The news is still fresh. It feels weird hearing the wordsistersout loud. Knowing I’ve had siblings out there in the world Ihaven’t even met yet. Antonella is going to pay for this; that much I do know.
I sigh, stalking toward the bathroom. “They’re another story. We don’t turn our back on blood unless blood turns its back on us.”
“I hope you’re heading into all this with an open mind, Alessio,” she says.
And it’s so like her, such a do-gooder. Thinking the best of everyone. It’s a searing reminder, like a blade driven into my chest, of how different our worlds are.
“Stay in your lane, Emily Austen,” I tell her, intentionally fucking up Emily Brontë and Jane Austen like they’re the same person.
I know it’s going to drive her up the wall. It’s the distraction I need. Shit is getting too heavy and real with Isla, and I’m not ready for that. Not with a landslide of family bullshit barreling toward me.
I hear her softly correcting me just before I close the bathroom door.
“It’s Emily Brontë and Jane Austen.”
Then I turn on the shower and start my day. Unfortunately, when I’m enveloped in the steam, the spray of the jets raining on my back, the scent of Isla’s pussy rises, making me harder than a rock again. I jerk off thinking about finger-fucking my come back into her cunt like the animal I’ve become and then finish showering.
By the time I’m out and toweled off, my bed is empty.
Isla’s gone.
It feels wrong. I want her in my sheets, thinking about all the things we did together, waiting for me to come back. Never mind that I was just a dick to her and it’s my fault that she left. All I can focus on is that need.
I throw my clothing on with record speed and stalk out of my room.
“Isla?”
She doesn’t answer me, but Cid does, trotting over to me with that trilling purr thing he does, like he’s greeting me. The cat is seriously strange, but so am I. Maybe that’s why we get along so well. Even he’s looking up at me with big green eyes, kind of accusing.
“What?” I ask him.
Then I realize I’m having a conversation with a cat.
Fuck me.
“Isla?” I call again, heading to my kitchen.
She’s there, wearing an oversized T-shirt and nothing else, her blonde hair spilling down her back, all wavy and tousled.
She raises a brow at me, looking like a professor about to reprimand a student. “So I’m back to Isla again now?”
She made herself tea. There’s something so homey about seeing her half naked in my kitchen that makes my chest tighten up and my dick go hard all over again. It’s not that she’s in my kitchen making tea, so much as the feeling that she belongs here, and that scares the shit out of me.
“Why are you out of my bed?” I ask instead of answering her question.
“Because I spent enough time there.” She sips her tea.
I can see that she didn’t make one for me. Fair enough. I don’t really deserve one, and I’m more of a coffee man myself.
“Is that so?”
I stalk toward her, not stopping until I’ve pinned her against a wall of cabinets.
She tips back her head, holding my stare, stubborn and sexy as hell. “Yup. That’s so.”
“I don’t think you’ve spent nearly enough time there,” I tell her, leaning down to bury my face against her neck.
I kiss her, and I can feel her resistance crumbling like a building being imploded, falling in on itself. She inhales. I find her pulse and lick it.
