Chuckling, he stepped inside the shower and curled his hand around his erection.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Jerking off since you refuse to take care of it for me.”
“I’m sure you have a girl on speed dial who’d gladly help you.”
Savio’s gaze was pure fire. “No other girls, Gem.”
I spit out the toothpaste, wiped my mouth and fled the room.
Ignoring the nightgown that I was supposed to wear tonight, I grabbed a pair of Savio’s sweatpants out of one of the dressers and put on one of my tank tops. That way I’d feel more like myself. Being in a bed with Savio was bad enough.
A few minutes later, Savio came out of the bathroom in sweatpants not unlike the ones I’d put on, his eyes scanning me from head to toe. He walked over to the bench in front of the bed, took the ridiculous piece of silk and held up the flimsy negligee with a cocked eyebrow. “What? No sexy nightgown for me?”
I shrugged. “If you want sexy outfits, you can go to the Sugar Trap and leer at the whores over there.”
Savio’s smile turned darker as he dropped the nightgown on the ground and sauntered over to me with that self-assured swagger that made me furious. “I never said you weren’t sexy.” He stopped beside me, his hand sliding over my hip and lower back, as he leaned down, close to my ear. “To be honest, seeing you in my sweatpants is the fucking sexiest thing I can imagine, so thank you for that.”
I shivered but gave a small shrug. “I didn’t try to be sexy for you.”
“And yet you are,” he murmured. “I’ve never jerked off as quickly as I did with the idea of being the first inside of you.”
Was there anything that made this man blush? Or at least the slightest bit embarrassed? I took a step to the side. “Well, you won’t be tonight.”
“Not tonight, but eventually, Gem. I’ll be the only man that’ll ever be inside you. I’ll be the first everything.”
He was right. Even if I didn’t sleep with him tonight, I would eventually, and not only because Savio was my husband and thus the only man I was supposed to give myself to but also because for as long as I could remember, it had always been him I wanted.
Gemma didn’t deny it. She tugged a strand of her hair behind her ear and approached the bed hesitantly. Now that I paid closer attention, I saw how nervous she was. She kept moving her fingers in an attempt to hide their shaking. After a moment in which she looked as if the bed might attack her, she glanced at me.
“It’s your bed now too.”
She nodded absent-mindedly and climbed under the covers.
I walked to the other side of the bed and slid in beside her. She was tense, sitting upright against the headrest. I mimicked the position. “Do you intend to spend all night like this?”
“What do you suggest?” she asked, which showed how frazzled she was. My Gem was nervous about being in a bed with me.
I cocked one eyebrow.
“I’m serious, Savio,” she said quietly. “I know this seems like a game, but… I want a marriage, a partnership. I want to get to know you better. I want us to become a team.”
Serious conversations weren’t my specialty. I tended to avoid them but Gemma had a point. We were married now. “Nothing’s stopping us. We have our whole life.”
Fuck, I’d really said it.
“Yeah,” Gemma said quietly, then looked around. “This is strange.”
The strangest thing about this situation was that outside, the party was in full swing while I was talking to a girl in my bed almost fully clothed. “I know.”
My eyes trailed over her slender shoulders, the way the outline of her breasts teased me through her shirt. “I don’t know what to do,” Gemma admitted. “Or how to act.”
“How about we start with lying down?”
I stretched out and propped my head up on my arm, then waited for Gemma to do the same. She lay on her side, facing me. “Still strange.”
I reached out and touched her cheek. “How about you come closer?”
Suspicion flickered across her face.
I guessed I deserved that. “Only to cuddle.”
“Cuddle?” she repeated with a small laugh, finally relaxing.
“That’s what Greta calls it.”
Gemma slid over to me and I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her closer. She tensed briefly when our fronts pressed against each other, probably expecting my cock to dig a hole into her belly, but I had more self-control than that—at least if I wanted to.
She peered up. “For you, this is probably business as usual, having a girl in your bed.”
Being in a bed with a girl, definitely. But this? “You’re the only girl who’s ever been in my bed.”
“Really?”
“Really. This is my place, and I never felt like having anyone invade it.”
“And now I’m here.”
“You are.” I stroked a curl away from her forehead. I didn’t mind having her here, quite the contrary. Gemma’s presence didn’t feel like an invasion of my privacy. “I want to kiss you.”
Gemma gave a small nod and I took her mouth, dipped inside. Her eyes fluttered shut, and I closed mine too, something I rarely did, but fuck, I only wanted to feel. And Gemma felt perfect in my arms. Her body molded with mine, our legs scissoring until the heat radiating from her pussy seemed to scorch my thigh.
My palm pressed into her lower back, tempted to move lower, cup those round globes. I wanted to take this further, all the fucking way, but more than that, I wanted to prove to Gemma that I respected her decision. If this was a test, I would not fail it.
When I pulled out of the kiss, Gemma’s lips followed my
