Page 133 of Tide of Treason
But the truth was—I didn’t know where home was anymore. I only knew the shape of it. Six foot six and made of sin. The woodsmoke in Lucius’s skin had leached into my bloodstream, and now I could feel the cold of the Catskills biting through my coat.
He ran a rough hand down my spine. “It’s a three-hour drive, baby. You wanna go now?”
I nodded at a horizon bristling with evergreens. “You’ll keep me warm in the car?”
“I’ll keep you loud in the car.” He kissed me deep and slow. “Let me pack our shit.”
Turns out, “packing our shit” meant Lucius carried my suitcase with one fist and the rifle bag with the other, balancing both while I tried to wedge a croissant into my mouth and sip coffee without smudging my lipstick. With each step, his black combat boots ate up another few inches of frozen earth. He didn’t look particularly cold with his black button-down open, a navy jacket left unbuttoned, and signature silver watch.
I’d always been drawn to Lucius’s size. I was five-six without heels. But next to him, I felt smaller than ever, and I decided I liked the sensation of being protected and possessed. He was my own personal mountain I got to conquer night after night.
He glanced back, tongue skating across his teeth. “You’re a mess these days, Sforza.”
“You’ve seen me spread out and wet.” I licked sugar off my thumb. “Mess is an upgrade.”
A sharp exhale. “That I have.” Tilting his head back, he caught a snowflake on his tongue. “That I have.”
We slipped south through the gray morning, each mile sanded smooth by heat-blown vents and the soothing percussion of salt cracking under the tires. Ice freckles spider-webbed the windshield; leather warmed beneath my thighs. He double-tapped the wheel in salute to a lurking state trooper, and I thumbed off a quick text to Katie to delete the surveillance footage from the lodge cameras in case Vito decided to test explosives again. The boys planned on staying at the private grounds for another few days while Rafael lingered for one last cigar, because ritual trumped lung health in our circles.
By exit forty-nine, curiosity gnawed tidy crescents along my ribs. It escaped on a plume of breath I doodled across the glass.
“So,” I asked the frozen horizon, “how many women have you slept with?”
The car fossilised around us. Stallion-withers tense, jaw ticking. You’d think I’d asked for a pound of flesh instead of a pinch of ego.
“I’m pregnant, darling. Modesty’s already out of the sunroof.”
Nothing. The man had become a monument to stone-faced masculinity, and for once, I was the only one dancing. Ilowered the blade a fraction.
“You don’t know?”
“I do.” Knuckles blanched on the wheel. “Just not sure I want to say it out loud.”
“Dios mío. Did you kill them all afterward?”
“No.” A beat. “They weren’t . . . important. Only two.”
I’d asked.
I didn’t get to react.
Though I was irrationally annoyed he hadn’t killed any of them, which probably said more about me than I wanted to admit. I glanced at Lucius. How quiet he’d gotten. How that usual acidic charm had leaked out and left behind a silence that felt . . . embarrassed. Guilt inflated in my chest, and suddenly, all I could see was a little boy standing in a blood-soaked room with men twice his size holding him by the scruff. His first memory of sex was probably being forced to watch it happen to the woman who birthed him.
Oh God.
Of course.
Of course his number was low.
“Two isn’t a lot,” I said finally, my voice thinner than I liked. “Especially for someone who looks like you.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Didn’t have time.”
“Didn’t have desire, you mean.”
He tapped the brakes to glide behind a semi. “Same thing.”
I shouldn’t have asked. The flick of curiosity hadn’t felt loaded at the time, merely a verbal toe dipped into warm water,but now the pool was frozen, the silence sharp and chlorinated.
