sweetness in her features, no comfort or even kindness. She was dead serious as she looked down at me. Serious and take-charge and all business.
And that twisted part of me I’d been denying the last few weeks fucking loved it. Loved it and couldn’t wait to see where this went next.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked, her icy blue-eyes locked on mine.
“At the moment, I think it’s safest for me to stay quiet.”
“Smart man.” She let go of my arms and sat up, balancing her weight right over my hips.
She was wearing one of my T-shirts—a gray one I’d worn yesterday that smelled like me—and silk panties that were making me all kinds of hot where her pussy pressed against my lower abs, distracting me from everything but the thought of tearing them off her so I could feel her naked flesh.
“I’m not stupid, Luc. I know what you’re doing. And I’m here to tell you it won’t work.”
I blinked up at her, unsure what she was getting at, but unwilling to ask.
“You’ve been keeping your distance from me ever since you dropped that little bombshell on me in the middle of the night, and I’m not putting up with it anymore. I get that you’re feeling guilty that kitten might end up pregnant from what they did to you, but that doesn’t give you the right to—”
“Whoa. Back up. Pregnant?”
“I realize you don’t want to talk about what happ—”
“No one’s pregnant, Natalie. At least not from me. I can’t have kids.”
“What?”
Shit. This was not how I planned to tell her. “I’m sterile.”
Her brows drew together. “How? Since when?”
“Since I left Italy twelve years ago. I had a vasectomy.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because I never wanted my family to use any kid of mine the way they plan to use me. I’m not a person to them, as they made pretty obvious recently. I’m just a way to cement their legacy.”
She stared at me in silence, and as she did, all that guilt I’d been feeling the last few days steamrolled right back over me, killing whatever arousal her little bondage scene here had stirred inside me.
“Cazzo.” I looked up at the ceiling. “I should have told you before but everything was complicated, and...”
Shit. I gathered my courage. “Then I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to give you a reason to leave when things were finally starting to work out. It was selfish and it was wrong, and I should have realized what a big deal it would be to you. That’s why I asked you the other day if it was a deal breaker for you, because if it is, we can still get Fee to—”
Her lips pressed against mine, hard, cutting off my words.
“You jackass,” she whispered, easing back just a breath so her words tickled my lips. “I’ve been going out of my mind the last three days, stressing over whether or not that girl was pregnant and the fact you clearly didn’t want to have children with me.”
Another wave of guilt slammed into me, and I tried to reach for her, only my damn arms were pinned above my head. “If I could have kids, angioletto, I would only want to have them with you. I should have made that clear. I just...”
“You were just being an idiot.”
I drew a breath. “Yeah.” As we stared at each other in silence, my heart beat faster. “You’re not mad?”
“Oh, I’m plenty mad. I’m mad that you thought avoiding me was the best way to deal with this. I’m mad that you didn’t tell me all this sooner. And I’m especially mad because we could have been having no-condom sex a hell of a lot earlier than we were. What were you thinking?”
A relief I didn’t deserve whipped through me, dragging my eyes closed. “Why the hell are you so easy on me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I love you.”
I blinked and looked up at her. “Are you really okay with the fact I can’t give you children?”
“Luc.” Her fingertips skimmed my jaw. “I never even thought about having kids before I met you. My parents weren’t exactly the greatest role models. They were selfish and self-absorbed, and I was a burden most of the time. If I thought about kids since meeting you, it’s only because you have all the traits that would make a great father.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You’re kind and loving, patient and protective.”
“And a jackass, as you pointed out.”
One