hadn’t pushed him too far.
“I...” His gaze slid to the wet curl he was currently holding near my shoulder. “I feel like I can breathe.” His gaze lifted back to mine. “For the first time in over a week.”
My heart filled. Filled so full with love for this man, I was afraid it might just burst. I lifted my hands to his face and kissed him. “Oh, Luc…”
His fingertips grazed my cheek. “You’re crying. Dio, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I shook my head and blinked. “They’re happy tears. Oh, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, angioletto.” His voice was thick as he sat up, wrapped his arms around me under the shower spray, and pressed his face against my throat. “More than you know.”
I held him to me and closed my eyes, and as I felt his heart beat in time with mine under the spray, I told myself this was a start. A new start. We still had a long road ahead of us, but for the first time in days—weeks—I had hope. Hope that we could get through this. That we could heal.
That somehow—no matter what—we could survive his family.
We had to. Because I was done letting them dictate Luc’s life. He was mine, and I was never letting them steal him from me again.
7
Luc
She loved me.
She loved me without judgment. Without reason. With no regard for the consequences and no concern for herself.
She loved me from the bottom of her heart and the very center of her soul.
I saw it each time she looked at me. I felt it every time she touched me. And I was both awed and terrified by the power of that truth. By the way it made me melt. By the ache it created deep inside that made me want to be better, more, everything for her.
And I was deathly afraid that I never would be.
She led me by the hand down the stairs toward the kitchen. My legs were weak—my whole fucking body felt wrecked—but I couldn’t let go of her, not even for a second.
After she’d rocked the world out from under me in the shower, I’d lathered her hair with shampoo, washed every inch of her delectable skin with soap, and taken my time touching her, caressing her, memorizing each curve and line and angle on her body all over again. We’d toweled each other off, but I hadn’t wanted to let her leave me even to get clothes from the room where she’d been staying. And as I’d pulled on fresh sweats and a T-shirt from the supply Marco had gotten me, I’d been relieved when she hadn’t seemed to want to leave me either and instead had grabbed a shirt from my drawer.
The kitchen was spotless when we reached it, and I realized she’d cleaned up my broken cup and splattered coffee before she’d come to me in the shower. Drawing me toward the small wooden table near the windows that looked over the back lawn, she pulled out a chair, then pushed me onto the seat.
“Sit while I make you something to eat.” She skimmed her fingers across my jaw as she kissed me. “You need food, bello. I like my man thick.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she stepped toward the stove and reached for a pan. She was learning little words and phrases in Italian. I wasn’t sure if Fee had been teaching her over the last week, or if she was just catching on. But I liked it. I loved it, actually. And I ached to hear her whisper more words in my ear—in Italian, English, I didn’t care which.
Because just the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin against mine...it kept me grounded. It kept the self-doubt and loathing from consuming me. It even made me forget—for a moment, at least—all my faults as a man and husband where she was concerned.
She moved to the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of eggs, cheese, a handful of vegetables, and a package of ham, then closed the fridge door with her hip. Humming something I couldn’t quite make out, she sashayed back to the stove in nothing but that oversized T-shirt that hit at her mid-thighs.
I watched as she cracked the eggs in a bowl, whisked them with a fork, then poured them into a pan that was already crackling with butter.
The sexy vee between