Page 16 of Desire and Revenge

I step past the glass doors and my gaze flies around the room, searching for a large, familiar figure. The smile on my face immediately withers and dies.

He’s not here.

What did I expect? He must have better things to do with his time than wait around for me. Or maybe he’s asleep, or tangled up in bed with a woman who doesn’t just close her eyes and lay motionless.

I need to be in my own bed too.

I turn around to leave and then freeze in my tracks.

“Nero,” I whisper.

CHAPTER 5

Nero

“You’re not barefoot tonight. Impressive,” I drawl.

Her face turns a bright red, and I wonder how far the color goes. All the way to her chest? Further down? She has on a cotton nightdress with a high collar and ruffles. It looks like something straight from the eighteen hundreds, and she’s drowning inside the fabric, but instead of repelling me, it only makes me want to peel the dress away and drink in the sight of her.

“Believe it or not, I don’t make it a habit of running around barefoot.”

I step further into the room, sealing my fate. “How about running around in the dead of night? Is that a habit?”

“Maybe,” a small smile teases her mouth. “And you? Is it a habit or are you patrolling the grounds to keep us safe?”

“You’re in an impenetrable house. It’s as safe for you as it gets.”

“And yet you’re here,” she says, raising a brow. “You got into the impenetrable house, so perhaps it’s not as safe as advertised.”

I bite back my smile at her jab. “I was invited.”

“What is that saying about letting the fox into the henhouse?” She turns away and moves towards a row of potted roses, and I follow after her, too caught in her spell to do anything else.

I watch her slim fingers brush over the petals of the plants and imagine that she’s running her fingers over my cock in the same way.Shit.

“Hm,” I murmur, too fixated to come up with a clever response.

“Do you like roses?” she asks. “Or, let me guess, big, bad, macho men shouldn’t have favorite flowers?”

“What’s yours?” I ask instead.

“I don’t know,” she ducks her head, “but my favorite color is blue, so something in that color.”

“Sergio has been keeping this greenhouse since we were boys,” I reveal. “He never used to leave the doors open. I only ever stepped foot in here once. He’s very protective of what he does here.”

“Does he still—” she trails off.

“He’s too old now. A bit senile, but he still lives in the compound.”

“What does he do with the flowers?” Sofia’s eyes are wide and curious, “There has to be hundreds of them, and they can’t possibly live for so long, even inside here.”

I shrug and those luminous green eyes narrow at me.

“I like to imagine that he sends them to a woman he loves. Imagine how sweet it would be to receive flowers from a man knowing that he grew them himself.”

I cock my head and watch the dreamy look on her face. How ridiculous. What is she doing here, in this blood-stained world?She’s going to get her fantastical heart shredded. “Flowers are insensible presents.”

The space between her forehead wrinkles into a ‘V’ and her bottom lip pokes out. “What do you think is a sensible present, then? A switchblade and a Glock?”

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