Carina could tell by Enzo’s waving white flag that this was her opportunity to take the win. It would’ve been so easy to chalk up her actions to wanting some victory in this battle. But she wasn’t sure what she was fighting for. In fact, when she went into conversation, she didn’t imagine an endgame. Although, Carina knew best that to tug the heartstrings of Enzo Ricciardi would only make her the cruelest of composers.
This was different though, she wasn’t playing a sad song with his heart for her own was on the line.
Carina closed the space between them, her body pressed against his in a tight hug. She couldn’t support herself from the weight of his gaze. More than that, she couldn’t stand the separation between heir bodies. Wrapping her arms above his shoulders, one hand threaded fingers into the tousle of soft curls. “This was never a game. You…” She emphasized, taking a step back to look into whiskey colored. “Were never a game.”
Because it was important for Enzo to know that when it came to his emotions and feelings, she was the last person who’d ever toy with them. A small chuckle escapes her as she steps up into the game stall. “Alright. So tonight then?” She confirms, running her fingers over the bow and arrow.
“Regardless of who wins the plush animal, you’ll take me back to your place and we’ll have our wicked ways with each other.”
“By that I mean, I can count on you to make some finger, licking...” She slowed on the words to allow the image formulate in his head. Or perhaps in her own head. “ … good Italian food.” Carina winks as she fumbles with the bow and arrow arrangement.
If anyone had known the naughty thoughts racing through her mind, she’d probably be condemned. She was a woman but even saints have their off days.
“I question why you couldn’t have picked an easier game to play.” Carina mumbles as the arrow hangs off the bow’s string. “I was always more of a shotgun kind of gal.”
The last time a woman had touched him, held him tight against her body, behind such action lied the intent to drown one another’s desires out and then bid each other a goodbye by the time sun hits the high skies. And before that, the last time woman had touched him like this, she’d been the one he called “amore della mia vita” and whose face he wished to see the first time in the morning, until his dying breath. But on her tip-toes, she was just underneath his chin and her hair smelled strongly of apple and cinnamon. And when he’d kiss her against the pulse point of her wrist before moving on to her knuckles, especially the one of the ring finger, where he’d promised himself to her for the eternity with a silver band, there she smelled of butter, cocoa and vanilla. Or when he’d skim his lips against hers before devouring her whole being within the confinements of their shared home, her breath would taste of freshly brewed coffee.
This...was nothing like that but in all ways that mattered, it was so much more terrifyingly resembling of that rather than of one his latest endeavors. And that had him weaker in his knees more so than the words which were to pass her mouth. And they were, admittedly, terrifying in their own sense because he didn’t know what that means. In the event of everything, in the given night’s context, how was he to take those words or deal with them. Doubt had anchored itself deep inside his hollow bones, taking a permanent residency there and he felt backed against the wall of his own carelessness.
The overwhelming desire to flee - and not only confine himself inside of the home that he’d made for himself here, but also to pack his suitcases and leave to a far away land without telling anyone where or why - tugged onto him like he was a puppet on strings guided by the ghosts of his past. He quenched that desire, though, along with his discomfort and took the feeble peace offering as an opportunity to play pretend for the time being - and deal with the consequences later, when alone with his thoughts.
He could not deny her now, regardless of whether he wanted it or not. Putting one foot in front of the other, one hand over the arrow, the other one over the bow - every movement, every breath he’d taken, took a conscious effort but he still felt detached from his very being throughout the whole ordeal. It reminded him of a panic attack, the way he felt in that moment - with the rest of the world around him completely dulled out, sounds coming through as though they were being vocalized from under the ocean, light but a dim and blurry background while the only thing he could focus on was himself and moving his limbs in as normal fashion as he could muster. A taught trick.
“Your way. Always your way.” he could hear his own voice ringing clear in his head and it sounded unusually put together, not at all that different from what he’d usually talk like at her. He was good at this. At keeping things at bay. Lifting the weaponry up, he closed his left eye and aimed for one of the higher points spots on the board, aware that he lacked the skill to hit the bulls-eye, but whenever his brains and skill decided to part their ways from him - luck seemed to weasel its way in, and he actually hit the center without even going for it. “Well, I guess you could say I like having an upper hand in some things, if I can’t have them in others. You’ve already made your move in shifting the power dynamics for the night - it’s only fair that I balance things out.”
