We didn’t speak for a moment as I lay next to her. Instead, the smell of sex and our breathing was the only thing to fill the room.
“What do you want from me, Liam?”
I wasn’t sure how to say it without . . . without sounding like a pansy. But I knew if I lied she would know, and the last thing our relationship could handle was a lie, whether it was big or small.
“I want you to love me,” I said softly. “But if not, then I want it to be the closest thing to you loving me. I want your loyalty. I want your honesty. I want you by my side and no one else’s. I want your body. I want your mind. I want to know your hopes and dreams so I could one day make them reality.”
I paused, knowing the sicker, inner-darkness part of me was about to speak. But that was who I was, and I wanted her to know it. I hadn’t even realized I wanted it until now.
“I want you to be willing to kill for me. I want you to be the same killer I am and not flinch away from the blood. I want you to revel in the blood alongside me. I want you to help me take down every fucker who stands in the way of a Callahan.”
She was silent, and so was I as we lay there.
“The second part of that I can do with ease,” she finally replied. “The first, the love. I haven’t loved anything in a long time. I cared for Orlando deeply, but we were never close. I spent most of my life training. He was working. I wouldn’t know where to start with love.”
It wasn’t a no. It was just a how, and I would have to show her. I took her hand, kissing it before sitting up.
“We will start with getting to know each other,” I replied, loving how she looked in my bed . . . our bed.
“Know each other?”
“Like what the fuck is your favorite color, and other not important, but important things like that.”
“It’s teal. I do not know why, but it’s teal.”
Smiling, I got up, naked as the day I was born, and grabbed the plate of food, the wine, and the files, and placed them before us on the bed.
She picked up the wine and smirked. “You know my favorite wine.”
“I do,” I replied, uncorking it and not telling her how I knew. She didn’t need a cup and drank straight from the bottle before handing it to me. I drank as well, laughing in my mind at how far I had come. Had it been any other female, I would have seen them as less of a woman. But with Mel, it only made her sexier to me. Everything she did made her sexier.
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked, taking a bite of sandwich.
“I don’t have one.”
She shook her head at me.
“Favorite movie?” I asked her.
“Shawshank Redemption,” she said.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. What’s yours then?” she asked.
“Goodfellas,” I said, winking and causing her to roll her pretty brown eyes at me.
“Of course.”
“I’m also a huge superhero nerd.”
She looked me over before nodding. “I can see that.”
“Shut up,” I said as she laughed. It wasn’t forced, or harsh, but soft like bells chiming in the wind.
She brought her legs in, and I noticed she was still wearing her white heels, which meant a few things. One, I fucked her in her heels and that was fucking hot. Two, she looked fucking sexy sitting on my bed naked with only heels on, and third, she almost always wore white shoes. I would make a note of that for whenever I bought her something, but still.
“Why do you wear white heels all the time? Is it an Italian fashion statement or something?”
She froze for a moment, before her shoulders dropped and her eyes glazed over.
“Orlando and my mother, Aviela, fought often when I was a child. I was young, but even I knew something was wrong. On the outside they put on a show of this happy, well-off couple, but really, my mom was living in a different wing of the house. She even spent most of her time in Italy. Sometimes, after her fights with my father, I wouldn’t see her for weeks. When they were young and fell for each other hard, my father didn’t want to lose her, so he only told her about what he did for a living after they were married.” She frowned, drinking from the bottle again.
“Shit.” There was no way a relationship in our lives could work if we didn’t make it clear who we were from the get go.
“Yep.” She shook her head. “From what I gathered, my mom was a hippie. She hated violence, and like all hippies, she protested. My grandparents wouldn’t let her get a divorce, and so she wore white gloves. Basically, she was telling Orlando every time he saw her that her hands were clean. She told him if he could go a week without killing, she would take them off and he could touch her. But it never happened. My father turned to whores, pretending they were her, and she fell in love with her bodyguard. However, she was pregnant with me, and my father told me that she miscarried once while they were dating, so she didn’t want to risk anything the second time around. They tried to stick it out for my sake, but Orlando finally gave up trying to win her over and they agreed to let me spend holidays with him. It was like that until the plane crash.”
“And so you wear the white shoes . . .”
“Because my hands aren’t clean, but . . .” She half smiled. “When I see them, I think of her and I don’t feel like I never had a mother. I just see a woman with white gloves.”
“That’s . . .”
“Really weird I know. That’s something no one knew about me but Orlando, but you asked.”
I cupped the side of her face. “It is odd, but it makes sense to me. I didn’t realize it was so deep. I wouldn’t have asked.”
“No, you would have most likely looked into it behind my back.” She shook her head. “I’d rather get all the skeletons out now while we are both civil and sexually satisfied.”
I smirked at that. “I’m not sexually satisfied yet.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Relax, tiger. Tell me about you.”
Grabbing the wine, I took a deep breath before knocking back a drink. She went deep into her past and shared something no one alive knew, with the exception being me. She trusted me. I would have to trust her. I just didn’t know how to start.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to, Mel,” I said softly. “I want to, and I will. I haven’t traveled this deep in me for a long time.”
“Is it about your childhood?” she asked, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. “I don’t know anything other than that you were sick once and tormented for it.”
I started slowly. “I was born a twin. Evelyn was on her way to a fundraiser with my brother when one of Vance’s people drove them off the road and into a tree. The driver was able to get Neal out, but Evelyn went into labor and couldn’t move. When the paramedics came and got her she, was already pushing my sister out. But she never cried, or even took a breath, and when they got to the hospital I was stuck. They had to pull, and because of that my shoulder was broken. My heart and lungs weren’t fully developed yet, and I barely even cried. It was more like I was gasping for air. They didn’t think I was going to make it, but I did. However my growth, weight, and speech were stunted, and on top of it I was blessed with clubfeet.”