Page 76 of A Taste Of Darkness

He looked at me with a softness in his gaze, but he was hiding secrets behind those brown eyes. Dark and wounded secrets he never shared with anyone, I could tell.

“Physical touch stirs up memories I don’t want to be reminded of,” he told me. “There’s something so innocent about you, which I’m sure you don’t even notice. You’re so… gentle and trusting. From the moment I met you, there was just something about you that felt different. You’re not an evil person, you’ve never been and you never will be. You’re the sunshine in a broken world. No matter how cruel it gets around you, you never let it stop you from being hopeful. Someone like you could never have bad intentions, and so I trust you.”

I took a deep breath and tried my best not to let his words affect me too much. I was a quick crier, and the last thing I needed was to cry right now. “So you never held hands with anyone before?” I intertwined ours.

Milo shook his head. “Nope.”

“What else did you never do?”

He chuckled slightly. “If you’re trying to ask me whether I’m a virgin, I’m not.”

“Too bad. We could’ve opened a ‘I’ve-never-fucked-someone-before’ club. Would out-rank Tartarus for sure.”

“Did you just say fucked?” His mouth hung open in pretend-shock. “Oh, cuore mio,… what has gotten into you?”

“You’re a bad influence.” My smile brightened. “Just out of curiosity, how do you engage in sexual activities without touching them?”

He laughed, and oh, how great that sounded. “You know there are people out there who are fine with just fucking and nothing more, right? They don’t care about kissing, or much foreplay, or anything. They just want to get off.”

“Sounds boring. Where’s the fun in that? The passion? You might as well jerk off, after all, it has the same outcome,” I said. “So you’re telling me, you’ve never touched a woman’s breasts before?” He shook his head. “And you never used your fingers on a woman before?”

“Well… not like I did with you,” he replied.

And still so skilled. Interesting. “Have you ever kissed someone before?”

A smile still painted his face despite his hesitation to reply. “I have, but that was before I met you.”

Before he met me? “Weren’t you like… fourteen?”

He nodded and suddenly, the dim moonlight captured his slightly reddening cheeks. I’d never seen Milo blush before, whether it was from embarrassment or any other reason.

It was adorable.

“Anything before eighteen doesn’t count, so basically, I was your first kiss. That’s so cute!”

Milo let go of my hand—well, he pushed it off him in a very exaggerated way, which made me laugh.

“Really, I like that. Now we’re both inexperienced in something,” I said and nudged him in his side. “And to be honest, it’s surprisingly comforting to know that there won’t be a crazy mafia ex-girlfriend heading my way any time soon either.”

“Even if that was the case, I’d make sure nothing would happen to you.”

I knew he would. “Oh, okay, different question,” I announced.

“Shoot.”

“I want the full answer this time, okay? No half-truths,” I said, pointing a finger at him and narrowing my eyes. “Why do you kill rapists? Like, I know you said you do this for justice, but why do you care in the first place? You’re not affected by other people’s misfortune. Why do you kill those who do awful things to other people?”

The question had been lingering in my mind for a while—since I found out that he did it, actually. I was never brave enough to ask for more details when he didn’t give them to me the first time. I didn’t think it was my place to know at that time. Whatever Milo did in his free time wasn’t my business, it only just recently kind of turned into mine, in some way.

Or perhaps not.

Milo sighed deeply and straightened his back. He now looked toward the sea, hesitating for a moment. The happiness from a minute ago evaporated into thin air.

This wasn’t a good sign. I didn’t mean to make him feel bad all of a sudden.

I expected a super random reason—something like he was just tired of being the bad guy and wanted to do something good. A change in his mood was not what I saw coming.

“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I underst?—”

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