And yet, there’s a hollowness in my thoughts, ripping apart my insides with indecision.
“No one ever taught you?”
I shrug. “Guess they didn’t think it was important. Weird, considering we’re a lake town, and we spent a lot of time fundraising on Koselomal when I was a kid.”
He shakes his head, glancing down at the dessert tray by his foot. “Juliet brought cookies? You didn’t bake anything today?”
“I wasn’t really feeling up to it.”
Alarm flashes behind his eyes, and he’s discarding his jacket and rushing into the pool before I have a chance to amend my sentence. He swims over in record time, his strokes clean and lithe, and my mouth actually fucking waters watching his back muscles ripple in the water.
Coming up beside my float, he grasps the corner by my feet with his palms, steadying himself. I smile, poking his chest with my toe—bad move, because his dress shirt sticks to the hard planes of his chest, dark nipples puckering beneath the material. My toe seems to have a direct line of communication to my vagina because the second I make contact with the material, a jolt of electricity shoots through me.
I bite my cheek to repress the moan threatening to escape. “You know I wasn’t in any danger, right?”
He breathes heavy, his eyes alight with a mixture of emotions I can’t quite decipher. “Mio amore, I wish that were the truth.” Swimming around to where the top half of my body is, he presses the palm of his hand to my forehead. I pray he can’t see how my own nipples have stiffened under my bikini top. “Are you okay? You’ve only just been released from brain rest.”
“I’m fine. Seriously, you didn’t need to ruin a good suit just to jump in here, you insane person.”
Laughing lightly, he brushes a few strands of hair from my face and presses a soft kiss to my nose, swimming backward and putting space between us. As soon as he hauls himself from the pool, I let out a long breath of relief.
“Would you do something with me tonight?”
I blink, swirling my hand around in the water beside my float. “Like what?”
“I thought I could cook you dinner. Show you my mom’s favorite recipe.”
A heavy weight lands on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs, at his hopeful tone. Standing there dripping wet, a boyish grin on his face, he looks vulnerable again. It’s so startling and sudden, I have a hard time catching up with the emotion, allowing too much time to pass before answering.
His face falls, and he mashes his lips together, looking uncertain. “I can just bring it to you in bed, too, if that’s something you’d prefer.”
Something shifts between us, the chasm from before shrinking exponentially, and even though I know I should run and hide, shelter myself from the disaster I’m welcoming, I find that I don’t want to.
Revenge be damned, I want to welcome the hurricane that is my husband. In this moment, if never again and never before, nothing else matters.
“No.” Paddling with my hands to the underwater steps, I slide from the float and climb out of the pool, offering him a small smile. “Dinner sounds great.”
Elia
I don’t have a clue what the fuck is going on; Caroline sashays into the house in that small-as-shit red bikini, suddenly agreeable and shocking the hell out of me.
My heart beats against my ribs, on the precipice of losing total control.
Strolling in after her, I race upstairs and change into a pair of jeans and a light t-shirt. My palms are clammy as I pad back down, seeing she’s yet to return, feeling like a teenage boy going on his first date.
Heading to the kitchen, I dig in the junk drawer, where I’ve buried the memories of my mother. I find the little index card with her chicken scratch stamped on it and stare at it for a few beats, before slapping it down on the counter and retiring to the living room to wait.
Nerves course through me, jitters rattling me to my core, at the prospect of finally getting to wine and dine my wife. To explore our connection, see how she feels beyond the obvious sexual compatibility.
And to relieve myself of the guilt I feel from murdering yet another man in her honor.
Not that I feel bad about Sheldon being dead, but every second I spend in Caroline’s presence reminds me that all of this is worth it—that defying my mother’s last wishes might not have been in total vain.
I switch on the television, flipping through the local news channels until landing on one the Gazette runs. The headline stops me dead, nerves turning to ice and stalling my heart in my chest.
‘Local Congressman and lawyer found dead at vacation home in Stonemore; foul play expected. Suspects at large.’
What the fuck?
Just as I begin pulling my phone from my pocket, I feel someone standing behind me. Turning my head, I expect to see Leo. I don’t expect to be staring down the barrel of a gun.
“What did you do?”
THE LOOK ON Elia’s face presses at the cracks inside my chest, searching for a way inside. For a way to rip open the sutures barely holding me together and replace them with the venom in his eyes.
I swallow as my thumb brushes against the safety of my dad’s gun, the weight heavy against my palms. I’ve got both hands wrapped around it, keeping the weapon steady despite the tremors wracking my soul.
Todd and Sheldon’s names flash across the television screen in bold, unmistakable print, but they flashed on my phone first while I was still upstairs, alerting me. Despair simmers in my gut, reinforcing my stance, wrath cycling within me, propelling me into motion. Taking a step forward, I jut my chin toward the screen, cocking an eyebrow.
“Answer me, Elia.”
His eyes darken, the clear gray morphing into a charcoal I’ve never seen before, and his hand grips the back of the sofa, fingers leaving welts on the fabric. “I don’t answer to you, sweetheart. I don’t fucking answer to anyone.”
My thumb slides back, pulling the lock with it. “I told you to stop calling me that.”
“What am I supposed to call you, Caroline?”
“Nothing. Stop referring to me as anything. Stop acting like this is a real marriage, and like you want more from me. Just stop everything. Please. It makes me—” My voice breaks on the last syllable, and I clear my throat, trying to force some of the hoarseness from it. Pressing my lips together, I inhale a deep breath, refocusing on the problem at hand.
Bringing his hand to his lap, he stays silent, watching me for several beats. I shift my weight around on my feet as numbness settles in my calves, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. It feels like that’s all he’s done since we met, and I can’t stand what he’s seen—how he peers into my eyes and sees right to my dirty, blackened soul.
“What does it make you, Caroline?”
“What?”
“When I call you pet names. Terms of endearment. What happens to you when I do that?”
I shake my head. “Stop trying to distract me.”
Getting to his feet, he takes a singular step toward me; he’s slow and deliberate, hands spread in front of him, the way you might approach a rabid raccoon. My palms grow sweaty, though I can’t tell if it’s from the nerves bouncing around my brain or his stupid, delicious scent.
“When I call you mio amore and carina, how does that make you feel?” He takes another step, and I shift, pointing the gun right at his chest. It doesn’t deter him the way I hoped it would. “Does it make your chest swell, make your heart inflate with implied affection? Do you feel dizzy when I look at you, wish you could explain away how the sight of me makes your breath stall out by simple sexual attraction? Does it anger you, realizing it’s more than that?”
My lips part as he stalks even closer, the mouth of the gun a hair away from the fabric of his t-shirt. Jesus.
“Or do my words make you feel dirty because they’ve been tainted by men who never had permission to call you anything in the first place? So, you focus on the evil within me, use it to
fuel your hatred toward me, hoping it expels the truth lying dormant inside you.”
I lift my gaze to his, defiance bleeding through my every pore. “Take another step, and I’ll put a bullet in you.”
He chuckles, ignoring me, stepping into the gun. The grip I have on the metal slips as my heartbeat skyrockets inside my chest, pounding against my ears like arrhythmic cymbals. A bubble lodges in my throat, and I swallow over it, hating all of this.
Him, the effect he has on me, my entire situation. He’s ruining everything.
My entire life.
“Tell me why you hate me so much, and maybe I’ll return to the couch.” His chest heaves with each breath as we stare at each other, like we’re two separate halves of one soul, being kept apart by invisible force fields. “Talk to me, and I won’t rip that gun from your hands and hold it up against your temple until your secrets pour out of you.”
I lick my lips, unable to tear my eyes from his. “I don’t hate you.”
“I know.” His fingers wrap around the barrel, but he doesn’t push or pull. It’s almost as if he’s trying to connect us, keep us together somehow. “Talk to me.”
Something inside me deflates, an anchor sinking to the bottom of the ocean. “I—I can’t.”
“You need to.”
“No, I don’t. Stop talking to me like you’ve got me figured out, and like you know me. Tell me what you did with Sheldon, or I swear I’ll kill you right here.”
“Do it. Save me the fucking trouble of having to sit around the next four months while you pathetically attempt to exact revenge on men from a world you’re completely unprepared to go up against—of watching you leave when you’ve got what you need from me.”
“I’m supposed to go when this arrangement is over, Elia. That was the plan all along.”
“Plans change, Caroline. People, feelings, and circumstances change all the time. The Universe gives and takes away, and our job is just to try and keep up.”
“Mine didn’t change. That’s the whole problem.”
“You’re a liar.” His grip on the gun tightens, jaw clenching. The anger sparking in his eyes sends heat through my core, but I press it down. Ignore it, like everything else. “If you would just take a second and open up to me, you’d—”
“I’d what?” The words come out louder, harsher than I mean for them to, but once they’ve been spit into the air between us, I can’t suck them back inside. The blood whooshing in my ears doesn’t stop me; the fire licking down my spine doesn’t hold me back. I shove the gun against his chest, knocking his hand from it, and let my index hover on the trigger. “What would talking to you do for me, Elia? Ease my pain, erase my memories? You think a conversation will fix me, make me whole again?”
His lips part, a response already curling on his tongue, but I move forward instead, knocking him back toward the couch. Dropping to his ass, he releases the gun, and I raise it, letting the cool metal line up with the middle of his forehead.
“I just want to help you.”
A million different thoughts run on repeat in my mind, tiny forest fires no one ever quite extinguished that kept rekindling and spreading. Tell him about his baby. Tell him how he really makes you feel. Tell him you want his help, want him, for more than just six months.
Tell him something. Make all of this mean something.
“Newsflash: I’m not some broken little girl in need of fixing. Those men didn’t break me. I don’t need to be saved.”
Tapping his forehead, I bend and straddle his thighs, my pussy on high alert, my brain firing on empty cylinders. This is too close—too intimate—for a gun to be in the middle. But I don’t even care.
He doesn’t seem to, either; his hands come up and cup my thighs, slipping under the fabric of the dress I have on. Our breath mingles, joining as one until it’s impossible to differentiate between the two vapors.
“I know, baby. I’m not trying to fix you or save you.”
“Then what the hell did you do to Sheldon McCarty?”
I slide the gun from his forehead and down the side of his face. His eyes follow the movement, snapping back to mine as I force the mouth under his chin, pushing his head back.
“Mio amore.” His cock hardens beneath me, thickening against my buttcheeks.
Grinding myself down a little, I revel in the hiss that comes from his teeth. “It’s sick, isn’t it? How much we love this violence? How our bodies crave it from one another, ache for it in the cruelest way?”
“This is not how I planned this evening ending.” At my sides, his hands tremble against me.
I reach up with my free hand and undo the buttons on my dress, allowing the tops of my breasts to pop out; though he can’t move his head, his gaze locks on, fingers squeezing my thighs until I’m sure bruises bloom under his touch.
“Fuck. Me.”
Smirking, I press my chest into his, my nipples puckering at the contact. “Answer my question, and maybe I will.”
“Baby, everything that’s happening right now is only because I’m letting it. You have no real control here.”
Shifting my hips forward, I rock once into him, eliciting a strangled grunt as his body buckles to meet mine. “We both know that’s not true.”
He exhales, teeth peeking out and sinking into his bottom lip. “You already know what I did.”
“I want you to say it.”
“Why?” His eyes blaze, anger contorting his features. The grip on my thighs turns punishing, and I whimper at the slight bite of pain. But I don’t falter. “Does it turn you on, knowing I’d kill for you?”
My stomach hollows out, and my lungs expand until it's hard to breathe. I swallow, dryness in my throat making it difficult, my tongue swelling. Moisture pools between my thighs, revealing the truth, and I clench, hoping he doesn’t figure it out.
“That’s not a battle I asked you to fight,” I say, but my voice is small. Unsure. Because even though I didn’t ask explicitly, he knew—what I wanted, what I needed—that he’d be the only one truly able to offer me peace.
“You don’t have to ask, mio amore. At this point, I’d do anything for you. Spoken, unspoken, I don’t care. I want all of the responsibility.”
I shake my head, pulling the gun away. He knocks it from my hand, reaching to re-lock the safety before tossing it to the floor and grasping my face in his hands. “Why?” I squeak, terrified that I already know that it’s already over.
“Because you’re worth it.”
The blood in my body seems to evaporate, the weight lifting from me and settling elsewhere. “You killed Sheldon. For me.”
“I did. And I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant I get to keep you.”
My forehead drops to his, our sweat combining. I don’t want to dwell on hidden meanings, because I know deep down that there’s nothing good waiting for me there. A pit opens up in my stomach, a cavity trying to suck in my soul, but as I bend and connect our mouths, igniting a fire we’ve been dancing around for too long, it can’t get a good grip.
The pit falters, its opening webbing together, threatening to close all on its own. To go to bed hungry for once, leave my soul alone.
Fire rages on, the flames building in our bodies as our lips continue their voracious assault.
And as he shifts, hauling my ass into his hands as he stands and takes me up the stairs, I allow myself to melt.
LIKE SHE WEIGHS NOTHING, I toss Caroline onto my bed, watching her breasts bounce against the material of her dress as she lands on the mattress. We’re skipping a few of the steps I’d had planned, but having her spread out, a delectable buffet of creamy, pinkened flesh, chases every other thought away.
All my brain can focus on is how badly I want her; body, mind, soul. I want to drink from the fountain of her youth, use it to keep me effervescent, and worship her for all of eternity.
I scramble on top of her, using both hands to peel her straps off her shoul
ders, down her arms until I can slip her from their confines. Gripping the bodice, I yank it down, freeing her gorgeous tits; I squeeze one in my palm, plucking at the nipple.
She squirms against me, blue eyes heating with all the passion I’ve wanted since the moment I met her. Dipping my head to her chest, I run my tongue along her peak, sucking it into my mouth without breaking eye contact.
And I can’t stop feeling fucking dizzy, like I’m three seconds from passing out from the sheer pleasure of getting to have her like this. Finally.
Her fingers curl in my hair as I work to fit more of her tit in my mouth, scraping my teeth along the soft tissue beneath her skin. Pulling back, I feather kisses over to the opposite side, laving around the other nipple in the same quick, circular motions, and glide my mouth up to her collarbone.
My balls are heavy as I suck on her throat, my mouth pulling at the delicate column with abandon. I’m definitely leaving bruises on her tonight, and the thought of branding her with my mouth—and my cock—has excitement coursing through me, stuttering my movements.
“Kiss me,” she whispers, breathless.
I chuckle at the desperation coating her words. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
Her fingers flex in my hair, using the roots to haul me toward her face. “Like this.” Before she’s even finished the sentence, she pulls me down and fuses our lips, and I swear to God I’ve never fucking felt anything close to this. Heaven.
Her calves wrap around my waist, dragging me into her. Stars dance across the backs of my eyelids, expanding and exploding in my chest like supernovas.
Shoving my tongue in her mouth, I lick along the edges of her teeth, flick the organ against hers, tasting every secret and repressed comment that’s ever formed here.
Hooking her fingers in the hem of my shirt, she yanks up, and I pull back just in time for her to tug it over my head, exposing my body to her. It’s not the first time she’s seen me without a shirt, but there’s still a shiver that runs through me at the way it makes her eyes soften.
Sweet Surrender: A Dark Mafia Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (King's Trace Antiheroes Book 1) Page 19