Page 42 of Bianchi

Like a child that’s been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, the corner of my mouth lifts in some semblance of a sad smile when I look at her. Concern laces her words when she asks, “Is everything okay?”

She sits up in bed, the covers dropping to pool around her waist. My chest blooms, an urgent desire to claim her taking up root in the pit of my stomach. She has a wardrobe full of clothes, and yet, she’s wearing my T-shirt to sleep. With her hair mussed, she rubs her eyes before pushing back the covers and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her steps are tentative as she walks toward me.

My eyes drop down to the pad in my hands, continuing to study her work like she might snatch it away and restrict me from seeing this side of her. I expect her to do just that when she reaches me, but instead, she kneels between my legs. Her familiar scent wraps around me in a comforting cloud.

Moonlight shines through the gap in the curtains, illuminating the soft features of her face. One hand rests on my thigh, moving back and forth until I cover it with mine and slowly soothe my thumb over her smooth skin.

“Who is this?” There’s an edge to my tone. It demands answers and doesn’t hide the fact that whoever it is will be dead by morning as soon as I have his name.

Aurora shrugs, dragging her eyes away from the page to meet mine. “I don’t know. He’s appeared in two of my nightmares. In the last one he said ‘if only you’d have listened’ and then pulled the trigger and I woke up. I don’t know what he meant but I’ve not had the dream since we’ve…” She pauses, looking around the room. “Since we’ve been sleeping in the same bed, I’ve not had that dream again. I try to draw him, to see if I can figure out who he is and what he might have meant.”

“And you haven’t?”

“No. I close my eyes, force my mind to bring him up, and then all I see is his outline and what’s on that page.”

Aurora flicks the pages back to the portraits of the woman. “I know who this is. This is my mom.” Her fingers glide over the paper, careful not to smudge the drawings. “Back home, I have pictures of her hanging in every room and I really miss seeing her face, so I’ve drawn her. She died when I was sixteen. I didn’t know how until two years later. It was the day after my eighteenth birthday. She disappeared, and I went to live with my aunt and uncle in Long Island because my dad wasn’t in the picture anymore.

“But he turned up out of the blue, asking me to come and stay with him. He said it wasn’t safe for me because he was in the mafia. I told him I’d have been safer if he’d done us both a favor and stayed away.” Her eyes go glassy and she swallows, looking away. My thumb rubs small comforting circles on the back of her hand until she continues, “I told him that I never wanted to see him again, and he walked away. Just like that, he accepted my decision and I haven’t seen him since.”

My chest tightens at the look of devastation on her beautiful face. I lean forward, unsure of how to comfort her. A sad smile tugs at the corners of her mouth, and she drops her eyes to her knees. “My father told me she committed suicide.” Swiping angrily at a lone tear that tumbles down her cheek, she straightens her spine, running her finger over the sketches. “She kissed me good night, walked out the front door, and apparently, threw herself off the Manhattan Bridge. What makes it worse is her body was never found, so I never got to say goodbye properly.”

I cup her cheek, my thumb swiping away the tears. “You don’t believe him?”

Shaking her head, her watery green eyes meet mine, and she whispers, “No.”

A weight settles on my chest as we sit in silence. I want to tell her that I’ll find him and get the truth for her, but that’s not how this works. My job is to look out for la mia famiglia and I need to remember that, because the more time I spend with Aurora, the harder it’s getting to do.

She sighs heavily and despite knowing that I should put a stop to this conversation and find another room to sleep in, I still find myself asking, “What was she like?”

Aurora’s face lights up and it’s nothing short of spectacular. “Amazing. The best mom a girl could ask for. I felt nothing but love from her, and she protected me with a fierceness that gave me my own strength.” The light in her eyes dims, and she looks down at the pad still in my lap. “She made me the woman I am today, and the day she died, I guess a part of me did too. You want to know why I’m so accepting of death?”

I nod, because it’s the one thing about her that I haven’t been able to figure out, although now I have an idea.

The corner of her mouth lifts. “Of course you do. The police came knocking on our door at three am that day, but long before they did, I knew she was gone. I was supposed to be asleep, but I woke up around midnight and I couldn’t find her anywhere. For an hour and a half, I was calling her cell nonstop until I realized she was gone and that’s when all the light left me. There’s no color anymore and I’ve just been existing ever since. I can’t find joy in anything because the world is just black and gray.”

I want to ask her if she hopes to join her mother in whatever afterlife might exist, but I can’t force the words past my lips. Instead, I listen to her tell me about the woman who raised her, the strength of their relationship clear in every story she recounts.

Aurora chuckles, lifting her gaze to the curtain-covered window. “Oh, and there was this one time I was being bullied and came home from school with a torn shirt and bruised pride. She asked me what had happened, but I didn’t want to tell her. I thought the girls who had done it would do something worse if they got in trouble with the teachers.

“The very next day, my mom marched me down to school, stormed into the principal's office, and threw my shirt at him, demanding to know what he was going to do about it. She hadn’t listened to a word I said on the way, and because it happened on the way home, the school had no idea about what she was talking about.”

“I bet you were a firecracker.” An image of her pouncing on me the other day pops into my mind. “Actually, you kind of still are. I’m surprised I don’t have the bruises to prove it.” My voice is husky and amused.

Aurora huffs out a laugh, looking at me from her position on the floor. “That’s because you’re twice my size and threw me around like I weighed nothing.”

She sucks in a breath and my tongue darts out, wetting my lower lip at the reminder of what came after her attack. I’ve been far too lenient with her, but anytime I’m around her, I find myself wanting to experience pleasure rather than cause her pain.

Lifting the pad from my lap, Aurora puts it on the table next to us before standing. “It’s late. We should get some sleep.”

She turns toward the bed, but I grab her hand and tug her toward me, until she falls into my lap, landing with a gasp. I grit my teeth as she wriggles, trying to right herself, her ass grinding over my hardening cock.

My fingers dig into the flesh of her thighs, and she stills, her chest rising and falling. Neither of us says a word when I reposition her to straddle my lap. As if I’m watching another man touch her, my eyes follow my right hand as I smooth it down the center of her chest and over to her hip. It’s hard not to miss the heat emanating from her pussy or the way her nipples pebble through the fabric.

Delicate fingers dig into the arms of the chair as she hovers above me. Every time we’ve come together, her consent has been there, bubbling beneath the surface. My eyes search hers, seeking it out again.

Only when I find it do I forcibly pull her hips forward, pushing her down onto my confined cock as I thrust up. Her mouth opens a fraction, and a moan spills from her lips. There’s a beat where everything is still and the last echoes of her moan drift off, leaving behind a charged silence. Her hips roll, sparking to life an urgency within me. Pulling her T-shirt over her head, I throw it on the floor beside the chair. She sits back in nothing but barely there panties and a heat in her eyes that’s calling to me.

Sirena.

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