Page 42 of Cruel Existence

I grinned when our pulses began to steady and my legs stopped shaking. I slowly unwrapped the grip I had around his waist. My fingers curled against the hard indentations on his shoulders. I loved every inch of him. The scars. The bruises. The tattoos. I kissed his sweaty brow.

“That was amazing. Luka, it was…”

He extracted himself from my body. Cold air rushed between us. He stood tall, wiping the front of his chest and waist with the sheet that had fallen to the floor. There had been no modesty and no need for covers today.

“You should go,” he whispered. He wouldn’t look at me.

“What? I don’t have to. You don’t have anything to worry about. Ciro wouldn’t dare to come up here. I think he has an idea of what we’re doing.” I tried to reach for him to pull him back to the bed.

“Yes, you do,” he corrected me. “It’s time for you to leave.”

He walked to the other room and returned with my clothes. He had picked up the bottle of gin and took a drink from the mouth of the bottle I watched him, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.

“I’ll stay. We can order dinner.” I peeled myself off the bed carefully, reaching for the clothes he had absently tossed next to me. I tucked my breasts inside my dress. They still felt raw and warm from his teeth. I felt the warmth of his essence between my thighs. I didn’t see my underwear in the pile. It must still be under the piano.

“Maybe we should take a shower?” I suggested. I wanted to stand under the water and wash his glorious body from head to toe. I had questions too. About the scars. About all of him. Maybe not so much about how he knew how to fuck like a sex god.

“I can’t. I can’t do this. With you.” His eyes cut to me, and I didn’t understand. I’d felt the sting of rejection before, but not like this. Not after a moment like we just had. We werenotdone. We had only started being us.

“Us, are you talking about us?” I pressed, trying to hold down the nausea in my stomach.

“There is no us, Amara,” he snapped. “You are not listening.”

I recoiled. He spoke to me like I was a bratty teenager. “Luka, just tell me what happened…I know something happened with my father.”

“No,” he barked. “You have to go.” He took another swig of gin.

“How drunk are you?”

“Not drunk enough. We will not see each other again. Go.”

I scrambled to my feet, throwing clothes on. I tried to straighten my dress in place while biting the inside of my cheek. I didn’t want him to see a tear. He wouldn’t. I didn’t get fucked and then cry about it.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why even…” I couldn’t say the words. I took a step toward the skinny French doors. They reached the tops of the twelve-foot ceiling. Luca’s hand clasped around my wrist, stopping me from leaving.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. It had to be done.” He said it as if he was stating the terms of an arms negotiation. “Remember what I said,” he pressed the words into my memory. “If you try to come back I will tell Ciro to keep you away.”

I closed my eyes. “What was your plan with this? Taking me to bed? Why?”

“To make sure you never come back.” He released my arm and stumbled toward the piano. I watched in disbelief as he finished off the bottle and smashed it against the farthest wall. He started to play. It was haunting. As haunting as the demons I had seen in his eyes.

I didn’t look for my green satin underwear. I ran out of the room and down the stairs. The door opened into the sunlight. Ciro and Joey both waited outside the car.

“We’re headed home.” I ducked into the backseat. I refused to look up at the window as we drove away.

All I knew was that Luka had accomplished his plan. I would never come back.

Eighteen

Luka

It was almost a week before I presented my father with the letter from Lorenzo Amato. I knew time was running out before he told Amara about the offer. I’d spent the week drunk. I’d spent it playing long ballads on my piano. I’d spent it sleeping off one hangover just to get to the next. I’d canceled meetings. Neglected work.

The letter wasn’t the worst part. I needed a week to give into the fucking darkness before the war began. I had to make sure she didn’t come back. I had to make sure she didn’t show up on my doorstep or call me at 3 am.

Because if she did, I would have crumbled. One look in her beautiful green eyes and I would have been on my knees, confessing all the fucked up things I did to save her.

My father didn’t give a fuck about that though. And neither did anyone else in the Novikov organization. War was on the horizon.

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