“I know.”
“I love you, Isabella.” The words getting easier now. Like a muscle remembering how to work. “And I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“I know that too.”
She kisses me. Soft. Careful. Like I’m something that might break. I kiss her back, and I taste smoke and salt and her.
But when I pull away, I see the soot streaked across her cheeks. The grime in her hair. The exhaustion carved into every line of her. And my hands. Still covered in Stefano’s blood.
“Shower,” I say. “We need to.”
“I know.” She takes my hand. The bloody one. Holds it steady. “Together.”
The bathroom fills with steam. I adjust the water until it’s hot enough to burn, then ease her under the spray. She tips her head back and lets it soak her hair, and I watch the water run gray as it carries the soot away. Down her shoulders. Over her breasts. Pooling at her feet before swirling down the drain.
She’s stunning like this. Stripped bare.
I reach for the soap. Work it into a lather between my palms.
“Turn around.”
She does. Presents me with the curve of her back, the knobs of her spine, the bruises blooming across her ribs where they must have grabbed her. Handled her. Hurt her. My throat tightens. But I keep my touch careful as I smooth the soap over her skin. Her shoulders. The wings of her shoulder blades. Lower, to the small of her back where the muscles are knotted with tension.
She sighs. Leans into my touch.
She turns to face me. Takes the soap from me.
“Your turn.”
But she’s already lifting my hands. Holding them under the water. Watching the blood run pink, then clear.
“Does it hurt?” The knuckles. Split and raw.
“No.” A lie. She knows it’s a lie. But she doesn’t call me on it. Just soaps her hands and runs them over mine, careful around the wounds, cleaning away what I did. What I had to do.
When my hands are clean, she moves to my chest. My shoulders. The ink. The scars underneath. Her palms slide over me, slick with soap, and I have to close my eyes. She’s touched me before. But not like this. Not after being gutted, all of it emptied out, nothing left to hide behind.
“Lorenzo.”
I open my eyes. She’s looking up at me, water streaming down her body, hair plastered to her skull.
“I see you,” she says. “All of you. The blood and the violence and the emptiness. I see it. And I’m still here.”
My hands tighten on her hips. A sound drags out of my throat, low and animal, and I don’t try to stop it. I pull her against me. Her wet body sliding against mine. Her arms looping around my neck.
And I kiss her like she’s the only thing keeping me alive.
We stay in the shower until the water runs cold. By the time we stumble out, we’re both shivering. I wrap her in a towel, then myself. She sits on the edge of the bed while I find the first aid kit. I kneel in front of her to clean the scrapes on her knees, the raw skin on her wrists where the zip-ties cut in.
“I’m fine,” she says.
“You’re not.”
“I am. Because of you.”
I look up at her. She’s clean now. Pale. Exhausted. Steady. Certain.
She reaches down. Cups my face. Her thumb traces the line of my cheekbone.
