I stare down into her red face, and it’s deeply satisfying to find her eyes still closed after I end the kiss. She reaches up and touches her lips with her fingers as if she’s savoring the kiss we just shared. I completely understand, because I’m licking mine, wanting just another taste of her. She’s flushed, and when she opens her eyes to look at me, I can see the desire in their depths. She wants me. There’s no doubt about it. At least I know that even if she isn’t attracted to me physically, she is to our chemistry.
I don’t even have to look to know that pretty boy is no longer standing in the window. That’s right, Serge. She’s mine.
5
Mia
I ask him a lot of questions once we are in his truck on the highway heading to a cabin he rented for a few days. It isn’t the honeymoon in Paris I’d imagined for myself in my youth, but sitting next to the only man who’s ever stolen my breath and made my body burn hot from a single kiss makes me not even care about what kind of honeymoon I’m going to have. A cozy cabin with Mason where we can get to know each other and spend our first Christmas together… I’ll take it.
Mason doesn’t talk much. His answers are short, at least the ones he actually gives. He doesn’t seem to want to share very much of himself. Maybe he’s shy and just needs more time.
He doesn’t ask me questions about myself but listens when I offer up my answers to a few of the questions I asked him. The drive seems long, and I hardly slept the last two nights I was so excited and nervous about coming and meeting and marrying a stranger. I could almost fall asleep in his truck if my nerves would let me.
The longer we go, the more insecure I feel. It’s awkward now, and instead of a comfortable silence, I feel like there is a heavy weight all around us. “Mason?”
He seems to wait for me to continue, and when I don’t, he asks, “Yeah?”
“I know this is weird and you can tell me no…” I start and then stall.
He doesn’t respond, just looks in the rearview mirror and back at the road again. I put my hand on the console between us.
He still doesn’t look at me, but the corners of his lips tilt up. “What is it? I won’t tell you no. I mean, what kind of husband would I be if I told my wife no about something on her wedding day? What is it? You don’t want to go to the cabin?”
“No! I mean, yes, I want to go to the cabin. I uh, well, I’m a little nervous and I thought maybe, if you don’t mind, maybe you could hold my hand if that’s all right,” I ask him. My voice, once strong and demanding, fades off with insecurity. I mean, he’s my husband. Surely to goodness I can ask him to hold my hand. I flex my hand, palm up on the console between us.
He looks taken aback for a minute, and I think he’s about to tell me no. “You want me to hold your hand?”
“Forget it,” I tell him and start to pull my hand away, embarrassed.
But Mason reaches out, taking my hand in his. He curls his fingers around mine and holds on to me tightly. Pure happiness surges through me, and I couldn’t hide my smile if I tried. And of course, after looking straight ahead the whole way, Mason now chooses to look over at me, and I can’t wipe the goofy grin off my face.
Instead of smiling back, he grunts and nods his head at me. “We’re married, Mia. You don’t have to ask me to hold your hand. You don’t have to ask if you can touch me, or really, ask for anything. You want something from me, something I have or can give you, you take it. It’s yours. I know this—the arranged marriage and well, me—isn’t what you were expecting, but I’m going to do right by you. I promise. And if there’s anything I can do to make you happy, well, I’m going to do it.”
It’s the most words he’s ever said to me, and instead of grumbling and attitude, I got poetry. Stunned is the only way I know how to describe it. If I was standing up, I’d probably fall over at his words. As his hand tightens on mine, I can’t help but push him a little further. “So if I wanted to kiss you, just out of the blue, you’d let me? I can kiss you anytime I want? Because I have to tell you, you don’t seem too happy I’m here, so I just want to be sure that I get it all right.”