I grinned. “I could eat.” I moved to stand but Nino shook his head and got out of bed. “Stay. I’ll get something for us, and then we can plan our hike tomorrow.”
I stretched out on my back, feeling as if every muscle in my body had been turned to rubber. “Sounds good.”
Nino pulled on briefs then his eyes traveled the length of my naked body in appreciation, and my toes curled in delight. He slipped outside and I sat up, loving the delicious soreness between my legs. A grin pulled at my lips, and I couldn’t hold it in. I’d never been this happy in my life.
I cleaned up in the bathroom and grabbed the hiking guide for the greater Las Vegas area then waited for Nino. Thirty minutes passed and he wasn’t back yet.
Confused, I considered going after him but I didn’t want to appear like a mother hen so I occupied my mind perusing the pages of the book.
Almost an hour passed before Nino returned with a tray loaded with grapes, cheese cubes and bread. He set it down beside me on the bed. I could tell that something had happened. Reaching for a grape, I waited for him to say something. He sank down beside me and picked out a piece of bread.
“Have you decided which hike you’d like to try?”
“Not really. You’re more familiar with the area,” I said. “Why were you gone so long?”
A trace of hesitation on Nino’s face was worryinf. “I ran across Remo.”
“And?”
Nino’s fingers curled around my wrist. “He had sex with Serafina.”
I froze.
“She wanted it,” Nino added.
I shook my head, unable to believe it. “Now that he’s taken her virginity, her fiancé won’t want her back. She’ll be shunned. Unless she manages to hide the fact somehow, but…”
“Remo just sent them the bloody sheets to taunt them with the Famiglia tradition.”
I tore my wrist out of Nino’s grasp and pushed out of bed, too agitated to lie down. Nino swung his legs out and stood as well as if he thought I’d storm out for another confrontation with Remo. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
Nino reached for me. I was so angry, I slapped his hand away. He lowered his arm in surprise.
“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“It’s okay, Kiara. I prefer your anger to terror.”
“Still, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Nino smiled slightly. “You can’t, trust me.” He approached me again and this time I allowed him to touch my waist.
“Is Serafina all right? Does she need medical treatment?”
Nino frowned. “I told you, she wanted the sex.”
“But it was her first time…with Remo of all people.” I cringed as unwanted images tried to come to my mind.
“Remo didn’t mention anything of the sort. I assume, given his talent reading people, he adapted his sexual advances according to her inexperience and put some effort into making it pleasant for her.”
I burst out laughing, pressed my head against Nino’s chest and closed my eyes. Everything about our current situation was surreal, but with the Falcone brothers I should have come to expect nothing else. Tomorrow, I’d try to talk to Serafina in private and make sure she was truly okay, on a physical level at least. I could only imagine her inner turmoil over sleeping with her captor and family’s enemy.
Nino stroked my back. “Kiara?”
“I’m okay. Let’s plan our hike now.” I pulled back and gave Nino a tense smile.
Nino’s grip on my waist tightened, holding me in place. “Serafina chose to lose her virginity to Remo. It’s her choice, so you don’t have to feel pity for her.”
Nino couldn’t understand.
“It was her choice to sleep with him, that’s true, and I’m glad she got to choose, and that’s not why I feel sorry for her. Remo is playing a game and for him this might be nothing. But if she decided to give him what she promised to her fiancé, then whatever she feels for Remo isn’t just nothing.”
Nino thought about that. “You didn’t get to choose, not when you were a girl and not even now. You knew you’d have to sleep with me at some point. Nothing was your choice.”
My throat tightened realizing Nino’s thought process. Standing on my tiptoes, I cradled his head. “I didn’t choose you on our wedding day, because I didn’t know then what I know now. If I had, I would have chosen you. And since our first time, and even before then, everything was my choice, because you allowed it to be so, and because of that and because of how you always treat me right, I’ll always choose you.”
Nino pressed our foreheads together, and he swallowed. “Sometimes I feel like my insides are a raging flood of emotions when I look at you, but I don’t mind drowning.”
After our hike, I headed into the kitchen to see if we had something I could turn into a proper lunch, but Nino and I had forgotten to go grocery shopping.