Page 222 of Legacy
Scarlet
The ride back to the loft is silent.
Not cold. Not angry.
Just…contained.
Like something pressing under glass, waiting for the crack.
The engine ticks softly as it cools. Angelo doesn’t say a word, just gets out, comes around, opens my door like he’s done it a thousand times. His hand finds the small of my back, warm and steady, guiding me inside.
No conversation. No eye contact.
The quiet feels heavy, like the hush before a storm.
The door closes behind us with a soft, definitive click.
I turn, ready to say something, anything to shatter the silence.
But he’s already pulling his shirt off.
Not dramatically. Not with heat.
Just calm, sure fingers tugging it over his head, the fabric sliding over the hard lines of his shoulders. He holds it out to me, the cotton still warm, smelling faintly of him—spice, smoke, something darker I can’t name.
“Put this on,” he says.
I blink, thrown. “What?”
“Take off your clothes.” His voice is quiet, even. Unbothered, like he’s asking me to pass the salt. He turns, walking up the stairs like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world. “Put that on.”
I stare at his back, at the tattoos inked into his skin, shifting over muscle as he moves. My fingers tighten around the fabric, soft and lived-in, like the echo of him.
I want to tell him no. That he can’t just order me around like we’re in some fever dream.
That I won’t just fall in line because he tells me to.
But I don’t.
Instead, I toe off my shoes and peel my shirt off slowly, the cotton whispering over my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. I stand there for a beat, bare, the air cool against my stomach, waiting to see if he’ll turn around and look.
He doesn’t, just turns toward the kitchen at the top of the stairs.
I pull his shirt over my head. It swallows me, the hem brushing against my thighs, the neckline wide enough to slip off one shoulder. It smells like him, feels like him, and I hate how it makes me feel, soft, shaky, his.
Then I follow.
I find him barefoot, standing at the stove. The only sounds in the room are his busy work.
A pot filling with water.
The sharp click of the stove igniting.
Cabinets opening, closing.
He’s cooking. Calm. Collected.
Like telling me to strip was nothing.
