Page 84 of Marry Me Not
I frowned. “How is that possible? Someone lost adress?”
His gaze flashed. “Nettle, do you think I asked? Who gives a fuck how it ended up there. Just see if it fits.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I swapped the jacket in my arms for the garment bag, pulled on the zipper, and peeked inside.
“You’re kidding.” The dress was beautiful. I took it out completely and held it out in front of me, studying the details.
“Thiswas in lost and found?” I shot him a skeptical glance, but he wasn’t looking at the dress. He was looking atme.
Cosimo’s gaze carved a heated path down my barely covered body, and when he met my eyes again, there was something distinctly hungry in his expression.
I pressed the dress to my front, remembered the salty taste of his sweat against my tongue, and the way I lay in bed that night with my hand between my legs, imagining what might’ve happened if I’d stayed in the sauna and pissed him off some more.
“Nettle, I beg you.” His voice had roughened around the edges. “Get dressed.”
I swallowed. “Turn around.”
He did, giving me a view of his back as I peeled Anthony’s dress—or what remained of it—off my body.
At the sound of it crashing to the ground, Cosimo’s shoulders rose a fraction. He seemed annoyed, but not as angry as I’d expected him to be after I’d managed to turn the evening into a disaster within five minutes of arriving. In fact, I had a hunchhe was using his irritation to mask something softer. More dangerous.
I was starting to suspect my fake husband might feel something for me.
I didn’t know how deep those feelings went—probably not very—or whether he had any intention of acknowledging them. I wasn’t even sure he understood them himself. Cosimo was too good at burying things he didn’t want to feel.
But his mask of indifference had started to slip.
And it terrified me how much I liked discovering what lived underneath.
“I’m sorry, Cosimo.” I pulled the aquamarine gown on. It slid smoothly over my hips. “I could’ve gone home. Escaped through a back door.”
“You need to remember who the fuck you are, Fabiana.” His voice was low. “You’re my wife. You came here on my arm, and you’re going to leave on it. Through the front, head held high.”
I halted, my heart fighting against my rib cage. Something warm, soft, and gooey unfurled inside my chest.
“Does it fit?”
I moved again, tugging the sleeves into place. “I think so. I need you to zip me up.” I walked up to the counter and saw him turn in the mirror.
His eyes landed on me. A vein in his throat pulsed.
Heat climbed up my neck as his gaze sharpened like a predator’s. He stepped toward me, stopping right behind me. His broadbody towered over mine, close enough for the scent of his cologne to slip over my skin.
I pulled my lipstick from my purse and leaned over the sink.
His fingers found the zipper at the base of my spine at the exact moment the lipstick touched my mouth.
The first tug stole my breath.
Our gazes caught in the mirror. The air in the room had become taut, like a pulled string.
I dragged the color over my bottom lip as he drew the zipper up, inch by inch, his knuckles grazing the bare skin of my back with every slow pull. The pressure was light, almost nothing. But my body reacted the way it might if he’d carved that languid path with his tongue. Heat flooded my veins, making my hand nearly tremble.
His gaze dropped to my lips in the mirror, then lifted back to my eyes as the zipper reached the top.
“There.”
I watched his reflection take one slow step back, watched the careful rearrangement of his expression into something controlled.
