Page 70 of Eden's Deliverance

A gentle smile creeps up, but it’s not meant for Dario. I remember something Skylar said to me on Thanksgiving, and it might be the most meaningful declaration he made that night.

“Red is hardly an insult. You’re the personification of the color, it's just what you are…You radiate it…Red everything. Everywhere.”

That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted, but I didn’t think he ever recognized it for what it was. I assumed he was always teasing and just trying to insult my obsession with the color. I know now just how wrong I was about him.

“Yes,” I answer. “Like the color.”

Dario leans his head back slowly to look down his nose at me, nodding slightly in amusement. “Ah, yes. I see it. It fits you,diavolina.”

“Diavolina?”

He tucks his fingers under my chin and rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. A wicked grin spreads across his face when he says, “Little devil.”

Immediately, I break out in a full-faced blush, my cheeks burning from the inside out. I shy away, but his fingers hold to their command and force me to keep eye contact. The alcohol rushes to my head and drops me into a daze I can’tcontrol. Blame it on the drinks, blame it on a month of celibacy, or blame it on his accent…just don’t blame anything on me.

“Would you like to find out?” I ask, tilting my head towards the front door. When he nods in approval, I turn to Penelope as I grab my phone from the counter. “You can make it home okay?”

She winks, turning her attention instead to Dario’s crotch when she says, “You two have fun. I’ll give you a head start.”

I give her a kiss on the cheek before downing the rest of my bay breeze, then follow Dario into the parking lot. As we walk, I check my phone to see what new bombardments Skylar left me with while I was ignoring him.

A slew of notifications pop onto the screen, revealing I missed seven calls and one final text message.

When I’m safely in the passenger's seat of Dario’s BMW, I decide to respond, though my head is fucking pounding and the screen hurts my eyes to read.

His response is immediate, and I regret texting him back at all.

I’m not dealing with his overprotective crap tonight. Bitch is about to get laid, and I don’t need him on my mind when I do it. Tucking the phone back into my purse, I shut him out completely.

Despite keeping me in check for the past few weeks, Skylar and I haven’t rekindled our old flame from the holidays. I think he must understand the fragility of my situation, because he never tried, and I’ve been thankful for that. Fucking him in the middle of my processing period would have just confused things too much for me.

At this point, I hold more appreciation for him than attraction. He helped me through a catastrophic, life-altering event without ever judging me, teasing me, or making sly comments. He’s given me nothing but careful and delicate handling.

Just maybe a littletoodelicate for me.

What we had together was fun, but it was always going to be temporary. I needed it to move on and grow, but now he’s become something else. A friend, maybe.

After managing to guide Dario to our duplex—quite poorly, I might add, because the alcohol has overtaken my constitution and reason—we finally arrive outside. We’re here and I’m supposed to be showing him what a devil I really am, but I don’t feel like one at all.

I feel sick.

It could be my pathetic tolerance, my nerves surrounding the fact that I haven’t been intimate with anyone sincethem, or my frayed self-confidence rearing its ugly head. Whatever it is, I just don’t feel good anymore.

As much as it pains me to do so, seeing as I’ll probably never come face to face with this beauty again, I tell him the truth. “I’m sorry Da-ario, I think I need to go ri-right to sleep. Can I make it up to you?”

The sweetheart chuckles lightly, reaching over the console to press a soft kiss to my cheek. “Of course,diavolina.Let us exchange information, and we can get together when you are feeling better.”

We hand off our phones to one another, and I insert my phone number into his contact list as Diavolina with a devil emoji next to it. When he sees it, his mouth twists in a smirk before offering to walk me to the door.

But walking is hard.

My head is dizzy, images spinning and swirling before my eyes until the only thing keeping me from toppling over is Dario’s rough grip around my waist. We only make it a few steps up the porch before I hear shouting on the street.

He lets go of me to turn around and check on the noise, causing me to stumble into the wall when I lose my footing. The brick feels magical under my fingertips, each tiny bump on the rough surface prickling at the pads of my fingers when I slide my hands up and down. Aside from the lack of spatial awareness, all my other senses are heightened.

I can feel cuts forming on the face of my palms when I dig them into the jagged texture of the brick, but I welcome the stinging sensation without fear of pain.

I can smell the pine trees in the midnight air as the cold moisture sinks heavily into my lungs. Even the faint scent of chocolate reaches my nostrils from the factory a mile away.

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