Not able to sleep, I went to the gym Beni and I shared in the building. He met me there, and we were quiet as we burned off the night. It was lunch by the time I showered and made it into bed. I did not need much sleep, and I usually waited until night to fall, especially given the places I flew to. It was easier to adjust to the time differences if I waited out the day.
Ava.
She was forbidden fruit I was trapped inside with, and I was famished.
I could smell her body wash from the down hall. It lingered.
My mouth watered.
The thought of her made my cock stiff. I was so hard it was fucking painful. I ran my hand down my length and squeezed the tip on the way up. My muscles tightened at how good it felt.
Not fucking good enough.
Only a woman would do.
Wet. Warm. Willing.
A knock came at the door, and I sat up some just as it was opening.
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered. “Maybe we could go for a—”
“Come,” I said in Italian, then I repeated it in English when she gave me a blank look. I held the covers back for her.
“You’re inviting me to sleep in your bed?”
“It should be the other way around, but yes.”
“Um…I didn’t understand anything butyesin that sentence.”
“Get in the bed, Ava.”
“That—” she moved toward me “—I understand.”
She slipped in on the other side and I slipped out. My bareculowas in front of her as I moved to the bathroom. I never slept in clothes, but I found a pair of pajama bottoms and dressed in them before I stepped out.
She was sitting up, staring at her nails, and her eyes flew to mine. “You don’t have to leave your bed or your room. I can—”
She stopped talking when I slipped in next to her, and she gasped when I pulled her body next mine, keeping her as close as skin. I kissed her all over her face, telling her to go to sleep in Italian.
“You’re so warm,” she muttered, “and this place is so cold…” She drifted off a second later.
I was wide awake, her closeness making my heart tremble. I did not know what it was about her that drew me to her so strongly, but it was the greatest ache I had ever felt, and my greatest peace all in the same breath.
La pazzia.I touched my temple.Madness.
Her breaths were even as they flowed across my chest, and her heat beat against my side in the same rhythm. She talked in her sleep—nonsensical things that perhaps made sense in the worlds she was in. But then one word came across in a language I could understand.
It was a name.
Tigran.
She was crying for him.
She was always going to cry for him.
Because I was going to kill him.
EIGHTEEN
