Page 55 of Savage Lover

I never thought of Nero as someone who could feel pain like a normal person. He always seems to enjoy it.

I look at him lying there, and I think how young he is, really. Only twenty-five, like me. He always seemed so much older. Especially when we were in school together.

But he was only a kid back then. He’s barely an adult now.

He just grew up rough. Rougher than even I did.

The Gallos have money. But how old was he the first time somebody put a gun in his hand?

I look at that hand, curled up on his chest, trying to hold onto something. His knuckles are bloody and battered. His fingers are long, slim, and finely shaped.

I slip my hand into his just for an instant, to give him something to hold. I have long fingers, too. Our hands link together perfectly. Like fingers inside of a glove. Like they were made for each other.

Nero’s eyes flutter open. I pull my hand away, sitting back on my heels before he notices anything.

He tries to sit up, and I push him back down.

We talk for a while. More calmly than we’ve ever talked before.

Then he kisses me. Not like he kissed me in the car. That was violent, aggressive, like a punishment. This is the opposite. It’s gentle. Almost tender.

We kiss for so long that I forgot who he is and who I am. I forgot that I swore to myself a hundred times that I would never, never, never let Nero Gallo get a hold of my heart so he could tear it into tiny pieces and stomp on them, like he does to everybody else.

Then his hand brushes over my breast and I gasp, because the feeling of his palm grazing over my nipple is like an electric shock shooting through my body. And he pulls away from me, looking surprised and almost horrified.

Then he leaves.

And I’m alone in my bed for hours, wondering why I let him kiss me. And why he wanted to at all.

The next morning, I feel groggy and my head is thumping. I barely ever drink. Those two beers at Levi’s house didn’t do me any favors.

I stumble out to the kitchen, where Vic is actually out of bed, with his textbooks sprawled across the table, and his nose an inch away from his paper as he scribbles notes.

“What are you doing?” I ask suspiciously.

“I signed up for those AP courses like you said,” Vic says.

He looks humble and apologetic, like he’s trying to make penance with me.

He knows I’ve been shanghaied into selling Molly for Levi Cargill. I haven’t told him about Officer Schultz. Working with the cops is one of the most dangerous things you can do in Old Town. If Vic knew what I was doing, it would only put him in danger.

“What are those notes for?” I ask him.

“Evolutionary Biology,” he says. “It’s all about natural selection and common descent and speciation.”

“Like that stuff with Mendel and the pea plants?” I say.

I vaguely remember filling out a bunch of squares that were supposed to teach us recessive and dominant traits.

“Yeah,” Vic says. “Basically.”

“What are those charts you do for inheritance?” I ask him.

“Punnett Squares,” Vic says.

“I remember those.”

“Well, we covered that in normal biology,” Vic says. “This is a bit more advanced. Look . . .”

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