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But I ignore her question because I’d like to continue running from that very ghost she’s talking about.
She looks at me. Really, honest to fucking God looks at me, and I swear she peels away a layer of my carefully crafted disguise with only her gaze. Giana’s eyes are fucking hypnotic, the kind of blue you want to swim in. So vastly different from Julissa’s.
I can feel myself trying to pull away from this moment, but she doesn’t let me, keeping her gaze on mine. I hate her power, hate that I was just supposed to fuck her, and here I am, comparing her to the only other woman I’ve ever let in.
Giana ignores my compliment and instead asks, “Do you ever feel like you're cursed?” Her cheeks bloom with color once again. “You know, like…you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I just… I feel like I must’ve really been a bitch in a past life. Committed a murder or two. Killed a kitten—”
“What you said earlier about your father,” I interrupt without even meaning to. I just can’t get her words off my mind. “You need to remember that women are the most powerful fucking people in the world. The things you can do with your minds? Your bodies?”
Something about her makes me want to console her. It’s a gnawing feeling that I’m so fucking unaccustomed to.
“You just need to remember that you’ve got one life. You should do anything you can to live it for yourself and not him.”
I sigh as she looks at me with wide eyes, as if it’s all clicking into place for her. But surely this isn’t the first time she’s realized how remarkable she is.
“I feel like that got much deeper than I intended. I’m sorry. Wow. I have no place…” Redness blooms across the apples of her cheeks, and she covers her face with both of her hands.
I don’t think I can go another second without feeling her skin on mine again. Despite the way her words just opened me like a knife, there’s a calmness about her that I need. I take her palm the way she took mine.
And I draw circles.
I’m man enough to admit I’m broken as fuck and just learning to live with these broken parts, claim them as my own, try not to let the weight of them fucking kill me before my enemies can.
But this woman just showed me I may have at least a shred of humanity left in my bones.
I just don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
After the wordvomit I spewed about Dante’s deceased wife, the two of us have been sitting together in comfortable silence. He didn’t go off on me or even try to make me feel like shit for speaking of his dead wife like I knew her.
If I were him, I’d probably be long gone. I can’t even imagine…
“The sun is rising, kitten.”
He’s still using the little nickname he’s coined for me. He can’t be that mad at me.
“How is it already after six in the morning? I feel like Remi and I just walked into the club,” I tell him, shaking my head.
This entire night feels like it didn’t actually happen. Like I’ll wake up in a few hours back in my all-too-familiar bed, under my father’s watchful eye. Either the wind has died way down, or being here with him has warmed me up, because I swear I don’t even feel the bite in the air anymore.
I look at Dante as he watches the pinks and purples swirl together. He’s not the type of man who watches a sunrise, if his bruised knuckles and choice of career are any indication.
He’s filthy. Rugged. Damned. I feel it in his words, his actions.
The way he kissed me…
But he’s here with me, and I’m afraid if I question it, he’ll disappear.
“Your necklace is beautiful,” he says as his eyes linger on my neck at the blue pendant that’s a staple in my life.
“It was my grandmother’s. I never take it off… I mean, maybe to shower or something, but I even wear it in there sometimes. She was the only one in my family who ever made me feel like a person.”
I pause for a moment, thinking about her. Wondering what she’d think of all this.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get to…you know. I know I probably led you to believe you’d get your virgin tonight and—”
“Seriously?” He scoffs. “You didn’t think I was going to take your virginity on a dirty rooftop, did you? Talk about fucking memorable.”
He laughs and leans into me, our shoulders brushing.
