If she hadn’t managed to change before, why would she be able to do it now?
“What sort of dinner?” she asked, because it was an innocuous question, which felt necessary right now. And because she was interested in food.
“I didn’t specify. Beyond that it be easy to eat in bed.” He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the mattress, and her stomach turned over, her heart rate increasing. Being close to him again made her want things. Already. Again.
“You don’t think we should get up for a while?” she asked.
“I think that sounds like a terrible idea. I would rather stay in here all day.” He looked at her, and for once his dark eyes weren’t flat. They weren’t filled with anger or mockery of any kind. They were warm. And it made her feel warm. A flame that started at the center of her stomach and radiated outward.
He adjusted his position and moved toward her, placing his hands on either side of her as he leaned in for a kiss. It was a brief meeting of their mouths, nothing to get too excited about. And yet, for all that it was so brief it was that much more exciting.
“That seems...decadent.”
He arched a brow. “Decadent? An interesting choice of words for a woman such as yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I had imagined you had tasted your share of real decadence. Given that...”
She shifted uncomfortably, her throat tightening. “That we stole money.”
He slid his thumb over her cheekbone. “I did not mean it like that.”
She wasn’t sure if she should deflect or opt for a little bit of honesty. Which seemed silly in a lot of ways, as they were sitting here naked with each other. And a certain degree of honesty should be implied by that. But while they had shared their bodies, she wasn’t certain they had shared anything deeper than that.
“Sometimes it was like that.” The words came out rusty, rough. “When my dad ran a con and things went well, there was a lot of sitting back and enjoying the spoils. Of course I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. But you know, we would have weeks of going out to dinner every night. And they sort of made up for the weeks where we hadn’t had food at all. Weeks spent with my dad smiling and laughing and...being with me. Yes, that was decadent to me.” She looked down at her hands. “As I got older I realized exactly what we were doing. And I struggled with it. But my father is a con man. And he does a good job of spinning a story. He did a good job of spinning one about us. About what we were doing. About how we were just working like anyone else. The people we stole things from were too rich to notice what was missing. And if they did notice, then they deserved it for being stupid enough to let us get hold of it.” She repeated her father’s words, almost verbatim. He always said them with a smile. As though he were partly joking. As though none of it were real.
Just make-believe. A game. A game that happened to be a crime. A game that happened to be immoral. But a game nonetheless.
“I see,” he said, a strange light in his eyes.
“Like I told you. He’s small-time. What he did to you is the biggest job he’s ever pulled. At least as far as I know. If he has money like that, other than yours of course, stashed anywhere he certainly never told me about it. And considering he seemed more than willing to let me take the fall for this and leave me without money...”
“You truly do not have it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t. I never did. I helped him get it but...I don’t have it.”
“I believe you,” he said.
Her stomach twisted. “So much for family. So much for decadence, too.”
“So would you say I’m your first taste of decadence?” he asked, his voice positively wicked now.
Heat speared her stomach, blooming outward, flooding her cheeks. “You know you’re the first man I’ve been with.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice rough and gentle at the same time. “And I am intrigued about that. Would you care to elaborate?”
“Well, I had never had sex before. Then I met you. And I had sex with you.”
He angled his head and leaned in, biting her lower lip. The sharp shock of pain faded quickly, ending on a sizzling burst of pleasure that flowed through her entire body. “That is not what I meant.” There was something that looked a lot like humor in his eyes, and she wasn’t really sure what to do with that.
But she liked it.
“Sex seems like an awful lot of stripping. A good con woman doesn’t like to remove her masks. I know I don’t. So I was never in a hurry to get that close to anyone. I mean, I could have been with someone if I’d wanted to. But I would’ve been playing a role. And that never sat well with me.”
“And with me? With me in the hotel room, back in New York. And with me now? Are you yourself?” He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her jawline. “Or are you still wearing a mask?”
His gaze met hers, his dark eyes boring into hers, and she had to look away. “I don’t know. I have no idea who I am. I’ve spent every day of my life playing a part. Even the waitress...the version of myself that was supposed to be good. Supposed to be honest—that was a role. I was only pretending to be normal. Slipping on the costume. But at the end of the day I would take it off and...I just felt like me again. I didn’t feel different. I’m always pretending.”
“And with me?”
She took a deep breath, her heart thundering hard. “That’s what terrifies me most.” It was the truth. And she didn’t know why she was admitting it. Didn’t know why she felt compelled to offer him the kind of honesty she’d rarely even given to herself.
“What? What terrifies you, cara mia?”
“That the day we made love in New York was the most honest I’ve ever been. With myself. With anyone.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I liked her.” She said the last part slowly, heat assaulting her cheeks.
“And why didn’t you like her?”
“Because she...” She was starting to feel stupid talking about herself in the third person. “I...I slept with you. And I didn’t even know you. And I liked it.”
“And that’s a problem?”
She looked down, her voice muted. “For a lot of people, yes, it would be.”
“It isn’t for me.” He shifted his position so that he was sitting next to her. “I spent too many years wanting things. So I don’t now. I take. I have. I don’t want.”
“I do. That’s pretty much all I do.” That was true, too. Another thing she wasn’t certain she should’ve shared.
“Not anymore. Not with me. I can give you anything you want. I can give our child anything they might want. Anything they might need. And I will do the same for you. I promise, with me it will only ever be feast, Charity. You will never have to live through famine again. I swear it.” His voice was fierce, his dark eyes intent on hers. “I can give you decadence. You will never want for it again.”
She wanted to take him up on that promise. She wanted to sink into it. To sink into him, to cling to him and make him promise never to let her go.
It was then she remembered that he’d never promised her fidelity. And he had never promised a relationship. He was only promising things.
And he had gone out last night.
He might have slept with someone else less than twenty-four hours ago.
The idea made her skin crawl.
“You went out last night,” she said, conscious of the insecurity in her