I expect him to climb over me. To take what I offered. To fuck me into the sheets until I forget my own name, forget Luca, forget everything except the feeling of him inside me.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he pulls the covers up over my body. Lies down beside me. Slides his arm around my waist and pulls me close until myback is pressed against his chest and his breath is warm against the top of my head.
“Sleep,” he says quietly.
“But you didn’t?—”
“Sleep, Bella.”
I want to argue. I want to understand why he gave without taking, why he held back when I would have let him have anything. But my body is soft with pleasure and my eyes are heavy from the steady beat of his heart against my spine.
And I fall into a long and dreamless sleep.
Two hours before landing,I stand in the shower while my skin turns pink and I try to process everything that happened.
He ate me out and then he held me while I slept.
I kept expecting that he’d fuck me right then and there, the way Iknowhe’s wanted to fuck me ever since I felt his pulse on my fingers after the shooting at the Bellamy gallery.
But he didn’t.
I turn off the water and reach for the towel, drying myself quickly before pulling on a fresh change of clothing.
As I adjust the waistband, I catch the smell of the perfume again. The scent curls in my nostrils, sweet and cloying, and suddenly the tender way he held me feels less like affection and more like a trap.
Now, armed with just enough confirmation from Slava, I dare to wonder.
Did these clothes belong to Gia?
What did he mean she died because she got too close to him?
And if getting close to him killed a princess of the D’Ambrosio Family, what might happen to an ordinary girl like me?
33
BELLA
The French countrysideis beautiful as we drive through it in silence.
Late afternoon sunlight melts over the countryside in golden rays. In the distant hills, wildflowers blush pink and yellow in the breeze. A river winds under the hazy summery sky, and its dappling waters shimmer like diamonds.
But I’m not processing any of it.
Not when Slava is holding my hand.
His fingers thread through mine, and his palm is warm and dry. I’m no longer shying away from his presence, and our thighs are touching. The contact hasn’t broken since we landed in Nice a little over two hours ago and got in the car.
It’s almost terrifying how normal this all feels when normal is the last word I’d ever use to describe this.
Truthfully, I still don’t know what we are now.
His thumb traces a small circle on the back of my hand. The movement is unconscious. I look over at him and find him staring out the window. His jaw is tight, and those winter-gray eyes are fixed on the landscape with an intensity that suggests he’s not looking at anything in particular.
“You haven’t told me what this is about,” I say quietly.
“I know.”
