I threw back my head and laughed softly. His eyes locked on the bouncing of my breasts. His erection pressed against me, and it seemed to get even harder. “See? You were always feeding me.”
After the look cooled in his eyes, his shoulders shook with laughter. His entire demeanor changed.
“What?” I urged, sitting up.
He pulled me down, setting me next to him, so we were face to face, on our sides again. He would alternately kiss meandlaugh.
I hit him on the shoulder. “Whatare you laughing at?”
“Hell,” he said, wiping at his eyes, his body shaking. “After I’d give you cereal, you’d chase me around, trying to get me to play with you. If I wouldn’t, you’d threaten to fart on me. Apparently, Elliott had done the same thing to you. The ballerina girl!” His laugher grew louder and louder.
I shoved his shoulder. “Who told you that?” I popped up from my place. He grabbed me, keeping me close, not allowing me to squirm. “I do not—do that thing you accused me of, Brando Fausti!”
“No, of course not. Youtoot. You don’t snore either. You breathedeeply.” His humor was raspy. “Everett Poésy. He told me a few stories.”
“I do no such thing!” I said, attempting to muster some dignity. My cheeks burned. “You are a mean drunk!”
“Not as mean as you—tooting on me!”
“You areeffingdrunk,” I said, shoving him again.
“I know,” he sighed. “I’m fucking drunk. Come take advantage,amante. Ravvvishh me.”
Before I could make a move, though, he came to me, kissing my neck softly, using his hands as an apology. His breath was hot and fragrant on my skin. “You are so beautiful, baby,” he said. “I love you so much. So much.”
“Mmhm,” I responded, teetering between forgiveness and surrender—oh, who was I kidding? Iwasthe white flag. “That’s the whiskey talking.”
“Whiskey doesn’t talk, I do.” His breath picked up, his finger slipping between my legs, already wet with want again. “Fuck me.” He muttered the wordcrema dolceright after.
“Listen,” I rasped out.
Music floated in the air, languid and almost unearthly in its beauty. Gabriel was singing to his Evangeline.
It feels like rain…
“Small mercy,” Brando said. “I don’t have to stop and turn the radio on.”
Chapter Seven
Brando
I woke up with a whirling in my ear. It was the kind of siren that pulls the tide to the shore.
During the night we had somehow drifted apart. I turned to her. The covers were up to her neck, the bottom of the blanket tucked under her feet to lock out the cold. Her face was set in peace, her hair fanned out behind her, her hands together, placed close to her nose.
She smelled like a woman lost to sleep.So damnsweet, like candied roses.I came in even closer, inhaling even deeper—she still smelled like me. I had to resist the urge to tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her warm mouth to mine, my tongue touching hers.
Instead, I reached out, placing my hand against her heart. The beat was nice and steady, matching the contentment of her features. She sighed and her feet moved under the covers.
The temperature of my body usually burned off the whiskey in a short time, but I had drunk enough that it still coursed through my blood. I sat up, setting my feet on the floor. The inside of my head tilted left and then right. My body followed and then straightened.
That fucking dream haunted me.
I refused to tell Scarlett the details, but I had been having nightmares about the night she dove into the stormy water in Greece. It wasn’t the warm water of the Aegean Sea that had her in its clutches though. It was the arctic Bering.
I lifted both of my trembling hands, outlined by the bright light of the moon. I turned them to and fro and then wiped them on the white sheet to see if the amount of blood in my dream had seeped through into reality. The sight of it refused to leave my memory. Glaringly red, almost black, it still seemed to pulse warm with the life of her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, attempting to remove the fog, but all I removed was sleep. My cock was painfully hard, and I had to take a piss. I groaned with the release of pressure, went dizzy with it, standing there for at least five minutes while the steady flow kept streaming.
