“You have to stop touching me,” I said.
He swung in front of me. The sunlight hit the edge of his face. The rest was veiled in shadow. I could still read him clearly, as if the light was his lust and the shade was his rage. All he had to do was turn his head slightly to be either bathed in brilliance or drowned in shadow.
“I don’t know how many times I have to say this—”
He stopped talking when I pulled away from him, backing into the brick wall. “I know. You can touch me any time you want. I’ve heard it.”
“Don’t take this lightly.”
“Lightly? I’m the only one taking your life seriously.” I touched his lapel. It was bent a sixteenth of an inch and needed straightening.
His shoulders dropped an amount equal to the bend of his lapel. Enough for me to notice. It was a half measure of resignation, another half measure of vulnerability. My fingers trailed the edge of the jacket seam, as if they were caught in a groove. He looked down at their journey, his eyelashes the length of black widow legs, lips parted just enough to emphasize their fullness.
“I’m only a man,” he said. “I’m not a saint.”
“Not a devil either.”
He flicked a speck of something off my shoulder, smoothing the fabric. “I don’t know what to do. And that alone is uncomfortable. I always know what to do.”
I pressed my hands to his chest but didn’t push him away. “I can’t reassure you. I can’t say we’ll figure it out. I can’t see the way through it.”
“We don’t divorce. It’s not done.”
“I know.”
“I could kill my mother for doing this.”
“She was protecting a life she knew you’d want back,” I said. “And before you protest, you want it back. I know you do. It’s exactly the life you described to me in TJ. It’s a good life. I get it. I want it with you, but I don’t know how to get there.”
I expected him to resist and tell me I was his life. That was the script. He was supposed to reassure me in no uncertain terms. But he wouldn’t look at me.
“This is what it means to get older,” he said. “Your choices get less and less.”
“You can get there. You can do it. You can have it all. If you manage to get forgiveness from Donna Maria, you need to step back and think about it.”
“I should leave you behind?”
“Yes. I think if we can unravel this, then that’s how it has to go.” A hairline crack appeared in my heart. I knew I was right. This was solvable if I gave him up. If I didn’t, it was a mess.
“It’s decided then?” he said gently, and the hairline crack deepened.
“Yes.”
“You’ll be safer that way.” He put his lips to my cheek, and my body trembled.
“I will,” I lied. I could never go back to who I had been. Never. “I’ll live a long, safe life.”
“Without me.” He kissed my neck, and the shimmering arousal that ran though my body seemed not hindered by the flood of melancholy but abetted by it.
“Without you.” My hips found their way to him as if by magnetism. His every kiss to my neck, his every breath in my ear, was a contradiction to the words he spoke.
“And I’ll go back home with my wife and fuck her sweetly for the rest of my days?”
I couldn’t give him more than mmm from deep in my chest because his hand brushed over my hardened nipple, coming back for a second pass with the backs of his fingers. I thought I should push him away, but my body wasn’t taking instructions.
“I’ll be happy,” he whispered in my ear then kissed it. “We’ll buy a little stone house, and I’ll spend the rest of my life with a sweet, useless little pet.”
“Don’t bad-mouth her.”
He pulled back until we were nose to nose. “She fucks like a plucked chicken.”
I had to bite back a laugh, and Antonio smiled so wide, I fell in love with his face all over again.
“Don’t—” I said.
“Don’t what? Don’t change? Don’t look back at my past and see clearly?”
“Don’t smile like that. You melt me. I can barely stand straight.”