My world shrunk to one burning pinpoint, and I could have been a woman on a bed in a chalet in Switzerland, or a star burning in the black velvet sky.
I was still mad for him, feverish with need. Fucking frustrated too. He hadn’t removed the layers separating us. My skin yearned to be next to his.
Anticipation was becoming almost acute; the slip felt as though it were made of iron bars, separating me from the only place I’d ever called home.
I closed my eyes and would have pounded the bed, or him, if my wrists hadn’t been detained in his strong hold.
Though I was panting, attempting to regain my equilibrium, he came in again for the next kill, about to do things to me that’d make me speak in five different languages.
When I was with him, nothing mattered but him.This.
His phone rang. He let it go. It rang again. And again. Until my phone started to scream.
Sighing, he rose from the bed, picking it up.
“Fausti,” he snapped.
I could hear a voice on the other end. Romeo? Dario? Either one.
Brando squeezed the bridge of his nose, then ran a hand through his hair, making the raven pieces stick up. He was about to growl through the line at his brother, but instead ground out “I’ll be there” in Italian before hanging up.
“Something wrong?” I whispered. I went to sit up, but my head spun, so I stayed put. If something was wrong, I hadn’t felt it. Little wonder. I was in flames.
Brando stared at me.
“I’m all right,” I assured him. “I sat up too fast.”
He put his hand behind my head, giving me his other hand, and then lifted me up slowly.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Nodding once, he gave me a chaste kiss on the lips before going for his clothes on the floor. “Rosaria stabbed Rocco.”
It took a moment for the words to process. He’d said them casually, like he was telling me we were out of milk.
“She stabbed him!”
“Yeah.” He stepped into his pants. “I’m surprised it took this long.”
“What?”
“She’s got slasher written all over her. A hundred dollars says she’ll be calling you to tomorrow asking for mushroom ravioli to bring to him to apologize.”
Despite myself, my mouth twitched. His tone was serious.
“Is he hurt badly?” I was up on my knees, watching him put his shirt on.
“No one can get close enough to tell. They’re having a hard time getting him under control.”
A sudden vision of my own beast came to my mind, no one able to get him under control but me.
“Should I come along? I can—”
He stopped, hand on his jacket. He gave me a look that seared. “The only beast you tame is the one in me.”
I nodded, sitting down on the bed, picking at my nails while he finished getting ready.
Desolation washed over me in a wave. I’d never felt so utterly alone in his presence.
