22. Silenzio

TWENTY-TWO

Ilook around the basement.

"Okay," I say out loud after a moment. "If I knew about this, I wouldn't have been surprised by how jacked you were under your suit."

"Just because I'm forty now, doesn't mean I can't take care of myself," he says smugly.

Yeah. And with a set-up like this, I understand how.

If I hadn't just followed Damien down the stairs of his house myself, I'd have thought he'd somehow teleported me to the local gym. That's what he has down here. A full-on commercial gym, with mirrors, equipment, and mats padding one side of the large space.

"How often do you come down here?"

"Before I was told to rest per doctor's orders? Five days a week. Religiously. I've seen too many in the life get used to the cushy parts that come along with it. The good meals. The civilians who do anything to make your personal life easier so that you scratch their backs in return. They get lazy."

"Hire staff?" I tease.

He shoots me a look out of the corner of one of his icy blue eyes. "Frankie needed a job. Annette's his wife, and he looks after her. I look after them. Mary's boy Jack was a good friend of mine who got blown away when were twenty-three. I remember eating dinners at her house. Now she feeds my family since she doesn't have one of her own."

Oh. "Damien, I didn't mean?—"

"No. Don't apologize. I know what you meant. And you're right. They make my life easier because I can afford to have them do so. But they only get to work for me because I trust them. Because I trust them, I can use the time I'm not busy with the Family working on myself."

He's certainly done a good job of it.

His face shows his age. There's experience in the depths of his eyes, plus fine lines bracketed them. That silver streak in his hair the beckons me to touch him… he's obviously not as young as I am. But that sculpted body? He looks good for forty. Really good.

Damien had his stitches removed two weeks ago, give or take. He had a doctor appointment, and when he came home, he no longer had the black thread curving through the puckered scar standing out against his tanned skin.

I knew something was up when he told me to put on work-out clothes earlier this morning. I didn't have much, just an old sports bra and a pair of too-big sleep shorts, but since he put on a muscle tank and baseball shorts of his own, I figured that would do.

And, okay. Maybe I ogled him in his exercise clothes more than I should've. Can you help me? Except for being naked or just wearing his boxer briefs, I've only ever seen him in a suit. Damien walking around with the jacket off was as casual as he's been, even at home.

Until now.

As if I'm finding it harder and harder to keep myself from jumping him, now he wants to show off his toned arms and muscular legs?

Down, girl. With the exception of the night of his birthday dinner—when, once again, Damien got turned on when someone got knifed—he hasn't made any move to be intimate with me again. Sure, we're still sleeping in the same bed. And, yeah, somehow the cot became designated as Orion's while Damien and I started to lie together in the big bed. But sex?

There hasn't been any since then.

Fucking hell. Is he a tease? Because, right now, I think my husband just might be.

Either that, or he's found a new way to punish me…

"Okay. You got me down here. You want to tell me why?"

"Of course. I thought it was time to start your self-defense lessons."

I'm sorry… what? "What do you mean?" I look around, expecting him to have a personal trainer or something pop out, just another Springfield resident on the Dragonfly payroll. "Lessons? With who?"

"With me." He gestures at himself, holding his figures over his palm. "Come on, Savannah. Let's see what you've got."

Is he kidding?

One look at him and… no. Damien's not kidding at all. He's really inviting me to attack him.

Not with any weapons, obviously. But he's lowered himself in a fighting stance, telling me to try to knock him down.

Holy shit. I might never get this chance again.

Trying to tap into the dwindling feelings of rage that kept me going for so long, I throw myself at him, shoulder-first.

Woosh. Suddenly, I'm flipping through the air before landing on my back on the mat with a slapping sound and a jolt that knocks most of my bones around.

What the fuck?—

Damien's face appears over mine. "Is that all?" he smirks.

Oh. It's on.

Five times. Five times I get up, and five times he knocks me back down again. It becomes clear that he's not trying to hurt me. The opposite. After each confrontation between us, he makes it clear how he was able to control it to the point that, before I know it, he has me down.

He's teaching me. And maybe it's being knocked down that many times, but I'm not really understanding what this is coming from all of a sudden.

The fifth time, I end up on my belly

He nudges me in my ass with his toe. "Come, come, Savannah. How did you think you'd kill me up close if I can knock you on that pretty ass so easily?"

Gritting my teeth, frustrated as all hell at how easily he's throwing me around like a goddamn rag doll, I have to remind him as I climb back to my feet, "I almost pulled it off."

"You distracted me with your cleavage that night. I've had my mouth on those tits since then. It'll take more than that for you to seduce me for my weapon."

I look him up and down. Between the muscle tank and the basketball shorts, it's pretty obvious the only weapon he's carrying is the one that's notably bulging against the slick material.

He gives me that crooked half-smile when my gaze lingers on his dick a second too long. "I'm all yours, ragna mia. When you're ready to try again, go ahead."

"You want me to try and kill you?"

Right after I decided that I couldn't even if I had the chance, he's daring me to do it?

Damien shakes his head. "Not at all. But I'm more than willing to be seduced."

Oh.

A shiver courses down my spine at the way he lowered his voice on that last word. If I didn't know better, I'd think that all of this ‘training' is really foreplay. But how can it be? Since the party at the restaurant, he hasn't made a single move toward me except for his solemn insistence that his wife sleep with him in his bed.

That's all we do, though. He spoons me, wrapping me up in his embrace, all while careful to keep his lower half as far away from me as possible. I tremble every time he lays soft kisses along the back of my throat, viscerally aware that he's not putting his mouth anywhere else.

I thought… I thought it was a fluke. That I got the totally wrong idea when he killed Ricky. He wasn't possessive over me because he cared, but because he considered me his property. That he fucked me so thoroughly to show the Dragonflies that he owned me instead of any other more sentimental reason.

That, once he nutted and nonchalantly mentioned his vasectomy, he regretted being intimate with me at all.

Why else had he kept his distance since then? Even if it was hate sex, it was good sex. I wouldn't have stopped him—but he never even tried.

So seduce him now… why bother? Unless this is just another way for the Dragonfly to manipulate me to get what he wants: his would-be murderer under his complete control.

I shake my head. "Let me try again. I think I almost got you down that last time."

Light on his feet, ready for me to come at him again, Damien smiles. "No, you didn't."

I ignore him.

The sixth time? Not only does he use my arm to flip me and my momentum to have me on my back, but my wonderful husband shifts his heel before pinning me with his body.

I groan. Out of pain or because his weight pressed against me is delicious, I can't tell. But it's a groan all the same.

He climbs off of me, and I groan again. This time, though, I know it's because his weight is gone.

Sitting up, I glare at him. "Are you trying to kill me? Be honest. This is revenge for me stabbing you."

"Not at all. This is teaching you how to protect yourself. You'll thank me later."

I doubt it.

"You know, if I still had my gun, I wouldn't need this," I point out.

"Don't worry, wife. That's next."

I do a double-take as I stand again. "What? You're going to give it back?"

"Eventually. Once I'm sure you know how to use it. We have a shooting range for new soldiers. I want to set you up with Bianca."

My stomach twists. "Bianca? Who's Bianca?"

Damien never mentions other women. The only exceptions are Genevieve and Dr. Liz, but almost as if we've come to a silent agreement never to mention previous lovers, he makes it a point not to.

Am I jealous? Fuck. I don't know… I think I might be.

And he knows it.

"Bianca is a talented marksman at the range. One of the best. But the best is a handsome young man named Chad. I refuse to introduce you to Chad, cara mia. My dear. My Savannah. So you will work with Bianca to teach you to shoot. I will teach you how to go hand-to-hand with anyone who might try to harm you. And, one day when I'm sure you won't use it against me, I'll teach you to wield my knife."

He's serious, too. Like, really serious.

And I thought he must've lost his mind before.

"You really are trying to teach me to hurt you."

"Not just me, Savannah. Anyone."

"I don't understand?—"

He places his finger beneath my chin, tilting my head back so that I'm forced to see the emotion lurking in the depths of his icy blue eyes. "Ricky could've really hurt you. Vin could've hurt you. Fuck, but I can hurt you. I won't allow it, ragna mia. You're mine, and I will keep you. That means you must know how to protect yourself if I can't. So I will teach you how to really kill, and so long as it keeps you alive, I don't give a shit who you turn on."

I swallow roughly. "Even you, Damien?"

His gaze drops to my lips. "You're my wife, Savannah. ‘Til death do we part."

I've lost my mind. I left it behind at Madison Correctional Facility five years ago, but when I have Damien Libellula inches away from me, his breath whispering over my face as his lethal yet beautiful body is right fucking there, hurting him is the last thing on my mind.

Oh, no. Instead, grasping his muscle tank, closing the gap between us only because he allows it, I go up on my tip-toes and press my mouth to his.

For the first time since I've known him, I kiss him.

Damien is the first to pull back, moving so quickly that he rips the fabric of his tank of my grasp. His eyes flash beneath the fluorescents that light the gym as he backs out of my reach next.

And then, with a taunting expression twisting his gorgeous face, he beckons me again. "Again, Savannah."

Fine.

I don't know if he let me overpower him or if Damien decided he wanted to spar a little before he knocked me down for the seventh time. Something changed after I initiated that kiss, though, and after we wrestle for a few frantic moments, it ends with Damien on his back for once.

At least, I thought that was the end. But my husband? He has an entirely different idea.

Pressing his hand to the small of my back, he keeps our groins connected. Through our shorts, his cock is a length of steel pushing against my pussy. In this position, it wouldn't take much effort at all for me to start riding him if we were naked?—

—and I'm pretty sure Damien is thinking along the same lines as me, he

His stiletto appears in his hand as if by magic. How? I have no idea. He's definitely not wearing his holster, but I recognize the knife.

I gasp, the sound turning into a throaty moan as he drops the blade alongside my thigh before slipping it beneath my shorts. One hand gripping the material, the other working the knife, and it doesn't take more than a few forceful jerks on one side, then the next before he's cut my shorts off. Pulling them out from under my ass, he flings them to the side.

"Damien—"

"Silenzio," he whispers huskily. He does it again, and there go my panties. I'm completely naked from the waist down now. "Ah. Much better."