Page 133 of Koroleva

"She has shot up since last summer and is starting to develop..." she gestured towards my breasts, making me uncomfortable. I didn't like them talking about me in those terms. "Massimo will have to load the shotgun very soon."

"He's had it loaded for a while now, believe me. It's a shame she and Salvatore are cousins, because they would make a beautiful couple," my mother's reflection made me swallow hard and curl my toes.

"Oh yes, and besides, we get along so well, can you imagine? A wedding between our children? Our grandchildren would be gorgeous, and Julieta is so sweet and cheerful, she takes after you."

"Well, but it wouldn't be right, you know what they say, if you mix blood in the same family, the kids turn out foolish."

Foolish? I had never heard anything like that, why would they turn out foolish? Didn't the Bible say we were all children of Adam and Eve? What then?

I nervously bit my fingernail, pondering what I had just heard. If that was true, if Salvatore was forbidden, it meant that, no matter how much I liked him, my cousin would never marry me. I kicked the floor.

Well, if it was a matter of blood, they might as well change mine or give me a transfusion!

"Spying on our mothers, Juls?" Salvatore's warm, raspy voice caught me off guard.

My shock was so great that I jumped and nearly screamed if his hand hadn't covered my lips.

My cousin used that nickname to address me, drawing out the 'l' and softly trailing the 's'. His voice, now much deeper and more masculine than it had been years ago, almost made me sigh.

I turned around with the heat of his palm over my lips. The contact made my skin tingle and my heart rate accelerated as I

felt him so close, with barely any personal space between us.

I glanced at his chin, split into two, the square jaw that lifted a most harmonious face. His characteristic black hair fell messily over the sea of his eyes.

An indolent smile marked his well-defined mouth, neither too thick nor too thin, perfect for the daughter of the Montardis to have wandered upon, the same one I had wanted for myself before knowing I was forbidden.

His hand moved away, giving me the chance to speak.

"I was waiting, I didn’t… didn’t want to interrupt them," I admitted, trembling.

Heat, so much heat, enveloping me, scorching me. It hardly mattered that it was an unusually cold day for August because I was burning up.

Salvatore's hands rested against the wall, leaving me no chance to step back. Not that I could have. My legs were trembling too much. He was much taller than me, so I had to lift my head to look him in the face.

"And what were they talking about?" he asked, curious.

"About you and the Montardi girl, that you had kissed her," I replied, omitting the more dangerous part where our mothers had married us off and banned the idea simultaneously.

My eyes flew to his lips, still curved and moist. Had he licked them like a cat eyeing a frightened bird?

"Ummm, it's true that I kissed her... Have you been kissed yet, Juls?" My heart couldn't beat any faster, he was so close I could count the few freckles that dotted his face, although the most visible was on his left cheek, right where the cheekbone was marked. I wanted to touch it with my finger. "Answer," he urged me.

"No, I haven't been kissed," I responded, my face flaming.

"And do you want to be? Do you want to know what it feels like when a boy holds you in his arms and devours your mouth, twining his tongue with yours?"

Why was he asking me these things? Why was he so close? And why did I so desperately want to know what he was suggesting?

For a moment, I thought he was going to do it, that he wouldn't care that I was his little cousin and that he would kiss me just as he had the daughter of his enemy. Deep down, I longed for it to be so and for his lips to be the first to caress mine. But a noise in the living room made him jump back and move away.

He pressed his index finger to his lips in a pact of silence and winked at me.

"If they ask, you haven't seen me," he murmured before sprinting out the front door. Definitely, he wasn’t going to kiss me that summer.

52

Trouble in Paradise

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