Page 51 of My Dark Ever After
There were tears in her voice, roughened by pleasure, waterlogged with confusion and remembered sorrow.
“Guinevere,” I murmured back before pressing a kiss to her breastbone, running my thumb over the faint scar from her kidney transplant curving over her lower abdomen. “Cacciatrice mia.”
“Not yet,” she whispered so low, I thought she was speaking to herself. “But maybe one day.”
Chapter Twelve
Guinevere
We returned in time for dinner, but there was no way to get back to the house to tidy up without being seen, so we did our best to make each other presentable. It must not have worked well, because there were a few low whistles and Italian catcalls when we emerged from the shadowy vines into the lights of the terrace, where five long tables had been placed end to end and filled with most of the community members who had helped out that day.
Raffa quelled the calls with one superior look, and placed a comforting hand on my low back to lead me to one end of the table, where the head chair remained empty, along with one to its left. Martina winked at me as I took the seat beside her, and Renzo gave me an assessing stare from where he sat across from me on Raffa’s right. Carmine, next to him, waggled his brows.
“You have a grape stain,” Ludo said in his monotone, face utterly expressionless as he motioned to his own chest. “Just there.”
I peered down at my white dress and noticed the vague mottled pink handprint over my dress. As we were getting dressed, Raffa had collected a handful of grapes and crushed them in his palm, then made me laugh as he lifted his fist to let me drink the juice dripping down.After, he had tugged me into a searing kiss that had left me with even fewer working brain cells than I had after two spectacular orgasms.
So I hadn’t really noted the way he’d used that grape-stained hand to fondle me through the fabric.
I cut a look toward the head of the Romano clan, who only smiled mildly at me as he reached for the glass of wine already set out for him and lifted it into the air.
“Attenzione, amici miei.” Raffa’s voice carried easily over the cacophony of diners dispersed over the extra-long table, and people immediately quieted. “Thank you for being here with us today on the first day of the harvest. My family has worked this land and produced Tuscan wine for generations. Even in our darkest days, the vines have brought us solace.” His gaze dropped to mine, a slight tip to the edge of his firm mouth the only nod to what had just happened between us among those very vines. “There is nothing more important to me in this life than protecting and nurturing my family. Every single one of you is a part of the fabric of this family, and this family is the reason I am here today. Thank you for everything.
“Salute,” he called out, raising a chorus of the same as everyone lifted their wineglasses at the toast and then sipped from their Tenuta Romano wine.
Only, when I lifted the glass to my lips, it was sparkling grape juice instead of wine.
Something in my chest overinflated, making it ache.
Of course Raffa would remember I couldn’t really drink. Of course he would have taken the time to make Angela and the other organizers aware so that I wouldn’t have to sit awkwardly without a drink or stick to water when there was cause for celebration.
Raffa had told me from the beginning that he wasn’t the kind of man to play the hero, but his actions were almost always contrary to his words. He’d taken care of me since the beginning, and even when I’d run from him, he’d seen a way to take care of me all the way in Michigan.
Coaxing him away from the group this evening hadn’t been a well-thought-out plan. I hadn’t even consciously decided to lure him away to seduce him. When I’d watched him chatting with his sisters, interacting with his community, and laughing with his mother, something seismic had occurred in my chest. A tectonic shifting of morals and values I had clung to for years.
It wasn’t that I suddenly understood why Raffa lived life the way he did as the head of a criminal syndicate or that I was instantly okay with the myriads of decisions he’d made to get there and stay there. It still disturbed me to think of the bodies that lay littered throughout his past, the blood that had seeped beneath the skin of his hands to stain even his bones red.
It was that I realized something fundamental about myself in relation to him.
I was willing to bury my morals alive in a deep grave for just one more kiss.
Eager to cut out the tongue of my conscience to hear him call me hiscerbiattaorstella cadentejust one more time.
Happy to blind myself to his flaws and failings completely if it meant feeling those calloused, wide-palmed hands on me just once more before I died.
This was my ugly truth. The one I’d been trying to hide from since the realization of who Raffa was the night after the San Lorenzo party.
I was willing to lower myself to the dark depths of his underworld if it meant I could keep the flame of this brilliant love alive inside my chest.
It was chilling, really, to acknowledge that about myself after a lifetime of being told to follow the rules, be a good girl, watch what I said and how I acted so no one would judge.
But it was also frighteningly freeing.
And empowering.
Walking through the vines and feeling the predatory eyes of Raffa stalking my every step had encouraged me to embrace the sizzle of wicked fantasy burning the edges of my brain. I’d started runningwithout thinking it through, my blood rushing loudly in my ears but not loud enough to cancel out the thud of his footsteps gaining ground behind me.
Being hunted like that was strangely erotic. Knowing he wanted to catch me because I was a cherished prize, that when he did he would undress me, devour me, give me what the French called the “little death.”
