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Here we were joined, absolutely. Moving as one.
She slid her hand up my arm to my biceps, tracing the years of scars mixed with ink. Reverence lined her face as her fingers learned me. Then she cupped my cheek and fused our mouths so that her breath became mine, and mine became hers.
When she cried out and convulsed around me, my control snapped. My hips barreled forward one last time and I finally emptied inside her, wishing with every fiber that it was truly inside her, no barriers. Nothing keeping us apart. I wanted her full of my come, and to watch it spilling out of her.
I wanted every experience with her, and to know they would have no end.
Instead of collapsing on top of her, I rolled to my back. After I took care of the condom, I drew her on top of me. She sprawled on my chest, still breathing hard, smelling of my shower gel and dirty sex. The best smell in the world.
“I can’t quit you,” she mumbled against my throat. “No matter how scared I am, or how much I know I’m going to get hurt…or even that you’re going to get hurt, and that will be the most painful thing of all. I …just can’t stop.”
Eyes closed, I stroked her hair and hoped the erratic beat of my heart would lull her to sleep as it usually did. She rarely stayed the night because her sister worried, but she claimed to sleep easier with me. She always wanted to put her head on my chest to hear my heart. To know I was breathing beside her. If doing that kept away the bad dreams that still resurfaced from that night in the back room, I was happy to be her pillow.
I would do anything for her, anything at all. Except one thing. The most important one.
I would not back away from the Andrettis. No matter what.
“You know about my sister now,” she said sleepily, curling her hand into my side. She touched me constantly, especially after sex. Separating when our bodies were still hot and damp from each other—not going to happen.
Separating from her ever was going to be hard enough.
“I know the basic story, yes. But I don’t know how it affected you.” I brushed her hair away from her cheek. “You were what, eleven?”
“Yes. Eleven and a total tomboy. Ame—Mia,” she corrected, “was the girly girl back then. She was a cheerleader. Can you imagine?”
“No. I really can’t.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. I’d never heard a mournful one before, but hers was. “He nabbed her coming home from school one day. She was in her cheerleading uniform. They found one of her pom poms where she disappeared, but nothing else. Not a trace. It was as if she vanished into thin air.”
“Your only sibling,” I murmured.
“Yes. I adored her. After my mom died, she took over. I looked up to her in every way. Then she was just…gone.”
Though it wasn’t the same at all—Dante hadn’t been kidnapped—I related so much to what she’d gone through. Losing my mother young and having to get used to his absence in my life when he’d chosen a path that took him away from me. Our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, but we had those points of connection. Of intersection.
“Three months.” I rubbed her back, trying to help her through the story. Hoping it would ease some of the burden she carried to tell it. “How did she get free?”
“She killed him.”
I said nothing. What could I say? Except Mia and I had more in common—or would have soon—than I’d ever guessed.
Both responsible for ending a life.
“He went out one day, and she managed to get out a window. Broke the glass. When he came back, she cut his throat.” Carly burrowed into me, though I doubted she even realized she was doing it. Her skin had gone from hot to covered in goosebumps in moments. “She came back to us, and I was so happy. But I was so stupid. I didn’t understand she wouldn’t be the same. That she couldn’t be. He’d broken her, and yeah, she’d put herself back together again…but the pieces didn’t fit the same way anymore.” She let out a shaky breath. “Then my daddy died. Seeing his little girl like that, knowing what had been done to her, and after he’d lost his wife… His heart just gave out.”
“Oh, God, tesoro. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I wrapped my arms around her, trying to transfer as much of my body heat as possible. We’d been warm a few moments ago, but the cooldown happened quickly, especially this late in October. I kept the temperature in the apartment on low, because I was rarely home and never got cold anyway. I’d have to be more careful now, because—
Because nothing. She wasn’t mine, and she wouldn’t be around much longer.
Just like you’re not planning on being around much longer, right?
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” She pressed her face into the crook of my neck and curled around me that much tighter. “But I lost them all so close together. My mama, my sister, my daddy. All the years since, I’ve been waiting for more tragedy. And I guess I went looking for it.” She lifted her head and studied me with cool, clear eyes. “I told myself all I cared about was the money and the attention from men. I’d been so overprotected for so long. God, Mia didn’t let me out of her sight for years.”
“Understandable.”
“Yes. It was. But I felt overlooked, overshadowed…ignored. My only use was to be protected. I wanted to make a move for myself. Even if it was the wrong move.” She let out a pained laugh. “So fucking wrong. How did I end up shaking my tits for strangers, Gio?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
