by Sam Mariano
“Hey, she’s your mission right now, I get it. I’m a team player.”
“She’s being such a pain in the ass,” he says. “I didn’t think she’d resist this hard. She’s always been so malleable.”
“Well… she wouldn’t have. If you would’ve just curbed your damn caveman impulses, we had a supple, loving sister wife ready to join the team. This could’ve gone much more smoothly. We’d all be in Paris, walking arm-in-arm right now, eating baguettes.”
Mateo rolls his eyes. “What is it with women and Paris?”
“Hey, you clearly took Beth, so you have to take me. We can go to all the places. I’d like to go to Venice one of these days, too.”
“With Mia?”
“Sure. I mean, as long as you’re there. I love Mia, but I don’t really want to have a romantic vacation with just her. All three of us though, sure.”
Mateo sighs, but it’s a nice sigh, like I’m lightening the load on him instead of adding to it. His grip on me tightens and he gives me a tender kiss. “You’re the greatest wife ever.”
“Damn straight,” I tell him, leaning in for an even longer kiss.
Now I get my reward. I’ve pleased him, I’m doing well with his little sister wife plan, and now he’s kissing me, and his hands are roaming, and I’m finally gonna get laid. It’s so damn cute how he thinks I’m Mia and I won’t notice his pattern. Though, to be fair, maybe I wouldn’t if he’d come around more.
“Since you have such a great wife,” I tell him, catching the hand that’s about to wander between my legs, “you should visit her more often.”
“I know,” he says, somewhat seriously. “I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you. I’ve been caught up in Mia’s shit.”
I nod once. “I know. That’s fine. Just make sure you come back.”
I get a genuine smile now, a tender one, the kind I love. “Always.”
I caress his face approvingly. “Good.” Releasing his hand, I add, “You can resume.”
Laughing lightly, he moves in closer and kisses my neck. I sigh with pleasure, closing my eyes.
“I missed your mouth.”
“Oh, did you?” he murmurs, before dragging that mouth down my body to much more pleasurable places.
He’s really happy with me, because I get double orgasms tonight. First he works magic with his mouth, and then he gives me his perfect cock. On top of being super relaxed, I get to fall asleep curled up in his arms again. This night is basically all win.
When I’m just about to drift off to sleep, the sound of Mateo’s voice calls me back. “You’ll tell me if I’m wearing you down, right?”
Prying my eyes open, I look over at him. “You’re not going to wear me down.”
“But you’ll warn me if that changes.”
“Of course,” I assure him.
He nods, but I can see he’s not satisfied. Then he adds, “If you notice Mia is…”
I nod. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
“I don’t know if she’d tell me.”
“Probably not. But I don’t think she’ll get worn out. Like you said, it’s easier with both of us. I mean, not for me; I can handle you on my own, but for her. I can help both of you stabilize when your crazy-ass tornado love threatens to bring the house down. You guys just have to let me. Let me work my magic.”
“I’m not used to having an actual partner,” he tells me. “Beth and I didn’t have what you and I have. I’ve never had that before, not with anyone.”
I nod with feigned arrogance. “I’m one-of-a-kind.”
“You are,” he says seriously. “If you were anyone else, you wouldn’t have made it through this Mia thing.”
I shrug. “It’s a windy season. Not a big deal.”
“When everything settles, I’ll make it up to you.”
“No need,” I assure him. “I’m fine. Just do whatever you need to do and get this Mia shit straightened out so we can all settle in. That’s what I want.”
His gaze drifts toward the ceiling and he sighs. “I don’t know if I’m going to get what I want.”
Frowning slightly, I question, “The sister wife thing?”
“No.” He doesn’t go on right away, and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to, so I settle in to sleep. Baby Morelli is draining me, and now that I’ve finally had sex, I just want to sleep. So of course now, when I just want to sleep, he feels like sharing. “I wanted to know that I could fix it. No matter what I did to break it, I just wanted to know that she was wrong and I could put it back together.”
“Why? I mean, wouldn’t it be so much easier to just… not break it in the first place?”
“I don’t always know when I’m breaking something.” He turns his head to look at me, to meet my gaze. “I broke things with Beth. Not like this, not like I did with Mia, not on purpose, not by doing any one thing. I just wore on her. We were together for years, and she loved me in the beginning. She was completely in love with me the way Mia was.” Shaking his head slightly, he said, “And then one day she couldn’t anymore. I tried to make her fall back in love with me. I used every trick I had; I used sincerity, logic—you name it, I tried it. I exhausted my arsenal, and I couldn’t win her back. I failed so spectacularly that she tried to get me arrested. She was that desperate to leave me, and… I don’t know why.”
I curl up against him, wanting to offer comfort. I know how much it frustrates Mateo not to understand things. It’s his least favorite thing in the world. “Mia isn’t Beth. She’s just hurting right now, but she will love you again. I’ll make her.”
Smiling slightly, he says, “If I can’t, how can you?”
Rolling my eyes, I tease, “I got you, didn’t I? I’ve got game; I can reel her in.”
“I just really wanted her to be wrong.”
I consider his desire for a moment, cross-referencing it with what I know about Mia. After a minute, since sleep obviously isn’t happening until I solve this, I come up with something. “If you would’ve broken things with Mia by accident, the way you did with Beth, you could’ve won her back. Mia is made of love. It’s in the fabric of her DNA. She wants to forgive. She wants to accept and love and move on. But you didn’t just hurt her, and you definitely didn’t do it by accident. I can tell you from personal experience, it’s a hell of a lot harder to forgive you for something you do to someone else than something you do to me. If Mia would’ve fallen out of love with you over time or you would’ve hurt her by accident, she would’ve come back to you. But what you did to her was intentional and cruel. That’s a different thing. It made her feel unimportant to you.”
“That’s insane,” he replies. “Obviously she’s important to me or I wouldn’t have done all this in the first place. She knows who I am. She knows I play dirty.”
I nod, giving him that, but reframing it for him. “You’re right, she does. And I’m sure it’s part of what she likes about you. But even when you’re getting your villain on, you’re supposed to be her villain. You’re supposed to set the world on fire for her, not set her world on fire. She didn’t want Vince to die. She begged for your help, and you didn’t hear her. Women need to be heard.”
“I haven’t made her feel unimportant since it happened though. I’ve gone out of my way to give her attention—you know that.”
“I do. I also know that the one time you let her down is going to stand out more than the many times you didn’t. You have to make it up to her. I think you should apologize.”
His gaze drifts back toward me. “For Vince?”
“Well… sure. But also for ignoring her when she begged you for help. That’s a hard thing to come back from. You lost her trust when you did that. Tell her you regret everything that happened and you’ll never do it again.”
Shaking his head, he says, “I won’t tell her that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know if I can keep that promise. In the long run, it’s worse to make a promise and break it than not to make it at a
ll.”
“Well, who else can you kill? I mean, Vince is already dead, so just don’t kill me or Adrian and I think you’re pretty much set.”
“I don’t know how someone so naturally submissive could be this hard to conquer.”
I adjust my hand on his chest and close my eyes. “You shouldn’t have killed her boyfriend. That was a mistake. But she’s out of boyfriends to kill, so let’s just get past this and we’ll be good.”
He’s quiet for a couple minutes, then he suddenly asks, “Do you think she likes Mark?”
“Not sexually, no.”
My opinion seems to weigh more than whatever data he’s compiled, so he relaxes.
I’m completely exhausted now, so I lean over and brush a little kiss across his perfect lips. “You should get some sleep and finish plotting against Mia tomorrow.”
Lightly smiling, he acknowledges, “Maybe.”
“Definitely.” I yawn, my eyes watering.
He surprises me by coming in for one more kiss. “Thank you for being you.”
I flash him a sleepy smile. “Anytime.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Mia
Mateo’s hand creeps between my legs.
I squeeze them together just to be difficult, but he rolls his eyes at the attempt to block him out. His strong hand pushes between them anyway, his finger dipping inside me.
I’m face-down on the bed already, my hair still damp from a shower. Our shower, I guess. It started out just mine. He wanted to watch me, and he activated the sex-over-brain feature only he knows how to access, so I went along with it. But then he wanted me, so he climbed in behind me and fucked me until there was no hot water left. After that, he carried me into the bedroom, water still dripping from both of us. I clung to his body like I’d die if he let me go, and I kissed him, even though he was kissing me back. Then he threw me down on the bed and finished fucking me.
We haven’t managed to get clothes on yet. We’re still in bed, still damp, and I can’t believe he’s trying to fuck me again. It’s been just long enough for my brain to turn back on now though, so I remember not to want him.
He’s not in any hurry, apparently. Leisurely toying with my pussy, he moves his body toward mine and drops kisses along the curve of my back. It’s so hard when he gets tender. He’s never unguarded around me anymore, and it makes me so sad. I’m the last person in the world I want Mateo to need his guard up around. It kills me knowing he wants me, because regardless of his treatment of me sometimes, I know it isn’t just sexual. He still spends far more time in my bed than Meg’s, and although I continue to resist his efforts, I’ve felt a difference in myself lately. I’ve felt the love and protectiveness I used to feel for him trying to pull me back in. Sometimes I feel like he’s vulnerable to me, like he needs me, and it literally hurts not to give myself to him. It hurts me to deny him.
The problem is, it hurts more not to. Sometimes I can’t fight it. Some nights I’m his in ways I promised I never would be again. But morning always comes. The fog always clears. I always remember what having this cost Vince, and then I hate myself. I hate myself so much.
I don’t think he ever meant to make me hate myself.
Last night was the worst. Last night he almost got me to tell him I loved him. It was another fuck-a-thon, I was exhausted physically, over stimulated. I just wanted him to stop—needed him to stop. I needed a break, and he doesn’t give breaks, especially not when he’s on a mission. I just wanted to submit to him. I wanted to let him win. Then he could curl up beside me and hold me, and we could have peace.
But we can’t. There is no peace here. The more I admit to myself I want him, the less peace I have. I know, because I couldn’t get out “I love you” but I was so tapped out last night, I did tell him I wanted him. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he accepted it. He asked how much. He made me tell him. Then he made me come again, and I don’t know if it was the last orgasm I couldn’t handle or submitting to him, but when he finished, when he curled up beside me, I couldn’t hold back tears. I sobbed like he’d hurt me, and he hadn’t. I had to get out of his embrace, and I just curled up on my side of the bed, away from him.
Today, he isn’t making demands of me.
Today, he doesn’t ask me to love him.
Today, he’s gentle with my mind.
But I’m so exhausted. This is getting so hard. I know I’m making it hard, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop carrying the guilt. Anytime I’m tempted to let go, to give Mateo the forgiveness he wants from me, I flagellate myself with memories. I remind myself that because of me, because of us, Vince doesn’t get to move on.
It’s not even about punishing Mateo anymore. I don’t want to punish him; I want to love him. But I can’t. I hate myself too much when I start to feel those feelings again. And that’s where we are—at an impasse.
“Would you forgive me if it was only you I hurt?”
He doesn’t usually ask me things like this when he’s being sexual, so I’m taken off-guard, but I turn my face to look over at him. “I always forgive you for hurting only me.”
It seems like that was the answer he expected, but he doesn’t like it. “It doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself?”
“No, not like this,” I answer, mildly. “It’s my experience. I’ll decide for myself how to respond to it.”
He moves in to kiss me, but I turn my face, not letting him connect.
It’s been a month today. One whole month without Vince. I think about it off and on, when he doesn’t have me thoroughly distracted.
He’s not trying to accelerate things right now; he’s just toying with me idly. Just wanting to touch me, to connect. Wanting to access me in the only way I always let him.
Only now he withdraws his hand and withdraws from me. He moves back to his own side of the bed and stares up at the ceiling. I steal a glance over at him, trying not to turn my head so he doesn’t see. It makes me miserable. He looks done.
It makes me ache.
It makes me want to crawl across the bed and kiss him. Apologize for not kissing him back. Touch him. Mold myself against him until he’s consuming me again.
I wish it could last. It could’ve lasted.
It’s sort of hilarious, in a karmic way. I couldn’t give myself to Vince because I was so hung up on Mateo, and now that I finally get Mateo, I can’t give myself to him because I’m too hung up on Vince.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
My stomach drops. I don’t want to answer that. I’ve already answered it, and I don’t want to do it again. I don’t want to tell him no, and I can’t tell him yes. I think I could forgive him, somehow, but if I did, I’d never forgive myself.
Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, fighting the sting of tears, I tell him, “I wish I could.”
“So, this is the line. This is the line I couldn’t cross.”
“I tried to tell you that,” I remind him, quietly. I’m not trying to rub it in, I just wish more than anything he would’ve believed me. When you’re soft, people think you’re weak. He thought he could brush past this. He thought I was so flimsy, so workable. He overestimated my pliability.
Glancing over at me, he says, “You know, Adrian called your love unconditional. That’s what he thought. It’s what I thought, too. It made me more comfortable trusting you than Meg. I guess I was wrong about you.”
My heart nearly stops at this. I feel like he just socked me in the stomach. It takes a minute for his words to sink in, for the look on his face to register, because he’s never looked at me that way before.
When it hits me, I feel gutted.
I’ve disappointed him. I’ve let him down.
Mateo is disappointed in me.
I want to throw up.
My insides feel shaky, but I push myself up on my arm, moving a fraction of an inch closer to him. I hate how small my voice is, but I can’t seem to muster much volume as I say feebly, “You weren’t wrong about
me.”
“I was,” he says. He offers me a little smile, but it’s a sad smile, like he’s already accepted it. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I expected too much from you. You impressed the hell out of me, took me by surprise. I thought you could handle me.”
He’s making me feel… I can’t even put into words how awful he’s making me feel. I reject all of this, every single thing he’s saying.
And then I’m surer than ever that he’s done when he sighs. “Oh well. We tried. Now we know. It was just a fantasy.”
He goes to sit up, and I shove myself upright, too. “It wasn’t a fantasy. That’s not true. Don’t say that. What I felt was real. It was so real. I’ve never felt anything so real.”
“Apparently not,” he says, climbing off the bed.
Panic fills my chest, making it difficult to breathe. “You weren’t wrong about me, Mateo. I desperately wanted to be that for you. You know I did.”
As he steps into his pants, he turns back to meet my gaze. “Then why aren’t you?”
He knows why, goddammit. Still, it makes my heart sink like I’ve failed him.
“Maybe we have different definitions of unconditional,” he says casually, looking away from me and buttoning his pants.
My mind races as he pulls his shirt on. I don’t want him to leave, not like this. Not disappointed in me.
Then he says, “Can you take off the necklace?”
My hand flies to my neck, to the locket hanging there. “Why?”
“Because it’s already dangled from the neck of one woman who didn’t love me, and I don’t want to do that again.”
This is even worse—I can’t keep the look of absolute revulsion off my face as he all but calls me Beth.
I didn’t know the story of Beth, but Meg filled me in. Meg doesn’t hate her, because she’s Meg. But I do—fuck that bitch. Doing what she did to him probably made him the way he is.
“I am not like Beth.”
“I think I’m a better judge of that than you,” he points out mildly, buttoning up his shirt.
“Stop getting dressed,” I say, impulsively. “Sit back down and talk to me.”