“Are they far?” Unease sat in my stomach like a cold fish. I was close to packing her up and taking her home—to Louisiana. Ettore came to mind and I cursed. I didn’t like this, none of it. Madness crept its way under my defenses. It swam in my bloodstream, going as deep as marrow.
“No, quite close, in fact.”
“As close as the same house.”
Her eyebrow quirked up. She had caught my meaning. “Not that close. Still, it could be.”
“You want to go.”
Here was the crux—why would my wife need shoes designed to kill? Curiosity was one thing, but to keep them meant that she planned for the future. Nowhere in her future did I plan on having her in a situation that would force her to wear them. Maja told her something in that letter that had her preparing for the worst.
I stood, running a hand through my hair. I couldn’t even read the letter. And that, I thought, was done on fucking purpose. I wasn’t supposed to read it. Whatever warning Maja sent was done so in case ofwhat if, and was to be kept from me, knowing how I would react towhat if.
My wife watched me for a while, a definite calm to her features, even her demeanor. She had accepted the warning. She would prepare for it the best she could. I didn’t care for the fire in her eyes as she answered me. “Tomorrow, after we leave here.”
I stopped moving, blinking at her—tomorrow.
After all, who is to say what will happen tomorrow?
Maja’s words came as brutal as a swipe of her satin shoe.
* * *
Rarely did Scarlett have nightmares. It seemed her sleep patterns were too broken even for dreams, though she had them. She had once told me that in sleep, images came to her in fragments of mosaic glass. She dreamed in color most of the time. Other times it was of random things, her dancing, she and me together, the usual run-of-the-mill dreams.
She had fallen asleep with a lot on her mind, naked, curled next to me. Her bumblebee snoring had stopped, replaced by quiet cries.
I called her name three times to get her to open her eyes. She stared blankly at me for a moment, her conscious mind slow to take over the shift. I couldn’t sleep, not with the chest in the corner, a neon sign warning of the dangerous turns up ahead.
“Brando?” she whispered.
“I’m here,” I said. “You were having a bad dream.”
It took her a moment to answer. I tried to sit up, to see her better, but she ran a fingertip up my chest and put her hand there to stop me from moving. “I’m all right,” she said, but her voice sounded distant; sleep still had her, though she was close to the surface. “I—it was a bad dream. I can’t remember—” She paused, thinking. “I justknowthat it was bad. I still feel it.”
She shifted a little in my arms so that she looked down at me. I didn’t say anything, only met her eyes and moved the hair from her forehead. After time had passed, she blinked at me, tears sliding down her cheeks. “You never told me,” she said.
She went to wipe her eyes, but I took her hand and did it for her instead. She might have slept, but she was still under the influence of champagne, not enough sleep, and the stress of the last few days. Morning was not far in the distance and she had slept only an hour or two.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” I said, my heart melting from the strength of her tears.
“The part of me that you would paint,” she said, a slight catch in her voice. “You never said.”
“That’s what’s bothering you?”
She nodded, and it made her seem so innocent looking. Her tears came faster, warm and then cold. In all of this mess, only she would worry about why I never gave her an answer to that question.
Her hand was on my chest, resting like a limp fish, and I moved it down further, so she could feel how dangerous she was to me. She wrapped her fingers around me. Cool at first, growing warm from my heat, moving in gentle but firm strokes.
“You are so hot,” she said.
I hid my grin—she had slurred a bit. Drunken Scarlett could go either two ways. She could tear me to pieces or put me back together again.
“As long as you think so.” My lips closed around her nipple, small and hard, and I sucked, using the tips of my teeth to graze before pulling back.
“Oh.” She made a low noise in her throat. From the look on her face and the tone of her voice, she hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud. “I mean—you are. Hot. Physically. But that’s not what I meant. Your blood runs hot in your veins. When we make love, you almost burn for me.”
There was nothing humorous about her in that moment; she was out to slay me with her love.
