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I felt her skin against mine and I buried my face against her dark hair, inhaling the flowery scent. It was as if her warmth could touch the cold-blooded killer in me. And her sweet scent could displace the coppery tang of blood which was etched on my senses.
We lay like that for a couple of minutes without talking, and then I felt her silent tears drop onto my arm.
Those tears, all soft and fragile in their fluidity, were in marked contrast to my hard, solid forearm that they fell against. I wasn’t usually a sensitive guy, but her tears tonight undid me in a way that hadn’t happened in a very long time.
“Juliana?” She didn’t answer.
I hesitated but then turned her around in my arms.
She didn’t resist my hold. Taking one look at her face, I pulled her to my chest, allowing her to sob against me and grieve.
I didn’t know if she was grieving her brother’s injuries and the death of Cornelio, whom she must have known was dead by now, or whether she was also grieving the loss of her previous life—because she knew now that there was no escape from me, not ever.
There was nothing she could have said that would have changed my actions last night. There was no way that I would let her return to her family. To the monsters who’d shot their guns around her at her wedding and could easily have killed her. The monsters who had shot her very sister.
The Società were monsters of a different kind. They didn’t care about Juliana or her sister. They would have killed them if it had meant success.
I would never put any of my family in harm’s way like that. My family’s lives were worth more to me than any amount of money, territory or power.
I might have been a monster, but I was a monster who protected his family. I would tear down the world to protect those I loved.
MARCO
When Juliana’s sobbing had quietened down, I got up and went to the bathroom to get a damp washcloth.
When I returned to the bed, I gently cleaned Juliana’s face. Her eyes were red and her lip was trembling, but she still looked beautiful. After I finished cleaning her face, I tossed the washcloth on the nightstand and I took her back into my arms, positioning her so that her head was resting against my shoulder. After a while, I looked at her. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t reply at first, as if she was thinking things over. “I have to be, don’t I?”
She remained silent after that. She didn’t want to argue about what had happened, and neither did I. “I don’t want you to be unhappy here,” I said, stroking her arm.
After a minute, Juliana tilted her face toward mine and whispered, “I wasn’t unhappy yesterday when you kissed me.”
CHAPTER 23
MARCO
I stilled.
But Juliana reached up and stroked my lips with her soft fingers before pressing her mouth gently against mine.
I hesitated for a second, not sure if I should be doing this, but then I took her head between my hands and deepened the kiss, pressing more firmly against her lips and caressing them gently with the tip of my tongue.
I pushed her back against the mattress and held myself above her on my forearms while continuing to tease her mouth. I stroked her lips with my tongue, coaxing them open finally as she sighed in pleasure.
As my tongue met hers, she put her small hands on my broad shoulders and grasped tightly.
I shifted my weight onto one arm and with the other, I ran my free hand over her camisole top, over her stomach and up over her breasts, feeling her nipples hardening against the silk and hearing her gasp as she felt my hands skim over her.
She ran her hands down my bare chest. I had to feel more of her. I dipped my head down and kissed the side of her throat, running small kisses down to her collarbone, making her arch her neck up toward me. But that still wasn’t enough for me.
I continued my kisses down to her breasts, running my tongue down and sucking the silk-covered nipple into my mouth, making her cry out loud while she held my head between her hands.
“Fuck, Juliana, what are you doing to me?” I said in a voice hoarse with need. I moved back up to look into her eyes. “You should tell me to stop now because if we go any further, I won’t be able to hold myself back,” I warned.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she said quietly. I waited, but when she didn’t change her mind, that was all I needed.
I wasn’t a good man. I shouldn’t be touching a woman in our world before our wedding day, even if she had signed a contract. But she was as tempting as a siren, and I wanted to make her mine.
