Bastian
This isn’t what I want. She isn’t what I want. What I should want, at least.
I stand in the shower, the water cold but not cold enough to do anything about my erection. I grip myself and give a punishing tug.
She is my enemy.
Her heart is the heart on the tattoo on my chest. I will crush it. It’s what I know, what I have known for fifteen long years.
But as I stand here jerking my dick, all I can think about is how she looked at me because I am her enemy too. Or I should be. But I see again how she opened for me. How sweet she tasted. How she sounded when she came on my tongue.
The slit of her shaved pussy swims before my closed eyes, and I set one hand on the shower wall. My dick grows harder in my fist, and when I come, it’s her eyes I see. Her gasps I hear.
“Fuck!”
I switch the water to ice cold and make myself stand under it. It’s not enough. Jerking myself off doesn’t sate me. And the cold doesn’t touch my brain. Doesn’t do anything to wash the image of her away. I turn off the shower and step out, snatching a towel to dry off as I head to the walk-in closet.
I don’t want this. I never wanted it. When her father died so unexpectedly and we learned of her plan to come to Naples with the body, we knew we’d take her. It was our opportunity. But she wasn’t flesh and blood and human then. She was a Russo. The embodiment of our hate. We needed her to bring down her brother, and if she’d be destroyed in the process, so be it. But having her here, it’s all different.
Maybe I should take my own advice. Fuck her. Get her out of my system. But if I’m honest with myself, what I’m afraid of is that fucking her will have the opposite effect like it has on my brother.
Christ. I’m going around in fucking circles.
I get dressed and comb through my hair, not bothering to shave. Hell, maybe I’ll grow a full beard. I don’t recognize myself these days, anyway. I walk out of my bedroom and down the stairs to the library, where Amadeo is waiting for me.
“You okay?” he asks after looking me over.
I sigh, close the door, and drop onto the couch. “I don’t know. Are you? Are we?”
He gets up and pours us each a whiskey. He hands me one and leans against his desk, watching me.
“Where is she?” I ask when he doesn’t answer.
“Putting Emma down for a nap.” He sips. “Don’t fight it, Bastian.”
I look at him.
“She’s ours. And she wants to be ours. You saw her face. Saw how—”
“She’s a Russo.”
“Get over it.”
“What the fuck does that even mean? How do you get over it? You know what her brother did to Hannah. What her father did to us.”
“That was her brother. Her father. Not her.”
“Do you hear yourself? She’s got your head all turned around.” I swallow my drink and get to my feet. “Exactly what I knew would happen.”
“Bastian—”
“I thought fucking her would relieve you of whatever it is that’s going on in your head, but it’s done the opposite. You’re forming a fucking bond with the enemy, brother. How do you not see it?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?”
I step right up to him. “I won’t lose sight of our goal, even if you will.”
Amadeo sets his drink down and straightens so we’re eye-to-eye. “I have lost sight of nothing. We will get the revenge our family is owed. But she is not the enemy.”