Carmine looks up at me in a grateful shock. “Sienna, why did you do that?”
I ignore his question and pick up one of the books that fell when Carmine had Eric pinned against the bookcase earlier.
Carmine meets me at the bookcase. “Sienna, why did you do that?” he asks. “I could have handled her.”
I grab his face in my palm, and on my tiptoes, I rest my mouth inches from his.
“Oh please. An unarmed person against an armed one, you do the math. There is a higher probability of the Jets winning the Super Bowl,” I tease him before resting my lips on his.
His tongue swirls in my open mouth as he twists me against the bookcase. Traveling his lips to my ear, he whispers, “I would never let anything happen that would take me away from you again, you know that.”
I pull away from him, locking my eyes onto his. “I know, but you know what?” I ask as he nods for me to continue. “The best thing you could have ever done to me was shatter my world, because it was then I realized I could survive broken. I just can’t live without you.”
He smiles. “You never have to again.”
“Good.” I look at Carmine to quote the most appropriate Poe work I can think of, as I place the book back on the shelf. “In the words of Poe himself—‘I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.’”
“So, have I touched your heart, Sen?”
“You own it,” I remind him.
Chapter51
Carmine
I glance down at the pool of crimson that has begun to seep into the grooves of the weathered wood floor.
Without me having to say a word to direct her, she begins to roll the drenched rug away so we can begin the clean-up process.
As she finishes rolling the rug up and stares at Lizzie’s and Eric’s lifeless bodies, she suddenly slams her palm to her forehead. “Shit,” she exclaims.
I go to comfort her. “I know this is a lot to absorb.” I motion to the blood that surrounds us. It’s a reminder of how I will kill anything and anyone that stands between her and me.
I’ve done it before, and I will continue to do it. Eliminating anyone that dares threaten us again and judging from howmi reinaswept in on today’s action, I think it’s safe to say she feels the same.
She shakes her head. “No, no, it’s not that. Although, yes, this is a fucking mess we have found ourselves in,” she agrees. “It’s that I forgot I was supposed to meet Vanessa for drinks today,” she says as she heads for her purse to grab her phone.
“What time?” I ask as she retrieves her phone from her bag.
“In a little over an hour, shit,” she says, suddenly looking nervous.
“We just have to hurry and move them to the warehouse, then I will take over,” I say, trying to reassure her.
“Ah, God, that creepy-ass warehouse …”
“Yes, that warehouse. The same one I fucked you in by the last tarp I blooded. Oh,mi reina, don’t act like you are above the depravity.”
“I never said I was. It’s just that when I am with you, it’s like I have this darkness that comes to the surface,” she confesses, making her even more exquisite to me.
“Does it scare you?” I press, curious as to how admitting that darkness exists within her makes her feel.
“No, because when I am with you, I feel like myself. Like everything I was told is wrong isn’t, because out of all the people in my life that supposedly care or love me, you have been the only person who I feel like I can be myself around.”
“Then it’s not darkness,mi reina, it’s your truth, our truth.”
“You’re right, fuck ‘em,” she says as a wave of relief takes hold of her.
“Fuck ‘em.”
