Before I can stop myself, I scream.
It’s loud. Blood-curdling. A scream of pure terror, because I’m afraid of spiders. I have been for my whole life, and that will never change.
“Isla?” I hear Alessio’s muffled, worried voice on the other side of the door as I stand there petrified, water spraying on me, the spider and I engaged in a standoff.
I hear him jiggling the door handle.
“I’m okay—” I start to say, but my words are swallowed by the violent cracking of the door as Alessio apparently breaks it down.
I barely have enough time to cover myself with one arm and a hand before he’s wrenching open the shower door, the look on his face enough to send me cowering in fear.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demands.
“A spider,” I say lamely, nodding my head to the arachnid on the opposite end of the shower because both hands are currently busy shielding my naked body.
Even though he’s already seen it.
Licked and kissed almost every inch of it.
“Jesus,” he snaps, sounding disgusted. “I thought something was actually wrong.”
“Somethingisactually wrong. I’m showering with a spider.”
“I’ll kill it.” He turns around.
“No!” I protest. “You can’t kill him. You have to take him outside.”
“Him?” His head pops around the corner of the shower door. “Let me get this straight. You were screaming like you were being attacked because of the spider in the shower, and now you want me to carry him…where exactly? Into the concrete wilderness of the street?”
Well, when he puts it that way, my idea does sound like it could use some work.
“Isn’t there somewhere you can take him to give him a fighting chance?”
“Are you insane?”
The steamy water is pouring down, I’m naked, and I’m arguing with a mobster about saving the life of a spider. I guess his question is kind of reasonable, even if it is insulting.
“Just take him somewhere else, please. And promise you won’t kill him.”
He shakes his head and disappears. He’s gone for a minute, and I think he abandoned me here in the shower with Mr. Spider. But then Alessio is back, holding a glass in one hand and a rubber scraper in the other.
Without glancing in my direction, he reaches in and gently taps the spider into the empty glass. The spider doesn’t appreciate his sudden rehoming, and he starts scrambling up the side of the glass, so Alessio slams his hand over the top, keeping him from escaping.
With a sigh, he disappears, carrying the trapped spider like an unwanted offering.
I wait for Alessio to push the damaged door closed behind him, even though it no longer latches, and then I get back to my shower, trying to ignore the fact that he was just standing here while I was naked and dripping wet. My body is having a difficulttime doing that, though. My nipples are hard, and there’s a persistent ache deep inside me that can only be answered one way.
Resting my forehead against the cool tiles, I make quick work of giving myself an orgasm because rubbing one out with Cid curled up next to me later is out of the question. I come silently to the thought of Alessio sucking my clit as he finger-fucks me, biting my lip to stave off any potential noise. As the hot spray of water falls down around me in the aftermath, I’m ashamed of myself for still thinking about him this way. I hate that memories of our night together haunt me, even though I know exactly who and what he is.
With a groan of annoyance at myself, I hastily finish washing. After I towel off, I dress in cozy pj’s and comb out my wet hair before venturing out of the bathroom in search of him. Alessio is reclining on a couch with Cid curled up in his lap, his bare feet crossed at the ankles, a lowball of what’s probably whiskey on ice dangling from his long, tatted fingers, looking unfairly sexy.
There’s something about a hot-as-fuck mobster with a cat in his lap, apparently. Or maybe it’s just this particular hot-as-fuck mobster that I can’t resist.
“Hey,” I say, feeling awkward and doing my best not to think about the fact that I just relived a highlight of our night together when I was alone in the shower.
His eyes travel over me. “I take it the rest of the shower was uneventful?”
“Yeah.” I feel awkward standing here, hovering over him. “Thanks for rescuing the spider. What did you do with him?”
