Stepping back from the window, I make my way to the guest room, where I put the glove a while back. Looking out the bedroom door, trying to hear Luca, I lift the mattress, panning underneath it. But I see nothing. I let it drop back down and stood up straight. My stomach drops before I lift it once again, like it’s a magic trick and it’ll appear. My free hand feels around the box spring, but comes up empty. It’s gone. The glove isgone. Letting the mattress back down softly, I sit on the perfectly made-up bed, thoughts racing. Fear coursing through me.
I don’t know who brought it here in the first place, but now someone has been in my house. It couldn’t have been Luca; he would have made it known. This wouldn’t have been something he kept quiet about. Finding a random dirt-covered glove under a mattress… Yeah, he’d be asking questions.
I want to tell Luca, but I know he won’t let anything go until he figures out where it came from, and I still have something to complete. David. I couldn’t promise Luca I’d stop, because I can’t break a promise to him.
I need to go to the funeral home. My head falls back. Just thinking of her name makes me sick. But to speak to her, to… Catherine. “Fuck.” I speak to the empty room. That’s the last thing I want to do; I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a fucking dull spoon than go to her. But she knew everything. Cat was her father’s daughter, his dark angel. And I know she has shit that she hasn’t told us.
How I’m going to make this happen, I don’t know. But it has to be soon.
It's like I’m writing a grocery list with the shit I need to get done. Talk to Catherine, find out who’s been around our house and David. Dropping my head, I feel a headache coming on. Forcing myself out of the guest room, I make my way upstairs to the bathroom, where I hear the shower going. Pursing my lips, I open the bathroom door, steam billowing out. I don’t announce myself, just walk in and straight to the medicine drawer, where I pull out two Advil, toss them in my mouth, and turn on the sink faucet, barely getting them down my throat.
“I will not live like this.” It comes from the shower before I even get the door closed all the way, stopping me in my tracks.
“I didn’t ask you to, did I?” I bitchily call back to him, looking around the door to the steamed-up shower.
His laugh bellows, and there isn’t anything comical about it, as he steps from the shower, wet. I can see the steam rolling off his naked body as I swallow… the pills feeling like they're stuck in my throat.
My eyes follow him as he stalks toward me, not saying a word.
With each of his steps, I also step backward, away from him.
His blue eyes look gray rather than his normal baby blue in this light. Nothing friendly about them.
Luca’s strides become larger, and he’s at me before I can take another step back, grabbing me by the waist, staring down at me.
I watch his mouth part, as if he’s going to say something, but stops.
“Say it,” I tell him.
His smile is vicious, but it does something to me. I’ve never seen him give me this face before. And I know in that moment, I’m meeting Luca the killer, and I welcome him.
“From the moment I met you, everything I did was for you. You were my sole focus.” He pauses, and my stomach drops. ‘Were mine.’ Not are. He sees the look on my face. “You still are my sole focus, Rowan, but fuck do you make this shit hard. It doesn’t have to be. I thought we were a team, but apparently, only when you need me, then are we a team.” His voice doesn’t match his face. His face is mean, but his voice is more tinged with sadness.
I don’t speak; I want him to.
“I can’t be with someone who will easily put their life in danger and not care about the person they supposedly love.”
My mouth falls open, eyebrows raised. “Then don’t.” I grit the words out, even though I don’t mean them.
"And see, this is where I know your self-sabotage enters the fucking room." His hands around my waist tightened, and inseconds, I’m picked off my feet, thrown onto the bed, landing with a yelp. My eyes widen as Luca stands above me, menacing. He won’t hurt me. I keep telling myself.
“When I couldn’t find you, my body literally ached. My heart felt like it would beat out of my damn chest.” He rubs the inside of my thigh slowly, never losing eye contact with me.
“I won’t let you treat me like shit.” I watch his other hand rub on his dick, easily bringing it to life.
I start to shake my head no, but he slaps the inside of my thigh; my words cut off and are replaced with a shocked gasp.
“I’d never hurt you. I’ve treated you with the most respect I have, but now, seeing how you treat me, not giving a shit, it’s my turn.” His pace becomes faster, jacking himself off, as my breathing becomes ragged with arousal. Luca never speaks to me the way he does now. He’s always soft and easy with me, like I’ll break. Maybe I broke something inside him?
I watch as his eyelids close slightly.
“Sit up and open your mouth.”
I do without a word, letting my jaw drop open, tongue out, welcoming his dick inside.
Stepping up to me, he rubs his tip up and down my tongue. Without warning, he takes his other hand, placing it on the back of my head and shoving it, his cock invading my mouth, stretching it wider.
With a moan, he says, “Suck it.”
