Until the End of Time (6 page)

He was
unscathed.
Sansone
hadn’t been murdered in his sleep. His body hadn’t
been rolled out into the South Pacific and used as food for something larger
and just as prey driven as his wife. How and why he still retained the use of
all vital organs and limbs, he did not know. All he was aware of was Nyssa’s
silent glowering as he rose this morning to begin breakfast. It was the same
glower that had tracked him about the night before as he’d strolled out of the
bathroom, whistling as though he
hadn’t
just
spent time violently stroking himself. It was either romance the stone or give
in to the urge to put it to use on his spouse. She’d reacted just as he’d imagined
she would, punishing more than just herself. The torment rode him hard and fast
until the sun came up.

He’d had no intentions of keeping his hands to
himself throughout the remainder of his little game, but waking to Nyssa’s
warm, butter soft skin pressed to his and smelling of sugar scrub had sent his
normal half mast into a flag climb that rivaled those of state capital
buildings. Well over a foot taller than her, it would’ve been normal to assume
that she generally made her way over to him in the middle of the night,
gravitating towards the mass on the opposite side of the bed. And yet,
Sansone
had opened his eyes many a day to discover his face
pleasantly resting against her chest, his legs tangled with hers while her
fingers curled in his hair. It was an unapologetic pull to her presence. Maybe
a subconscious need to make up for all the time spent separately. He didn’t
know. All he understood was that today had been no different. Aside from the
fact that the moment his wife’s lids had parted, they’d narrowed and she’d
looked interested in biting a portion of his forehead clean off. He’d quickly
gotten up and gone far, far away before she could do so.

Now he stood a safe distance out of reach, manning
the careful making of jumbo lump crabmeat omelets. If nothing else, hopefully a
good meal would calm some of her ire.
Sansone
grasped
a small bottle of oil, intent on starting up the skillet again when he heard a
slight creak just behind him. Smiling, he turned, skillet in one hand, oil in
the other to greet Nyssa with all the cheer he could muster.

“
Buongiorno
.”

She eyed him from where she stood, a short silk robe
riding high on her thighs, her twists in
a fairly
decent disarray and her face scrubbed clean. Then she grunted.
Like a bear.
Just a small chuff of air in
his direction.

Sansone
motioned to the
omelet. “Hungry?”

Nyssa stared for a moment longer before her head
tilted at an angle and she abruptly asked, “What’s your game, Sultana?”

He blinked guilelessly. “Game?”

A few steps and she had him boxed in against the
counter. Her hands were on either side of his hips while she glared up into his
face. “Yes. Game. When we arrived yesterday, you all but broke out into a flash
mob dance about the joys of communion and friendship and affection in a
marriage—”

“I wouldn’t say it was a flash mob per se. Perhaps an
all male review featuring only one male because I’m uncomfortable with sharing
the stage?”

“—And then because I don’t give you the
response you’re looking for, you decide to withhold sex?”

He rolled his shoulders and nodded slightly. “That
sounds about right.”

Nyssa’s hands slapped the counter. “The hell is your
problem, man
?!
”

Grinning, he tweaked her nose and answered, “
You
.”

“
Mi
scusi
?”

“You heard me,”
Sansone
told her mildly. “
You’re
my problem
at the moment. I’ve come up with a solution. One that would work if you would
be so gracious as to shut up and get out of my way so I can implement it.”

Her blink was slow. “I’m pretty confident that out of
all the responses you could have given me,
that
was not the right one.”

“Oh no, it was the right one,” he retorted. “It’s
just not the one you wanted to hear.”

She began to step back and he halted her with a hand
at her waist. “You think.
About good things.
About bad things.
About things that
shouldn’t even be acknowledged.
You consider and weigh and mull. Your
head never empties, never quiets. Everything has to have a meaning, a reason.
Everything has to have a reply.” Nyssa looked away and he allowed it. “Do you
know
why
you couldn’t beg me?”

Her head snapped back around and her brows drew
together.

“Because it would have been a mindless action with no
purpose other than pleasure; something you seem to be incapable of allowing
yourself now. You would have had to release control and hand over the reins.
You don’t trust me to take them. You don’t trust me with much of anything these
days.”

“That’s not—”

He silenced her with a brush of his mouth over hers.
“It
is
.”
Sansone
played with a braid. “Submission isn’t a equivalent to weakness. Vulnerability
doesn’t mean foolish. I thought we learned this lesson already.”

Her shoulders dropped and he released her with a
sigh. “Go get comfortable on the deck and I’ll bring out breakfast.”

“Sunny—”

He turned back to the task at hand. “Do as I asked.”

“You
didn’t
ask.”

Angling back, he returned her impatience with some of
his own. “Then do as I
demanded.”

She stood there for a moment longer, the words ‘fuck
you’ visibly hovering around her mouth. Without another sound, she spun on her
heel and stalked out.
Sansone
tracked her movements out onto the back deck through the
window, his gaze narrowed as she sprawled across a piece of furniture. When she
turned onto her belly, hugging a throw pillow to her chest, he noticed that he
was strangely, frustratingly, and unrelentingly hard.

Right eye twitching, he managed to tear his stare
away just long enough to point down at his crotch. “
No.”

His dick bobbed from behind his shorts as if arguing why
it should be 
yes 
and
nothing but 
yes 
for the
rest of their goddamn lives. It even made some pretty valid points. All of
which he listened to because they’d been together for this long and it hadn’t
led him astray as of yet. Well except for that one time…

Annoyed with himself
and
it, he put his energy into cracking eggs and ignored the
aggressive twitch of his palm, shouting for him to smack both halves of his
spouse’s ass maroon.

“You
don’t trust me with much of anything these days.”

That wasn’t true. But he wouldn’t let her argue the
point. It wasn’t
him
that she didn’t
trust. It had never been him. It was moot now. All at once he’d shut down on
her and Nyssa had received a glimpse of what it felt like to be closed out. She
didn’t like it, had wanted to push him, but thought better of it. He would have
only backed her into a wall and sent her on the defensive. They would have fought…again.
Any and all energy to do so had been sapped from her. She wanted to fight with
Sansone
about as much as she wanted to swim naked through a
pod of giant
echizen
. Resigned to being placed in what
was essentially a time out, she’d stepped away.

Here she sat with her face in her palms, kicking her
feet over the deck, wanting to be released like a child who’d been directed to
the corner. Now she knew why a great deal of her husband’s
alabastrine
people chose
this
as a form of
punishment, it was torture. Waiting for someone to acknowledge you again.

The door opened and she stilled, flicking a glance
over her shoulder. The man in question strolled out barefoot, cut off gray
shorts riding low on his hips and his hands full. A tray packed with omelets,
fresh fruit and juice led the way.

He placed it down on the small table and stood
straight. “Come eat.”

Nyssa stayed put. “I’m sorry, are you speaking to
your wife or some unforeseen canine you came across recently?”

Sansone
regarded her for a
moment and suddenly dropped down to his knees. Spreading his arms wide, he
shouted, “Oh dear goddess of all good things, I—your simple man servant
with the incredibly chiseled features—have slaved to bring you a worthy
sacrifice. Would you bestow upon me you presence to partake in the fruits of my
labor? And possibly…maybe…a hand job if you so wish?”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Why?” Lifting her hands,
she asked again, “
Why?”

He dropped his arms and said, “Are you answering my
prayer or not?”

God, he was an idiot. Yet, she loved him. Could do
nothing else. Because—and she wouldn’t admit this out loud unless under
duress—he was an amazing idiot. With an eye roll and a sigh that she made
sure was put upon, Nyssa stood and lagged over to the food. Before she could
touch it,
Sansone
decided to make himself her chair.

“I’d like to sit on actual furniture,” she muttered.

Her husband flexed his thighs beneath her. “No harder
wood on earth,
cara
.”

She swallowed the snort threatening to break free.
When she had it under control, she twisted in his lap to face him. “I’m sorry.”
Urgh
. That tasted yucky. Like ground pride with a
pinch of humility.

He jerked back from her liked she’d pulled her face
off just to reveal Rodney Dangerfield underneath. “What was that?”

Bastard was going to make her say it again.
Gah
.

“I’m. Sorry,” Nyssa repeated for a second time,
watching his eyes widen. “I don’t mean to be in your way. I just have no idea
how to get out of it.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,
Sunny. Just…give me a moment to figure it out, all right?”

His suspicion lasted half a minute longer before he
nodded. “All right. In the meantime…breakfast and a hand job?”

She sighed. He
always
ruined it.

***

“I do
not
think that this is appropriate
whale watching behavior,
Sansone
Carmine Sultana.”

Sansone
placed a palm to
the nape of Nyssa’s neck and pushed her back into her previous position of
being bent over in front of the small sink of a bathroom that he’d dragged her
into.

“Don’t care,” he bit out.

It was her fault. It would
always
be her fault. Flaunting around in shorts that were better
suited for a Maxim
shoot, torn in too
appealing places. It hadn’t even been placed with anything provocative. Just a
white and plum baseball tee that she’d tucked into the high waist band and
paired with sensible Nikes. A gold bracelet jingled around one delicate ankle
in time with her steps. He’d been stalking her with his gaze for hours now,
attentive to every motion since they’d left the bungalow hand in hand this
afternoon.

He wasn’t sure what it was exactly that made him
nurse the fantasy of crossing her on a college campus at a younger age, in
those same shorts
;
slyly watching her walk away from
him after she turned down an invite to some little coffee shop around the
corner. He then thought about how he would have put himself in her path
everyday; always polite, never pushy, to ask her the same question. And because
she was difficult, she would have told him no again and again until she caved.
Finally, when he had her all to himself, at a table far from prying eyes, he
would have teased the insides of her thighs with his fingertips, waiting for
them to fall open and she would have been his…

Perhaps it was the way her skin glowed under the sun
or how she’d wrapped her twists into two huge, playful buns on either side of
her head. It gave him a glimpse of senior year Nyssa, one that he would have
loved to debauch on every occasion given to him. Much like he intended to do
now after having to endure the sight of her traipsing around. Her thick, golden
brown thighs had stolen every ounce of sense he had. She knew what she was
doing. Had to. His dick hadn’t gone down since she’d bent over the railing of
the boat to get a better shot of a humpback calf and its mother.
 
The speed and grace that they used to
shoot by should have held all of his scrutiny. It didn’t.

She was lucky that they’d returned to the reef where
the tour center was located. Otherwise this would have made for an embarrassing
moment on the boat. The second they were free of the crowd, he’d curled his
fingers around hers and half carried her off down a hall towards the nearest
private room—which was a bathroom. Probably not the best choice…or the
classiest…but they had a goddamn license. Which meant they could do what they
wanted without the judgment of God following. As far as he was concerned that
was the only one that really counted anyway.

Nyssa placed her palms to the sink and tried to stand
upright again.

Sansone
delivered a slap to
one half of her ass—the kind that he’d been withholding this morning.
“Stay.”

She looked up into the mirror to glare at him.
“Sunny…”

Another slap.
“
Silenzioso
.”

Her teeth flashed as they cinched down on the bottom
rim of her luscious mouth.

He curved his free hand around her belly and stopped
at the fastening of buttons hiding her away. Three flicks and they came undone.
He hooked his finger into a belt loop and peeled them down her legs. They hit
her ankles, clicked against the floor and jostled the bracelet. Boy shorts with
adorable sea turtles forming a heart on her behind greeted him and he ran his
palm over them. His thumb swiped down the separation of her cheeks, following
the curve until it rested at the seat of her panties. Nyssa mewled at the
contact, then moaned as he massaged her pussy through the fabric, feeling the
crotch dampen more as he rubbed her.