My mind was in a million places as I made my way up to the check-out forty minutes later, my cart only half full because I never wanted to buy enough to get through a full week.
I needed that second shopping trip out. It was the only thing keeping me feeling halfway sane.
After I checked out with my bags, I lost sight of the Brio guy.
I didn’t even feel his gaze on me like I had before.
It was irrational, but there was a sort of sinking feeling inside at that realization.
How freaking pathetic was it that I was upset about a strange guy not stalking me?
It just went to show just how isolated I had become, how few people I interacted with on a daily basis.
A sort of sadness overcame me as I made my way through the lobby, offering the daytime doorman a small smile, then making my way toward the elevator.
I hadn’t really been paying attention.
Until the hand shot out just as the doors were about to slide closed.
For a panicked second, I thought maybe it was my husband.
I forced that thought away immediately when I didn’t see a watch, ring, or bracelet.
Just a hand covered in scars.
A hand I’d seen touching things back at the market.
Even as I thought that, the doors pushed open, and there he was. With a look in his eyes that I couldn’t decipher.
Not until the doors slid closed behind him, and he turned to hit the stop button.
“What are you—“ I started, but then he was stalking toward me.
His hands moved out, framing my face, and sealing his lips over mine.
I don’t know if it was the shock of it or what, but the bags fell from my hands to the floor, and those same hands rose, grabbing his arms.
To push him away, surely.
But no.
They were holding on.
I hadn’t felt anything resembling desire in so long.
My pulse quickened and my chest tightened, the electrical current that went from his lips to my core.
God.
God.
It felt so good.
His hands slid back, sifting into my hair at the nape of my neck, fingertips massaging my scalp as his lips deepened the kiss, his lips demanding more from me.
And I gave.
Freely.
With everything I had.
My hands slid up, sliding over his chest, then shoulders, to finally wrap around his neck, crushing my chest to his.
His hands kept moving across my scalp, sending little surges of pleasure through my system, making a little shiver move through me at the intensity of the sensation.
Brio’s lips broke from mine, trailing down my cheek, then jaw, my neck, nuzzling in for a moment before moving back up again as his hands continued to muss my hair in the most intoxicating way.
Pleasure pinged off of every nerve ending, leaving me feeling like I was in another world, like I was floating.
His lips claimed mine once again as his thumbs pressed in at the bottom of my skull, both moving inward, then down my neck, before moving back upward again, pressing in, relieving tension I had been holding so long I hardly even realized it anymore.
I’d been touched with kind hands before, of course. But never quite like this. Not so passionately.
Somehow, Brio’s lips and chaste hands felt more intimate than sex ever had.
Then, almost like it never happened, it was over, he was hitting the floor button, the doors were opening, and he was gone.
Leaving me to slowly come back down to solid ground.
And never had anything felt quite as disappointing as that did.
CHAPTER SIX
Brio
Eren Polat had to die.
I could still feel Ezmeray’s lips on mine as I was walking down the street, knowing I needed to head home, but finding myself heading uptown instead.
Uptown because that was where Eren’s meeting was taking place.
Likely figuring out more ways to fuck my Family over.
But that wasn’t why he had to die. I mean, maybe Lorenzo would have sent down that order eventually anyway. Especially if he was as delusional as his “wife” seemed to think he was.
No.
He had to die because of her.
Because he had no right to put his hands on her.
Not in anger.
Not even in kindness.
No.
He was never going to get to touch her again. Period.
Was that logical?
No.
But no one had ever accused me of being an overly logical person anyway, so I didn’t really give it too much thought as I hopped on the subway and made my way toward the meeting I’d checked in on before heading back down to hit the grocery store with Ezmeray.
There would be repercussions.
It was going to come out eventually that I had been the one to take the fucker out. But that was a problem for the future.
And it damn sure didn’t change the fact that the bastard had to die.
The jackass made my life a little easier, too, by constantly taking a town car everywhere.