Life.
She was alive and she’d never felt it more viscerally as she’d done over the last day. She absorbed the new facts she’d learned about him since the cemetery - that he had a pendant of his sister’s still hanging in his car after twenty years, that he’d gone to her father’s mansion for some reason alone and beat up someone and still made it out to tell the tale, which told her how utterly feared he was. She didn’t know many men, hell any man, who could claim to walk into the enemy’s house alone, have a fistfight, and come out breathing.
A shiver rent her spine, and she closed her eyes as the newest fact lingered - that he was willing to take her with him, away from this place that held nothing for her anymore, away from this hell, testing the wrath of not only her father but Lorenzo Maroni. And that he was certain she would be unharmed. She knew it in her bones she would be unharmed. Because even though he’d always talked about killing her, in hindsight she realized he’d not reacted well to her being harmed - both when she’d come to him after her father let her fall down the stairs, and when he’d shot her in the arm to save her. Or when he’d thought her gone and stroked her beloved car.
Her heart clenched at the memory.
Before she could let herself drown, she heard a soft swoosh as the air in the room changed.
The door opened.
Surprise filled her as some instinct, some deep-rooted voice, told her not to move a muscle or open her eyes lest he left without doing what he came to do. What had he come to do? Watch her sleep, as he had once before? Or to talk, which she didn’t think was plausible quite yet?
She suddenly became acutely aware of her arms exposed out in the air, of her breasts barely concealed by the blankets, of the one bare leg she’d forgotten to cover, bare to the hip. She felt something electric thrum through her body, her arms breaking out into goosebumps, her toes tingling, making heat travel up that exposed leg, her nipples pebbling hard, one of them almost peeking out over the covers.
Despite that, she didn’t move, didn’t do a thing to cover herself better, didn’t make a motion to indicate she was anything but sleeping peacefully, her breathing even as she regulated them through sheer will, keeping her body deliberately lax.
She didn’t know if he still stood by the door or if he’d stepped into the room or if he’d come closer to the bed. She didn’t know if he had a better view of her leg or her breast. She didn’t even know if the heavy gaze she felt on herself was real or just a figment of her imagination. What she did know, however, was that he’d watched her sleep once before, for how long, from how far, she didn’t know. She’d been asleep then. This time, she wasn’t. And she wanted to see what he would do if he would reveal something else about himself when he thought no one was watching.
Keeping her inhale soft, her heart thundering in her chest as a clap of thunder sounded outside, Morana kept herself from curling her fingers into her palms, from biting down on her tender lips, from keeping her tremors contained. Her lips felt on fire, the weight of his gaze resting upon them, stroking them with his eyes, opening them in his mind. It could all have been fanciful on her part, but somehow, someway, that same deep-rooted voice told her he was watching her, and that same deep-rooted instinct made her want to arch her back wantonly and let the blankets fall away.
She didn’t.
She let her lips feel the singe of those eyes, felt the hunger deep inside her gut, felt the memory of his mouth right upon hers.
Something feral, fervent invaded her belly.
Her heart slammed, pulse throbbing in her ears, an ache blooming in her core, right between her legs, making her skin prickle, making her feel unduly warm under the covers that she wanted to kick off, sizzling her blood with rapture without him even laying a finger on her.
But she stayed still through it all - through that fire coursing through her body, through the lump on her chest, through the emotions in her heart. She stayed still and relaxed on the outside, with the perfection of the mask she’d donned with ease over the years.
Moments passed.
Long, loaded moments.
Short, sinful moments.
With the ease of sand slipping through the fingers.
With the difficulty of a broken clock.
Moments passed.
With heartbeats.
With breaths.
And the air changed again.
He was there.
She knew, with sudden clarity, she knew - he was right before her.
He stood between her and the window from what she could feel, her body turned towards him, her face breaths away from his thighs. She could feel the nearness of that gaze, the proximity of his heat, the musky scent that wafted off his body, that scent - magnified by his wet clothes - that was all him.
The curve of her stomach trembled, hidden beneath the layers, her heart thumping in the anticipation that hung between them, her palms becoming sweaty as she drew all her strength to keep herself relaxed, to see what he would do.
A part of her was disturbed by how deeply he affected her, over the power he had over her body. The other part, however, reveled and gloried in the sensations, on feeling so alive, in a way she’d never thought herself capable.