Page 44 of Tide of Treason
Fuck, I thought, stomach clenching despite myself.He’s pretty.
That one single word that had no place tumbling through my mind. The last syllable trailed into oblivion, leaving only a faint whisper of disbelief.
Black hair mussed from sleep, ink winding up his forearms, thick fingers wrapped around a tiny juice box. I watched his throat bob, the slow roll of his jaw, the flex of muscle beneath sun-warmed skin. Big. Broad. His meds sat on the table next to an ashtray, a blister pack of Xanax and Prozac, washed down with Sophia’s apple juice.
And now that I knew what he tasted like? Knew how he groaned when he came, thick and hot down my throat, how he’d grabbed my hair and fucked my mouth like he owned it?
There was no unknowing.
His eyes flicked to mine. The slow glide of those cerulean orbs, the rise of his brow, the tiny uptick of his lips. My throat threatened to close on me, so I inhaled deeply, searching for words, for some comment about him pillaging Sophia’s juice boxes, until the light caught on metal and everything else fell away.
A ring.
Notthering.
Because this one was glossy and pristine, a brand-new successor to the band I’d swallowed. My lungs knotted around the discovery, squeezing until breath rasped and the edges of my vision fizzed. I stared at that shiny circle like it had single handedly ruined my life, and managed a strangled, “That’s not the one I swallowed.”
“Good catch,” he drawled, crushing the empty juice boxin his large palm. “Thought sentimentality wasn’t your poison of choice.”
“Not even a micro-dose.”
He hummed. Indifferent on the surface, yet a banked spark glowed in that hooded stare, tinder searching for a breeze. “Then why,chica, does it bother you?”
Simple: he’d erased me, banished the ring lodged in my gut and upgraded to a new one. As if I hadn’t suffered through a mortifying doctor’s visit and an even more mortifying conversation about surgical options. I would’ve preferred a bullet. A slow one. Through the chest. I translated all that into a single icy syllable:
“Fast.”
“I don’t dwell on things that are gone,” he said, and the finality pricked at my pride.
I sucked my teeth. “Gone? We both know exactly where that ring is.”
A dry smile. “And yet here we are.”
“You must be very proud of yourself.”
A low, amused breath. “Proud’s a strong word.”
Rolling my eyes, I slipped deeper into the garden. Morning dew clung to the greenery, and the damp chill of it crept between my toes. Mamma’s sanctuary of curated nature, which was just another way of saying she let it grow wild enough to be interesting but trimmed back enough to stay under control. A metaphor, really, for the way she treated her daughters.
I stepped over a stone path lined with lavender. The lasttime I’d been out this far, it had been for a funeral. Great Uncle Sal, who had been neither great nor particularly uncle-like. He was Francesco and Elio’s papà, a man who’d once told me, with nauseating sincerity, I’d amount to nothing more than ornamental silver at the family table. In response, I’d worn white to his funeral and kissed both his sons on the cheek.
Decoration, my ass.
“Does she ever bring you out here?” I asked, the frost of my words curling through the chilled air. Lucius stayed silent behind me, an infuriatingly warm shadow at my back. His presence made my spine prickle and my stomach coil. We’d crossed a line the other day. A big one. The only thing more idiotic than what we’d done would’ve been letting him finish it, letting him fuck me. Which, for the record, my body seemed to want desperately enough to embarrass us both.
I stopped at a timeworn sundial, pressed my fingertips to the metal. “Viviana, I mean.”
“She’s your sister, Kayla.”
“And your wife,” I reminded him, voice deceptively even.
His jaw carved a harder line. “We’re not doing this.”
Adorable. He spoke as though a single declarative sentence could derail a Sforza. He turned, linen trousers soft against muscled thighs, hands slipping into pockets with lazy elegance.
The motion drew out a slow, pulsing ache in my core, one I resented for existing. Silence stretched as Lucius ambled through the garden, trailing his fingertips over whatever hepleased. A leaf here, a sprig of something there. The picture of serenity. He stopped near the rosemary bush. Tilted his head. Plucked a leaf, rolled it between his fingers, and inhaled.
He sneezed.
