Stone disappears after we return with Stallone and doesn’t reappear, even when Aunt Mari gets home from church with the girls.
“Where’s Stone?” Talia demands, used to finding him here when she gets home.
“I’m not sure,” I answer.
I pull out my phone and type out a quick, “Where are you?”
But no answer, until later in the day, when Stone comes through the front door still wearing his dark mafia suit, even though he usually changes into something a little bit more comfortable for the Sunday dinner, Aunt Mari claims she has to host here every other week, because no one else’s house is big enough.
“Again, what did you do before we moved here?” I asked when it became clear to me that the Sunday dinners were going to be a bi-monthly thing, back in January.
“Oh, we were so sad and cramped,” Aunt Mari answered. “Thank God for Stone.”
But thank God isn’t what I’m thinking as I watch him half-listen to Talia tell him about how she tried to speak Spanish at Sunday School but nobody really understood her. He seems…off.
Despite the funny details of Talia’s story, his face remains a mask.
And by the time Yara rolls in with her three-kid crew, he’s nowhere to be found.
“I think I saw him go into the basement,” Aunt Mari tells me when I ask.
She’s right. I hear the treadmill whirring away as soon as I open the door. Is he working out? But he never works out on Sundays.
A bad feeling comes over me, as I make my way down the metal stairs, to find him running on the treadmill…in his dress shirt and tailored pants. Stone’s completely drenched, and his handwoven dress shirt clings to his skin, with huge sweat patches everywhere.
Brow scrunching, I come the rest of the way down the stairs to ask, “Stone? What are you doing?”
No answer.
“Getting a few miles in?” I ask. “In your wingtips?”
Stone still doesn’t answer. And I move closer to read the machine’s display. It says he’s been running for over an hour and a half.
This can’t be comfortable. Or sane. His entire face is red. It’s like he’s torturing himself, and I can’t watch.
So I make it stop, punching a finger into the big red button in the middle of the display.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Stone demands when the treadmill comes to a sudden halt.
Before he can turn it on again, I cover the display screen with my whole hand and ask, “Is this…is this about Cami going out on a date?”
“Hell, no. Already checked. Guy’s a total egghead. It’ll take me less than an hour to bury him if anything goes wrong.”
I didn’t even bother to reply to that one. “Then why are you down here, running in your business clothes?”
“I don’t know, why are you here in North Carolina, living with some random aunt and a couple of kids you didn’t know from Adam a year ago, when you could be in New York?”
“You’re lashing out,” I say, trying to stay calm, even as my skin prickles with the truth of his words. “Seriously, Stone, what’s going on?”
“Blowing off steam.”
“By steam, do you mean emotions?” I ask, tilting my head. “And by blowing off, do you mean running away from them?”
He gets off the treadmill, looks at me, then practically mauls me, pushing me into the wall with an almost violent kiss.
“Stone,” I say, trying to pull back.
But he holds on to my waist, keeping me pinned between him and the wall. “I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to get gentle beasted by you. Don’t dig deeper. Right now, all I want to do is fuck you against the wall.” His words and breath are harsh against my lips. But his voice sounds desperate as he says. “I need…I need inside you. Can I get in there? Will you let me?”
I stare at him, all the questions piling up. Then I silently nod, wanting to help him more than I need to understand what’s going on.
“Aw fuck, babe, thank you,” he says, lifting me up to his waist, like I don’t weigh anything, he carries me to the closest wall.
The panties I’m wearing under my Sunday dinner dress are just a barrier that disappear with a tug of his hand. Then he buries himself inside of me with a low groan. Driving deeper, then deeper still, filling me up with strokes that jerk my entire body as he claims me.
It’s a crazy, but good position. He has to half hold, half counter-balance me to keep my hips right where he needs them on the wall. That means my clit gets plenty of stimulation as he pumps into me.
“Mmm, Stone, I’m coming,” I tell him just a few minutes into it. Even though this is supposed to be about what he needs, not me.
But tell that to my body. My core quivers around his long staff, clenching it tight as the climax washes over me.
It doesn’t take Stone long to follow me right over the cliff’s edge.
“Need you…need you…need you…” he whispers urgently into my ear. His thrusts become faster, then sloppy. Then he groans long and hard before releasing with a full body shudder.
“Sorry…” he mumbles as he comes down. “Sometimes it’s hard without pills. It’s like I don’t know how to process things.”
Is this about his job, I wonder. The work he’s been doing for the Ferraro family? This time without the numbing benefits of pills.
I worry, but I don’t say anything, just press my forehead into his. “It’s okay,” I whisper, pressing soft kisses into his lips, his nose, his cheeks. Dragging him out of cotton, despite myself.