I sighed and fell asleep with his tattooed arms against my skin.
I woke to Bastian jumping from the bed and running to let Moonshine out. She was at the door, yelping. It looked like she was semi potty trained from our work at the humane society.
I drifted off, figuring he’d be back to pull me close a couple minutes later but I came to when he snuck into bed much later.
“Where did you go?”
“Moonshine didn’t really have to go out. She just wanted a walk, I guess.”
“Oh, you know what she wants now?” I chuckled.
“She yanked me around the building five times, Morina.”
“Have you ever had a dog? You’re supposed to be the boss. Yank back and tell her no.”
His five o’clock shadow scraped at my neck as he nuzzled me. “You try telling her no. She has puppy eyes. I’m supposed to be a good dad.”
“A dad or daddy?”
“Woman, don’t start. We need sleep and nourishment before I fuck you again.”
So, that’s what we did.
And the day after that, we did the same.
Weeks of bliss went by. I even got into the habit of reading him his horoscope when he woke up. He didn’t tell me his birthday, but he disclosed he was a Taurus, powerful like a bull and stubborn too. The thing about Bastian was, he was dedicated and reliable too.
When we stumbled from one of our beds every morning, Moonshine went to him. He was her daddy and she along with everyone else relied on him. Cade called him. Rome and Katie did too. He handled everyone’s business in the way they trusted him to.
A world full of people depended on him and he didn’t ever stumble. His emotions didn’t seem to even play into what he did, except that I knew his father had wronged his mother and so he did most everything to spite the man.
One day, in the kitchen, I stopped him as he spread sauce over pizza dough. “Did your father like how your mother cooked?”
He curled his lip at the mention of them. If anyone didn’t like talking about their parents like I didn’t like talking about mine, it was Bastian. “My father liked it and took advantage of it. He had her cooking for extended relatives all the time.”
“I see.” I didn’t want him to remember the bad times; I just wanted to understand the dynamic of their family more.
“She taught me the recipes only weeks before she left us. I think she planned it. She wanted Cade and me to remember the food. It was her passion after all. That and us.”
“She sounds wonderful.”
He nodded as he put the handmade pizza in the oven. “She would have liked you. My father would have liked you too.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet them.”
He stared at me for a minute. “When I put out the hit on my father, he stared at me, you know? The man who killed him asked me as he held the gun to his head. I didn’t hesitate.”
I watched Bastian relive the moment, the way he frowned and then rubbed his scruff showed me he battled with his choices even if he hadn’t hesitated.
He continued, “He’d been trafficking women when he’d told me he hadn’t. He’d done it to Katie and she was part of the family by then, probably always had been in a sense. I couldn’t let him live for that. Maybe I’d loved him once or tried to understand him but that drained any respect I might’ve had clean away.”
“Katie,” I whispered her name because she’d been a ferociously beautiful woman to meet in the first place. Knowing her past made her all the more omnipotent to me.
“Katie had been furious. She wanted us to forgive him.” He scoffed and leaned against the counter. “You’ll decide,ragazza, if you can be with someone like me for longer than this arrangement we have. This is the life I live, one where I right the wrongs of the past and try my best to wash the blood off my hands for the future.”
Rounding the counter, I took his mouth with mine. The kiss was slow and deliberate, like we were memorizing each other’s real identities. I wanted him to know that I’d already accepted his. I’d accepted Sebastian Armanelli.
“My parents charmed me and then left me over and over again, Bastian. If you don’t do that, I’ll be here forever waiting for you. It might be the only real vow I make to you.”