Page 116 of The Silence Lies

Sera doesn’t answer him. She’s too pissed off to give anyone a rational answer now and I don’t blame her. We all need a time out to calm down, get our shit together, and figure out our next steps.

Obviously, whoever came for her tonight isn’t the Vultures, unless we’ve been seriously betrayed. Though, I didn’t peg the gang for bartering loyalty only to throw it back in our faces. They wanted something dear to them, something that could have caused us serious harm in obtaining, and we delivered. At this point, they’d be stupid to fall back in with the Verdis.

The door slams behind us, signaling Luca’s departure. Sera flinches, but she doesn’t say another word. So I guess it’s up to me to fix it this time.

Luca

“Fontana!”

I march across the courtyard so hard and fast that my heels hurt in these damn dress shoes. Whoever said ‘fashion is pain’ wasn’t lying.

“Fontana!” Levi calls after me again.

“Fuck off, Marchese!”

“Hey!”

I’m suddenly tugged backward by my jacket, spun around and pinned to the SUV.

“You don’t get to take it out on me, got it?” There’s a level of pain in his eyes that I can’t quite discern what put it there.

“You don’t get it!”

“Oh I get it! We all fucking get it. We don’t need a reminder that it could have been Sera in Gio’s place, but it’s not. So stop harping on about that shit because she needs us right now, not your fucking questions.”

I grip his jacket, effectively slamming him against me. “I have to know! I have to know what the fuck she was thinking because it doesn’t make sense. If she had stayed inside, with us…”

“I know! Fuck! But we can’t think about that right now.”

“Then what?”

“You can be such a fucking idiot sometimes,” he grinds out.

I’m trying to keep all my composure at the insult thrown at me, but between my heart thundering against my chest and Levi’s closeness, it’s getting fucking hard.

“Don’t you get it?” Levi shouts at me, his hot breath hitting my face.

No, I don’t get it. I don’t understand why the hell she would leave the party without telling us, risking her own fucking life over some stupid disagreement with her father.

“She’s repeating the same fucking day!” Levi’s grip on my shirt tightens. We’re just a breath away from one another, our anger fueling the proximity. “She can’t lose him!”

“I can’t lose her!” I scream.

My lungs fight for breath, fight for a calmness I’ll never get, yet I start to feel the storm wither away when I look into Levi’s eyes. They’re brimming with heat, and I’m not sure how we even got here.

Our eyes lock for a moment, an uneasy sensation washing over me. He’s so close that I can see the faint scar above his brow. How am I just noticing that?

Before I have time to figure out what is happening, our mouths slam together.

I don’t know who starts it, I’m not even sure either of us are to blame. But the fire in my gut tells me this feels right. And the fact Levi doesn’t push me away tells me he’s feeling the same.

My heart pounds to a new rhythm, one I’ve never experienced before. My body perks up to a new tune, one that calls to me. It’s like my body has been playing one song on repeat, and now that I’ve dared to play a different song, I’m enjoying it just as much.

Levi cups my face between his palms, deepening the kiss until our breaths mingle and the anger dissipates. He cages me in so tightly that it actually feels safe, it actually feels like all my problems have diminished, leaving nothing but dust in its wake.

I press my lips more greedily against his, and Levi complies, pushing his hard body against mine. And I mean hard. I can feel every ridge of his chest, abs and cock press against me as our tongues move, sliding seamlessly against one another. It’s almost as if we’ve been doing this dance for years. It feels natural, superlatively perfect. It shouldn’t, right? We shouldn’t be doing this. We like Sera, not each other.

No matter what my head is telling me, though, I can’t seem to pull away. I want the opposite. I want more of Marchese.

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