Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) (17 page)

Mama withdrew from him, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin before looking directly at him. “Marco, I made so many mistakes, things I regret to this day.” More tears spilled from her eyes.

Please stop crying, Mama.

“That man didn’t deserve to have two beautiful boys like you and Gino.” She looked down at her lap. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t have taken you away sooner, Marco.”

Why did she keep apologizing for something that wasn’t her fault?

Stop crying, Marco.

They won’t keep you if you’re a baby.

Gino’s admonishment blasted into his consciousness and nearly brought him to his knees. Marc needed no further reminders; he never cried.

A buzzing in his ears yanked him from the scene, and he found himself hiding in a cold, dark place staring into the face of…a wolf?

“…Come out now, Marco.”
Mama?
No…

He stood too quickly and swayed on his feet. Blood rushed through his veins, increasing the pounding in his head. Angelina wrapped her arms around his waist from behind him before he realized she’d come to stand next to him. He held on to her arms to further ground himself as he tried to draw from her support, her strength. Slowly, the room stopped spinning, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that walls were closing in on him.

Trapped.

He needed to run. Now. “Mama, I need some fresh air.” He turned to Angelina and handed her the Porsche keys. “Stay with Mama until Evelyn comes in. I’ll have her call Papa.”

She whispered, “Marc, are you okay?”

He nodded as he made his way toward the door. “I need some time to think. Meet you back at the condo.” He gazed at his mother, who had stopped crying but sat immobilized on the sofa.

What the fuck was the matter with him? He should be consoling her, not running away. Unable to shake the need to flee, Marc nearly sprinted toward the door.

Escape.

“Marc, I’ll meet you back at the condo!”

He nodded but didn’t turn around.

* * *

Angelina left Mama’s office as soon as Evelyn came in to take over consoling Mama. The story she thought Marc feared most had been confirmed—he
had
been adopted but by an aunt and uncle, not strangers. He had been handling the news so well. What caused him to suddenly snap and run out?

Fewer than five minutes behind Marc, she wasn’t sure if he’d walk around the property to get his head on straight or go directly back to his parents’ penthouse condo. She knocked on the door as she tried to get her breathing under control. The moment he opened the door, the shuttered expression in his eyes told her Marc had shut down emotionally—again. His lifelong beliefs about who he was had been shattered.

There probably wasn’t a damned thing she could do to ease his pain, but she could hold him, talk with him, love him. She reached out, but he sidestepped and motioned her into the foyer.

“I’ve packed everything. We can leave as soon as you’re ready.”

She glanced at their suitcase near the door. How had he done that so fast? Her gaze returned to him. “Marc, I think we should talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

She reached out to stroke his arm, “But there is.”

He wrenched his arm away from her and glared at her. “I
said
there’s nothing to talk about. If you need to hit the head before we leave, do so now. Otherwise, let’s shove off.”

She’d learned over the months that Marc didn’t revert to Navy jargon unless he was seeking to hold onto a sense of stability. Security. She wished he’d find that sense of security in her, but it hadn’t happened yet.

Blinking back the tears, she turned toward the elevator. “I’m ready. Let’s go home.”

Maybe on the way back to Marc’s place, they could talk. Or would he retreat into his head as he had so many times since New Year’s? Worse yet, would he run to the mountains—away from her—where he knew she most likely wouldn’t follow?

The drive back to Denver was a silent one, each lost in his or her own thoughts. Once home, Marc unloaded the car and left soon after to go downtown to the store. He said he needed to meet with Brian to discuss weekend sales figures and see what treks had been scheduled for the coming week, but he could have done all of that over the phone. Clearly he just wanted to be away from her tonight.

The house was cold, and she jacked up the thermostat on her way to the bedroom. Exhausted from the emotionally draining two days, she shivered and crawled under the duvet seeking warmth and sleep. As if she could sleep without Marc’s body snuggled against her backside. Despite having to sleep without him many nights lately, she’d never gotten used to it.

Would she ever get him to face whatever it was he feared so much?

Please stop running, Marc.

Just when he’d started to open up and let her in, insisting that she be included in the meeting with Mama, he had quickly tugged the mask back over his face and made his escape. He hadn’t seemed upset to hear Mama confirm he wasn’t her son by birth, so what caused him to shut down? Maybe it was a delayed response to the news—emotional shock.

Angelina couldn’t imagine how she’d handle discovering she wasn’t the biological daughter of her Mama and Papa or learning that her brothers were half-siblings.
Mio Dio!
Carmella and Sandro weren’t Marc’s siblings at all but his cousins instead! She didn’t blame Marc for going into a tailspin, but surely he knew the youngest two D’Alessios only knew him as a brother and weren’t going to treat him differently once they were told the truth. Angelina doubted Carmella and Sandro had any clue about their gnarled family tree, but the four children had been raised together as siblings and always would be. Mama and Papa loved them all equally.

Oh, Marc. Come back home. I need to hold you.

If Marc continued to shut her out, they’d never break through whatever kept him running. She refused to continue to let him push her away when he was at his most vulnerable. He needed her now more than ever, even if he couldn’t admit it.

She shivered and turned onto her back before scooting up and sitting flush against the headboard. Maybe if she’d brought some flannel PJs with her, she wouldn’t be shivering, but Marc preferred she sleep in the nude. Not a problem when she had his body heat and hot sex to keep her warm. But the flannels she lusted for at the moment were packed away in a storage facility at Aspen Corners with most of her furniture.

As much as she wanted something more with Marc, she might have jumped into living together too soon. What did they really know about each other? Their negotiations for play scenes might have given her a false expectation of the level of trust and intimacy they had established in reality.

While she’d never been able to ditch the feeling that he wasn’t being as open with her as she needed him to be, she had hoped he’d change and that this relationship would lead to something permanent.

No, she wasn’t going to give up on him this easily. Marc was a good man, just going through some things he wasn’t processing very well right now. They were compatible in so many ways. She would hang in there with him and try to find ways to break through those protective walls he surrounded himself with.

Why did he feel such a need to run and hide from
her
?

One thing she knew for certain—there would be no body heat, kink, or hot sex tonight. Missing Marc more than ever, she tossed the covers back and went to the closet where she pulled out one of the white silk shirts he’d worn but not yet sent to the cleaners. The bergamot and lemony scents of Armani Code assailed her. She started to put the shirt back on the hanger and choose one he hadn’t worn, but with tears in her eyes she brought it to her face with both hands, inhaling deeply.

Marc.

Why was he distancing himself from her? Tears sprang to her eyes as she swallowed past the lump in her throat. This long-sleeved, square-hemmed shirt wouldn’t provide her with any warmth and barely covered her hips, but just having Marc’s scent surrounding her made her feel warmer inside.

Angelina pushed her arms through the sleeves and rolled the cuffs several times to get them past her wrists. She struggled with three of the buttons covering her chest before giving up on the rest. Why couldn’t men’s shirts button the same way women’s did?

Because nothing is ever easy when it comes to men.

She glanced at the floor of the closet and saw Marc’s toy bag. On a whim, she bent down and unzipped it, spotting first the paddle he’d last used on her New Year’s weekend at his family resort.

Mine.

Like the long-gone mark on her butt from that session, their relationship seemed to be vanishing quickly. Why did he keep shutting her out? One very real possibility was the realization that Marc couldn’t trust anybody. Well, maybe he trusted Adam, Damián, and Luke to a certain extent, but definitely not women. Okay, Grant maybe, but she was one of his Marines. A corpsman’s relationship to the Marines he served with gave them an elevated status.

He most definitely didn’t trust Angelina enough to build a solid foundation. Wasn’t it ironic that in the beginning the problem had been her inability to trust him? She’d forgiven him for the lie by omission that had snowballed into quite a mess when they’d first met. But she hadn’t forgotten it and couldn’t shake the feeling he was hiding something else about his past relationship with Melissa from her.

Furthermore, he might not even know what he was hiding. His nightmares had been coming more often, but he hadn’t shared much about any of them since the one on Christmas night. Was it something buried so deeply inside even he didn’t know it was there?

Oh, they both definitely had serious trust issues. How could they begin to overcome them and move forward together? She’d learned a lot about trust through discipline while being restrained during their play scenes. Maybe she should plan a play scene that would teach Marc.

Spying the stilettos she rarely wore because Marc always worried about her hurting herself, she decided to slip into them and channel her inner Mistress Grant, who always wore over-the-knee stiletto boots in a Domme scene. These mules would have to suffice. She wondered when Marc would…

“Bellissima.”

She turned and Marc cocked his head. How long had he been standing there? His gaze captured hers and then explored the length of her body before returning to linger on her chest. When his gaze shifted to the open toy bag, he grinned and her stomach flip-flopped.

Don’t even think it, Marc.

Suddenly, she knew what needed to happen. Marc needed a lesson in discipline tonight. But could she deliver as a Domme, even for one scene?

No time like the present to find out.

Chapter Nine

M
arc’s cock grew stiff seeing Angelina wearing his Armani shirt. She’d never looked sexier. He’d come home expecting to give some long, drawn-out explanation about why he’d been such an ass since their return from Aspen, but apparently she was in the mood for some stress relief instead. Good. He needed to expel some energy right now.

She turned and bent down to his toy bag. The silk shirt molded around her hips, and then he spied the stilettos.

“Lose the fucking shoes.”

She stood and turned to him, puzzled. “They’re called fuck-me shoes…”

Marc didn’t know why the damned things bothered him so much but stared her down until she shrugged and kicked them off, returning them to the back of the closet where they belonged.

Angelina bent again and rummaged through the toy bag. He wondered which implement she’d choose to play with and didn’t have long to wait. She turned toward him holding one of the fourteen-inch floggers in one hand and a pair of leather wrist cuffs clipped together in the other. He wondered why she hadn’t chosen the pair of floggers; typically his girl preferred Florentine-style flogging. No worries. He’d make sure he met her needs in whatever way she desired.

Angelina motioned in the air with the hand holding the flogger, swishing the falls in the process. “Strip, boy.”