I run my finger over his hipbone to the scar above it, soft and still slightly pink with freshness. I remember Bianca telling me how recently his sister died. “You were shot,” I say. “You weren’t in any condition to be stopping anyone from anything.”
“But I should have been,” he says. “It wasn’t my brother’s fault. He was her twin, and she chose her boyfriend over him. Over us.” He’s quiet for a minute, staring off. “I told myself she’d be fine. We left her with her boyfriend. We went to this stupid party, and there was a big fight, and my brother started a fire. By the time we went back for Crystal, she was gone.”
“Gone… How?”
“It was in the middle of this storm,” he says. “We looked for her, but by the time we did, it was too late. The river rose and took her boyfriend’s car with both of them in it.”
“Oh my god,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”
“They found the car a couple days later,” he says.
“They were… Stuck in it?” I ask, swallowing hard.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “They never found them. But they found… Evidence… in the back seat that they’d been there that night. I guess too busy fucking to notice the water rising. Part of me thinks… What if she didn’t care that it was? She never thought things through in the long term. She was impulsive and sort of fragile, too. In that moment, she had him, and she didn’t want us interfering. We’d pretty much told her we were going to kill the guy. She probably thought it was the only way not to lose him. If she couldn’t have him, they’d go out together. That’s the sort of thing she’d do. Dramatic. Romantic. Tragic.”
“That’s all very Romeo and Juliet,” I say. “But did you ever think maybe she’s still alive?”
He shakes his head. “We hired private investigators and looked for her for a few months after the cops gave up, but the river goes right to the Mississippi, and we were just a little above Louisiana. I like to think she’s in the ocean somewhere. She loved the ocean when we were kids.”
We’re quiet for a minute, two. Then I hug myself around him. “It wasn’t your fault,” I say again. “And I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe that’s the best way to go. With someone you love.”
“We could have stopped it,” he says. “I could have. I could have convinced my dad to leave him alone. To leave his family alone. I’m sure I could have.”
I shake my head. “If they’re anything like mine, then you couldn’t. Wars between families are bigger than two people.”
“But I should have tried,” he insists. “Instead of trying to keep them apart. Maybe if I’d understood what love is like…”
“I think I understand,” I whisper, my heartbeat picking up speed. “Nothing could keep me from being with you.”
He turns in bed to face me, his hand falling on my waist. “That’s why I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I didn’t want you to fall for me, either. If anything happened to me, at least your heart would be safe.”
“Too late,” I whisper, cupping his cheek and leaning in to kiss him. “I think you stole it, King Dolce.”
He smiles into our kiss. “I think you’re the thief, Eliza Dolce.”
I shiver at the way he says my new name. I was so insistent on keeping my independence, not belonging to him. But when he says my name like that, I know I already belong to him, and not because of any agreement between our families. My heart is his. He’s treated it so carefully, I know he’ll always protect me.
“I love you,” I whisper, pressing my lips to his again.
He pulls back gently, his gaze finding mine, his eyes so deep and dark they seem bottomless. “I love you, too,” he says, his voice thick with emotion.
“Make love to me,” I whisper.
He searches my eyes, then leans in and kisses me. “You’re ready?”
“I want to try,” I say. “You deserve a wife who gives you everything. I want to be that for you. And for me.”
We kiss for a long time, until my lips feel hot and swollen, and my body is tingling all over. We undress each other, and I marvel in his body the way I always do, the ridges and smooth lines of muscle, the dips and points of bone. He runs his hands over me, too, adoring me without touching me in a sexual way. Still, his touch is electrifying as well as reassuring, and pressure aches between my thighs. When he slides his hand down my belly, I tense, though.
He touches me, and I lay frozen, my heart racing in my chest. I tell myself it’s not so bad, that it feels good. It does feel good. I’m wet against his fingers. But my head is screaming for me to get the fuck out, to fly off the bed like I did the last time he made me cum.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmurs, his mouth on my neck, sending chills of desire through me.
Why can’t I just fucking enjoy it like a normal person? I want to scream at myself, my mother, the world. It’s so fucking unfair I want to cry.
He pushes a finger into me, and I let myself breathe, force myself to. I won’t let someone evil define me, won’t let her rob me of this.
It’s my body. My choice. I can reclaim it, take back the experience, replace it with this. With a good man who loves me, and I can feel how much he wants and needs me in every part of his body, in the trembling of his restraint, in the thick, hard ridge of his cock biting into me as he pushes against me, in his rapid breaths, his heart hammering under my fingertips when I touch his chest.