Page 94 of His Fatal Love

All this rapidly incoming post-nut clarity brings up some home truths I haven’t wanted to think about before, but here, in a frozen moment, I can admit them.

Julian Castellani is much more to me than just a champion fuck. And that’s terrifying…but exhilarating.

I reach out and touch his face, gently this time, and although he flinches again, like an animal not sure how okay it is with humans, he lets me cup his face. Even turns to put a kiss in my palm, nuzzles into my caress—

And then he’s off me, off the bed, heading into the bathroom.

I lie there covered in his spunk and wonder what the hell is going on in his head. And mine, too. Wait, not just my head. I trace a suspicious path, follow the feeling, find where it’s hiding. It’s centered in my chest, a thudding pulse of warm, full-bodied, pure emotion that feels a lot like...

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

CHAPTER39

JULIAN

When I finally come out ofthe shower, Leo is snoring away, and I decide it’s best to let sleeping lions lie. He needs his rest.

And I need some time to let the things dredged up in me settle back down into the silt of my unconscious mind.

So I dress and make my way down to the kitchen, where one of the staff members is busy preparing dinner. I tell them to take up a tray for Leo in an hour or so, and then sit at the table and wait to be served, still trying to unpack what just happened between us.

It was…intense.

So intense that I feel it lingering in my chest, a warm afterglow that demands happiness, though I’m wary of it. And there’s something else, too. Something soft and gentle and innocent that I’ve never felt before, and so I can’t name it.

The unfamiliarity scares me. Itshouldbe impossible, something so much deeper than I thought I had any ability to feel. I’ve tried to squash it, ignore it, brush it aside, but it persists despite my best efforts.

All I can think about is Leo upstairs in my bedroom—is he still asleep? Dreaming of me? Does he feel this same strange turmoil?

It’s all very unpleasant, and so halfway through dinner and halfway through a bottle of good French Chablis, I leave the silent table and go out for a walk in the gardens.

The cool night air is refreshing, and a gentle breeze carries the scents of damp soil and pine needles to my nose. It’s not yet full moon, but it’s getting there. The chirp of crickets, the rustle of wind through leaves, and the bewitching trickle of water are all I hear. I follow the latter, rounding the corner of the manor to stare at the fountain where my mother drowned. The leaping water is liquid silver in the moonlight, more tranquil in the dark than under the stark, eye-searing light of the Californian sun.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt as troubled as I feel tonight.

Under my father’s rule, it was easy enough to find ways to shake off my stress, but Sandro disapproves of torturing our enemies, and now Leo—one of those enemies—is thesourceof my turbulence, my chest giving an uncomfortable squeeze as I think about him.

Lying asleep up there in my bed.

A desperate longing comes over me. I run back into the house, up the stairs, ignoring the polite nods of the nighttime guards making their rounds of the house, and come to a halt outside my bedroom door. If Leo’s still sleeping, I don’t want to wake him.

But when I push open my bedroom door and creep over to the bed, it’s empty. The sheets have been remade and there’s no sign of Leo at all, as though I completely imagined our interlude this afternoon. The ache in my ass tells me the truth, though.

I go through to the guest room and put my head around the door. There he is. Asleep again, his breath steady and deep.

But why did he move frommybed?

* * *

I’m up early the next morning, gone from my wing of the house before Leo stirs, although I ask Pedretti to check on him. I don’t want to do it myself, petulance holding me back. I don’t want to seem like I care ifhedoesn’t care.

But it’s not only that. It’s the fact that Leo might not look pleased to see me. I don’t think I could take that, not this morning, not after I’ve struggled all night between sleep and trying to identify this new emotion I’ve discovered in myself.

Being as early as I am, I catch Sandro on his arrival. He looks surprised to see me awake. “How’s the Lion?” he asks.

“I think he’s alright,” I say vaguely.

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