Page 9 of Desperate Decisions

“I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

“Get some rest. We can handle things for now.”

I didn’t argue, taking myself up to my broom closet of a room. What it lacked in size, it made up for in comfort. The bed was like a cloud and I sank into it, not bothering to strip off the rest of my clothing.

My dreams were haunted by lemon tarts. No matter where I turned trying to follow the scent, it vanished like smoke. It was ridiculous to call it a nightmare, even though I did wake up in a cold sweat just as the dream version of me was about to slide his cock into that slick omega body.

Sitting up with a sigh, I groaned and laid my hand over the gauze to feel the heat burning from my skin. Fucking fuck.

I risked a trip to the pharmacy and got some medication to head off the infection. Would it kill people to store their bullets somewhere clean? Maybe that was the fucking point. If you couldn’t take them out with a direct hit you could take them out with an infection.

I grumbled the entire walk home, my cock throbbing and completely at odds with the illness that had sunk its claws in. The fuck was this bullshit?

Once I was safely ensconced back at the villa, I showered away the sweat sticking to me, stroking myself to an unsatisfying completion beneath the water. When I was dry, I surveyed myself in the mirror, noting the plethora of bruises and scratches, including nail marks down my back. Apparently the omega had been feistier than I’d realized. I squinted into the reflective glass and hitched my leg up, Captain Morgan–style, on the counter.

What the actual fuck?

Was that a bondbite? I stared at it and dug out a hand mirror from beneath the sink and angled it so I could see better. Bites in general during sex weren’t at all uncommon, especially when they felt so fucking good on the scent glands, but the mark looked like it had already settled into a silvery scar. There was no way the omega had been in heat. I’d have lost way more than a few hours to her if she had been.

Which begged the question. How on earth did I have a bondbite when the only one who could’ve given it to me hadn’t gone into heat?

“Elio, come to eat!” Anita called up the stairs.

I took my surly attitude downstairs and sat down hard at the table.

“Did something crawl up your ass?” Anita asked.

“I just showered. Come smell me.”

“Ew.”

“Just do it.”

Anita walked over with a roll of her eyes and dipped down, taking a whiff of me. “You obviously didn’t scrub very hard. You still smell like a whorehouse.”

“But what specifically?”

“Delizie al Limone, if I had to guess.”

“Fuck.”

“Why?”

With an impatient sigh, I broke down the story of taking the fleeing omega to Rome.

“That doesn’t make any sense, though,” Anita said. “Heats aren’t that short.”

“I know that, but I have her bite on me and her scent is stuck to me, so what else is it?”

Anita shrugged. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

I’d have to wait until I got back to the States for any answers. I was stuck here for at least a couple more weeks while everything got resolved, which meant I would have to stew for that much longer.

The mob rivals left us in peace after losing three men, and with each day that passed, I wished more and more that they would show up just so I could shoot someone. Anita was ready to bury me in the garden right alongside the recently dead.

“You snap at me one more time and I’m getting the shovel. I don’t give a fuck if you’re family or not.”

As often as I was an asshole, I didn’t mean to be in this particular case. I was sleeping like shit. Every moment my eyes were closed, my brain was full of that omega, and I was stuck here. To their credit, my cousins did work as quickly as possible and they all found other places to go, but it still took time.

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