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Jesus.
No.
My mind absolutely could not be going to things like sex with a relative stranger while my sister was missing, while who knew what was happening to her.
"Romina," Luca called, voice a little firm, making me wonder if he had called me more than once. "Are you alright? You're pale," he added when I stared blankly at him.
"I, um," I started, hearing my voice crack, feeling my eyes sting, closing my lids tight to try to keep the tears at bay. "This is just a lot," I admitted, feeling my lips tremble, not knowing how much longer I could keep it together.
"It is," Luca agreed, voice soft. And wasn't it such a strange thing for a hard man to be capable of being soft? "But you don't have to carry it all by yourself anymore," he told me, sounding closer, sounding like he was right in front of me, in fact.
My eyes slid open, finding his gaze on me, and up close, those thick lashes of his were oddly mesmerizing.
That, or I was getting delirious from lack of sleep.
"You can give me some of the weight, Romy. I can handle it," he assured me, hand reaching up, and for a horrifying second I was worried a tear had slipped out without me noticing, but his thumb and forefinger went to my chin again, pulling it up a bit. "We've got this," he assured me with enough conviction that I found myself believing him. "Say it," he demanded.
"We've got this," I agreed.
"Yes, we do," he said, dropping his hand, looking down at it like he wasn't sure where it came from, why it was attached to his body. Or, more likely, why he'd touched me with it. "I have a change of clothes in the closet if you want to take a shower," he told me, making everything else fall away, making me wonder why he would feel the need to say that right that moment.
Did I smell or something?
I had been running back at the docks, ending up soaked through with sweat. And left in a basement with no way to get a little whore's bath to clean up.
"I, ah, I don't know if I can pull off a suit."
"What?" he asked, brows pinching, lost.
"You seem partial to suits," I explain, making his lips twitch, catching on.
"You can make the shirt work for you. Until Michael comes back with more supplies."
That irrational part of me that wanted him to kiss me also found itself inexplicably excited about the prospect of wearing his shirt.
Food and sleep.
Clearly, I needed some food and sleep.
That had to be what was wrong with me.
But until I could have those things, I opted for the shower on the off-chance that I actually did smell.
The supplies were understandably sparse and masculine. I was handed a boxed bar of soap that smelled like, well, soap. No lavender vanilla honey peonies scent. Just soap. And, of course, it left my skin feeling clean to the point that it was squeaky which also meant it was as dry as possible. And there was no lotion to be found anywhere.
But I forgot all about my dry skin when I unbuttoned the fancy white dress shirt I'd been handed, and slid my body inside, feeling it move over my skin like butter, soft, silky, luxurious.
I did up the buttons, finger combed my hair, and reached for the doorknob, realizing just how naked I really was. In a plain white dress shirt that, while it was good material, that did not make it any less white, and therefore slightly see-through, my wet hair dropping drips of water onto the fabric, making it even more transparent.
And then there was the fact that I didn't have pants on.
Or panties.
And would be walking around wearing this around a bunch of men I barely knew.
That thought should have filled me with discomfort.
But there was actually a heaviness in my lower stomach, something I wanted to call anything other than what I knew it was.
