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“What’s that?”
“How do I know just how good Caius is with his tongue?” She watches me closely as she grins like the fucking predator she is. She slides one hand over the peaked nipple beneath her blouse and down her stomach to the waistband of her jeans. “I’ll tell you something else too. He’s even better with his cock.”
7
MADELENA
The next few days pass quietly. I spend a lot of the time sleeping. I don’t know if it’s because that night at the lighthouse took its toll or because of the bump on my head—or it could be the fact that Caius and his mother are around packing, and I’d just rather avoid both of them. Santos is apparently moving them out of the house and to the apartment at Augustine’s, and he and I will be living here.
I admit, I like the idea of not being near the lighthouse. Just like when he’d sent me away to college, it’s a relief to me. Moreover, I like this house. I remember it from when I was little. It had belonged to the Valerian family years ago but had fallen into disrepair when they lost their money and eventually the last of them disappeared. There was no shortage of rumors about what happened to them, either.
As far as the house, there were always stories that at least one of the disappeared members of the family had been murdered in it and still haunted the place. It’s an old, gothic style behemoth and something I’ve always found beautiful even as it fell into decay.
I expect Santos to give me my own room. I assumed I was sleeping in his until one was made up for me, but the housekeeper who came to help me unpack informed me I was to unpack my things here. I’m surprised but not unhappy about it. I feel safer with Santos close by and strangely anxious when he’s not. I know what happened between us the other night has a lot to do with that, especially his question about the cuts. It was in the way he asked. He seemed to genuinely want to understand and, in a way, telling him helped me to understand.
The spanking, too, was intimate, although I’m still not sure how I was turned on. Feeling a blush creep up along my neck at the memory, I shift my attention to the task at hand.
I’ve left the bedroom door open a crack so I am sure to hear him when he gets back. He’s paying a visit to the Avery family to get a read on what they know. The image of Thiago going over the edge still haunts me and whenever I close my eyes, I see that hand on his chest, hear the grunt of breath, the scream.
The night Caius went to the lighthouse to look for anything having to do with Thiago, he returned with the news that there was no evidence of his having been there and certainly nothing of his demise. He didn’t tell me this, but Santos relayed it to me.
Regardless, I know what I saw.
Thiago didn’t deserve to die like that. No one does—and I won’t forget the fact that he saved my life. I don’t know if Santos believes me or if he thinks I somehow imagined it, like Caius does, but I don’t care. I won’t forget it.
I’m unpacking my toiletries in the bathroom when I hear the bedroom door close. Assuming it’s Santos, I hurry out, but stop short when I find Caius standing in the bedroom. He sets a box down on the bed and turns to take the other from the man carrying it.
“Knock-knock,” he says to me then dismisses the other man, who closes the door behind him once he’s gone.
I’m tempted to walk over and open it, but Caius is watching me, and I don’t want to appear weak. So, instead, I take a deep breath in and put my hands into my pockets to have something to do with them. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Delivering the last of your things.” He gestures to the two boxes. Sticking out from one is the locked box I found when I was going through Santos’s closet at the apartment on our wedding night. He follows my gaze toward it. “That shouldn’t be here,” he says, lifting it out and setting it on the bed. “You recognize it?”
“No,” I lie and walk over to my nearly empty duffel bag, picking it up and busying myself with the notebooks left inside. I wasn’t going to unpack my sketchbooks from those two years at college, but I need to have something to do until he goes. I stack them on the table and zip up the empty duffel.
Caius surprises me when he comes to look at them. “Sketches, right?”
I put my hand over the stack when he reaches for one. “They’re nothing. Just schoolwork.”
“You’re pretty good,” he says.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “How do you know?”
“My brother showed me some of the ones you’d sent him.” Ignoring my obvious attempt to stop him from picking up one of the books, he does just that.
“He did?”
“Yep.” He flips through the pages. “They made him smile,” he says, glancing at me momentarily, then returning his attention to my book. “He doesn’t do that often enough, but you’ve managed it.”
He pushes his hair back when it flops forward and for some reason, seeing it, seeing his big hand, has me taking a step backward. I don’t know why I do it, but he notices. He looks at me, eyebrows raised in question. He smiles with one corner of his mouth and that dimple forms on his cheek. He’s so different in appearance from Santos, equally handsome but disarmingly so in a harmless boy-next-door way. Although I know in my gut, he’s anything but harmless.
“Do I scare you, Madelena?” he asks, taking a step toward me. “Or is it something else?”
“What would it be?” I ask, standing my ground.
“So, I scare you then.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” I clear my throat. “I don’t like anyone looking at my work. It’s not really meant for that.”
