I don’t know what possesses me to agree. Maybe exhaustion or the fact that I can barely feel my legs, but I hear myself say, “Fine. Breakfast. Then we talk.”
“Good.”
He doesn’t let go of me. If anything, he pulls me more firmly against him, then noses the line of my neck, inhaling deeply. I feel him smile against my skin.
“And Luca?”
“What?”
“What happened between us—” He pauses, and I feel his jaw tighten against my shoulder. “I’m not going to apologize for it.”
I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean or what I’m supposed to feel. Relief? Anger? Or the horrifying urge to turn around in his arms and kiss him?
Fuck.I don’t know.
So I don’t say anything at all. I just lie there in his arms, trying to figure out how the hell I’m supposed to kill a man my body has already accepted and why I’m slowly starting to believe he may have had nothing to do with Marco’s death.
And just like that, a week passes. Seven days since my heat broke. Ten days since that dinner when I should have put a bullet in Enzo Valerio.
Instead, I’m in his bed. Like I have been every night since.
I tell myself I’ll leave in the morning, but every morning I wake tangled in him again. He brings me coffee and lingers while I freshen up. We eat breakfast together before he disappears into his study, only to reappear hours later. Some days he goes to Eclipse, but more often he’s here. With me. Too much with me.
Each day I stay feels like a betrayal to Marco, and to myself. And yet—
No. I don’t want to think about it. Don’t want to examine too closely why I haven’t tried harder to leave, or why his scent makes something in me settle instead of revolt, or why I’ve stopped flinching when he reaches for me.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I swear the bastard has done something to fuck me up.
I sit up slowly, making a mental note of the aches in my body. Most of the heat-soreness has faded, replaced by the general stiffness of someone who’s been living a strange kind of house arrest for a week. Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Captivity dressed up in expensive sheets and gentle touches. A gilded cage with a monster who fucks like a god and looks at me like I’m something precious.
“You’re not leaving,” Enzo had said that first morning after my heat broke. “Your cycle is unstable. What if your heattriggers again? Your body could go into shock before you make it to a hospital.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can.” His hand had curved around my waist, possessive even then. “But I’d rather not take that chance.”
I should have insisted harder.
But the truth is—and I hate admitting this even to myself—a part of me didn’t want to leave.
The bedroom door opens. Enzo walks in carrying two mugs, and the domestic familiarity of it hits me harder than it should. He’s already dressed for the day in navy slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Hair still damp from a shower I wasn’t invited to.
Not that I want to be invited. Obviously.
“Coffee.” He hands me one of the mugs. “Black, two sugars.”
The fact that he knows how I take my coffee feels more intimate than anything we did during my heat.
Our fingers brush as I take the mug.
“Thanks.” I take a quick sip to hide how quick the brief contact made my pulse jump.
He sits on the edge of the bed, and I get hit with that cedar-and-smoke scent that’s become as familiar as my own. “How’d you sleep?”
“Just fine.”
A lie. I woke up three times from dreams that felt like nightmares. In the first one, Marco was alive and disappointed in me, then the next, I was trapped in a sterile white room,hospital gown hanging off my shoulders while Sokolov's laughter echoed off the walls. I’d jolted awake in a cold sweat, heart pounding. And finally, the one that unsettles me the most, I’d dreamt of Enzo’s hands on me and his mouth whispering promises I shouldn’t believe.
