Page 50 of Merciless Sinner

“Good day with Amelia?”

“Yeah.” I push the book aside. “It was good to reconnect with her.”

“Sounded like you two had a good time.”

“We did.”

His lips quiver into a smile, but it doesn’t quite make it. I’ve realized that he has three types of smiles—the passable pleasant smile like the one he nearly gave me, the sarcastic, mocking smirk, and the one he uses to put the fear of God in you.

He doesn’t seem capable of smiling just because he’s happy, or the way a normal person would when they’re trying to be sociable.

“She said she’d be around next week and go to the doctors with me, if that’s okay.”

“Of course, it is.” His gaze flicks down to the book, and something warm sparks in his eyes. “Interesting book?”

“Yes. I was actually surprised to find a book like this in your library. Eden gave it to me.”

“Because it’s yours.”

My breath recoils in my lungs, stalling then stopping. I look from the book to him, and a hollowness steals the euphoria I felt moments ago when I was fascinated by what I thought I was seeing for the first time. Except I wasn’t.

The book is mine.

It makes sense, but it makes me feel disturbed again in the most irrational way because it was hers—the other Olivia’s. The Harvard graduate who everyone loved, including this beautiful tattooed Bratva man.

“You kept it?”

“Yes, amongst others.”

“Do you know where I bought it?” I watch him as he starts undoing the buttons on his shirt.

A lump rises in my throat when the soft cotton of his shirt opens, and I catch sight of his tanned chest, revealing more tattoos and muscles.

“You were on a trip with me to Florence.”

“We went to Florence?” A flicker of unabashed interest ignites in me.

“For your eighteenth birthday.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It was.”

“What did we do?”

“When we weren’t sightseeing, I spent every moment inside you. It was where I first had you.”

A rush of warmth covers my heart as I get the answer to the question I had days ago.

He waited. Waited for me to turn eighteen before we were together.

Virgo seems to read my mind but continues observing me.

“Oh.” I break our stare by glancing at the book.

When I look at him again, he takes off his shirt, and I get a good look of his masterpiece body.

Muscles upon muscles line his abs in chiseled peaks and planes as if he were sculpted from stone. I’ve never seen so many muscles on a man in real life.

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