When he finally pulls back, his thumb lifts to trace the edge of the collar still locked securely around my throat. His touch is featherlight, almost reverent.
His voice, when it comes, is barely more than a whisper—rough and raw and achingly possessive.
"Miss Take," he breathes against my lips, the words vibrating through the thin space between us before his hands find my waist and pull me closer.
His eyes close as he exhales slowly, like he's trying to center himself, and when he speaks again his voice carries that dangerous edge I know so well.
"I would like to stress here—" and the formal phrasing feels deliberately chosen, like he's struggling to maintain some semblance of control even in this moment of tenderness, "—that the consequences you endured at the hands of my associate last night willnotbe enough to erase the demerits you earned."
His thumb strokes across my collarbone, tracing the edge of the collar with maddening slowness.
"You broke all three of my octopus hearts when I saw you come in that chapel without my permission."
Oh, God. I look up at him, blinking. Then I reach up and place both my hands on his face. Because this admission cost him dearly.
He just admitted to being… jealous.
Giovanni Bavga does not dojealous.
I open my mouth to explain, but he kisses me silent. Whispering words past my lips…
"Three hearts that beat beneath the ocean's veil,
Each one I gave to you without consent?—
Three times the pain when loving seems to fail.
Like ink that clouds the water, my intent
Was always to conceal what lies within;
A master of escape, yet still I'm spent.
Your absence left me hollow in my skin,
As if I'd squeezed through spaces far too small,
Where only beaks remain—where we begin.
I cannot fit through cracks in your stone wall
Unless you choose to let me break inside.
Three hearts, three times I love you—that is all."
"Yes, my King," I whisper back. "I love you too. That is all."
23
GIOVANNI
23
When Emmaleen and I break away, we all go back inside. Lorcan stands, smirking at me from across the room.
"What?" I snap. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's just…" He smiles, that infuriatingly knowing Irish grin spreading across his face. "Poetry… out of the mouths of brutes."
