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“Sometimes I forget you lost someone too,” she whispers. “How did you survive losing your wife?”

My breath stutters at her question, mainly the way she asks it. I’ve just made a whole fucking thing about saying I wouldn’t lie to her. And… I won’t. So I can’t even hide behind the rumors about me killing my ex-wife.

Yes, I’m aware of those. Hell, I was the one who started them with Gio’s help. It’s never once bothered me what people might or might not think. Until now.

Fuck!

I’ve had a hundred opportunities to tell her the truth. And I will, but not tonight.

“Go to sleep, baby,” I murmur, tightening my arm around her.

She’s quiet for a moment, and I wait for her to push, but she never does.

I hold her and don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t do anything except breathe with her, in and out, my chest rising and falling against her back in a rhythm so slow it could be measured in heartbeats.

Her breathing changes. Slows. Deepens. The hand around mine goes slack, fingers loosening until they’re just resting against my skin. Her body grows heavier against my chest, the particular heaviness of someone sliding into sleep, all resistance gone.

“I love you,” I whisper.

When I first said it at NovaGen’s headquarters earlier on, I didn’t even notice. It wasn’t until I was driving back to my wife that I realized not just what I’d said, but the rightness of it. I love Kira—I’m in love with her.

I say it again anyway. Just to hear it. Just to feel the shape of it in my mouth. She mumbles something incoherent and tightens her hand around my bandaged knuckles like she’s holding on to something she’s afraid to lose.

26

Kira

The second I wake up, I know what day it is. The knowledge lands like a stone in my stomach, heavy and cold.

Mom’s funeral.

The date has been circling in my head for the past couple of days, and now it’s here, sitting on my chest in the gray pre-dawn light, refusing to let me breathe.

Behind me, Domenico is warm. Solid. His arm is heavy across my waist, his chest pressed against my back, and his cock is hard between my ass cheeks, nestled there like it belongs. I can feel every inch of him, thick, veiny, and hot against my skin.

The contrast between his heat and the cold dread in my stomach is so sharp it makes my breath catch.

My nipples are already hard. My pussy is wet, and I didn’t decide for either of those things to happen. My body woke up wanting something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet, or maybe it has and just doesn’t want to admit it.

Because what I want, more than anything in this particular moment, is to not think. To feel something that isn’t grief. To push the stone off my chest and replace it with his hands, his mouth, his cock—anything that burns hot enough to scorch the hollow feeling out of me.

It’s better when he’s around, everything is. That’s why I called him when he was, well, busy wreaking havoc on NovaGen. But apart from letting him hold me, or an occasional kiss, I haven’t let him touch me—let alone initiated anything.

I honestly don’t know why. It’s like my mind’s been at war. A part of me wants all of him, that’s the part that called him. Then the other part is… I don’t know. Not just numb. No, it’s numbness mixed with fear.

I always expected Domenico to hurt me, and yes, feared he’d kill me. That’s not how things have turned out, though. I’m the one who has brought all this to him. It’s my dad who’s behind every messed-up thing. Not Domenico. Which should be a good thing, so I’m not sure why my mind’s been struggling so much with it.

Or maybe that’s not even what the problem is. My head’s so messy I barely know which way is up. Sometimes it feels like how movies show it when someone’s dragged underwater. When they get so spun around they think they’re working their way toward the surface, but it’s the bottom instead.

No, this is exactly what I don’t want. My brain tricked me into thinking when it’s the absolute last thing I want to do.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I push my ass back against Domenico. That’s all it takes for the friction to send a jolt through me that makes my thighs clench. I moan, and the sound hangs in the quiet bedroom like something I shouldn’t have let out.

Domenico groans against the back of my neck. His hips shift, answering on instinct, still mostly asleep. His cock drags between my ass cheeks, and my pussy pulses so hard I can feel it between my legs, slick and needy.

“Daddy,” I whisper, and I don’t know why that’s the word that comes out, except that it’s the one that makes him move.

His arm tightens around my waist. His hips roll forward, harder this time, deliberate even through sleep. “Mmm, Kira.” My name in his mouth is rough, half-asleep, and the sound of it goes straight between my legs.