She pushes me away. “No. Until you tell me, you don’t get to touch me.”
She pulls her arms through my shirt. Then she scoops up her clothing and walks past me. “Stay on your side of the bed!” she calls, and walks up the steps.
The lake was calm just seconds ago. Now I can hear crashing waves, the pounding of my own thrumming heartbeat and the hot touch of her tongue against my own.
I watch her disappear and reach down to readjust myself. With her in my bedroom, I can’t jerk off to her thong and perfume again either.
It’s going to be a long fucking night.
CHAPTER 35
RAFE
When I make it back to my bedroom, Paige is already in bed.
She’s asleep, too, judging from the softness of her breathing and the way she’s curled up on her side. Her hair is braided again. I wonder if she does that most nights.
Sleep has always been hard for me. I sleep too little and too rarely, and the nightmares sometimes chase it away entirely. But tonight, after what just happened, it feels damn near impossible.
I lie on my back beside her and stare up at the ceiling. There’s a creeping sensation inside that won’t let me retreat into oblivion. A twitch to my hands, a heaviness in my chest. The pounding of unspent need and heat down my spine.
I look over at Paige.
Kissing her is always a mistake, because the want never goes away. It just grows and grows and there’s nothing I can do with it. It never goes anywhere. So it stays inside. Transforming into a jungle I can’t escape from.
It’s too dangerous to feel this way.
I need to remain in control.
I slip out of bed and walk quietly to the closet. There should be a fight tonight. My usual place doesn’t host themthat often, but there’s another place that does. It’s seedier. Rougher. I haven’t been there in the last year. But they’ll let me in. They always do.
I throw things into a duffel bag and head to the door. The house is filled to the brim with guests. In every room, friends and family lie fast asleep. None of them can know.
It’s riskier than I’ve been in a long time.
But I can’t stay here. I need the escape and I need the pain.
So I head downstairs and grab a set of car keys. The Porsche is a bad choice, and not an inconspicuous one, but I want to go fast.
The night is late, the streets dark, and no one is out. I drive toward the town of Bergamo with my foot on the gas. There’s a place on the outskirts that runs cage fights on weekend nights. It’s mafia-run. I have nothing to do with them—wantnothing to do with them—except for this.
They run a tight ship.
The house is nondescript, with an overgrown garden and a chain-link fence. It’s not a place that would make you look twice. Probably the point.
A young man stands by the gate, scrolling on his phone and smoking a cigarette. A guard. I speak to him in Italian, and he double-checks with someone inside. A few minutes later I’m let in.
When I came back from boarding school and started working in the family business, everything looked fine. I spent the days fulfilling the role that should have been Etienne’s.
And I spent the nights in the rings.
I know the best fighting spots in London. The best ones in Paris, too, and a few in New York. I’ve been to a few in Tokyo and one in Bangkok.
Fighting is the only way to make penance for my sins. Pain beats the guilt out of me, makes me feel like it compensatesfor the life I get to live. The life that went to me and not Etienne.
Because of me.
Inside, the house is barely livable. The living room and kitchen have been blown out. Spectators line the walls and the scent of smoke hangs heavy in the air. There’s betting going on here, money exchanging hands, favors settled.
