Twisted Loyalties (The Camorra Chronicles 1)

“I’m not teasing you,” I said quietly. I touched his chest, feeling his heat even through the shirt. His muscles flexed under my touch, but he didn’t soften, not body or expression. He regarded me like a snake a mouse. I sighed, not wanting to explain my reaction to him because I couldn’t tell him about my mother, not without him looking at me differently. “I want to touch you,” I said, and it was true. “But I won’t put my mouth on you. I think it’s degrading. My mother always had bad taste in men and they all liked to put her down like that.”

His eyes were too assertive, like he knew more than I was willing to share. I looked away, worried he knew exactly what I was hiding, not only about my mother.

“I have no intention of degrading you,” he said. I tentatively reached for him, my fingers brushing over his silkiness. He hardened immediately all the way, but no sound left his lips as he watched me. For once I didn’t want to know what was going on in his head, too frightened that it would tell me more about myself than about him. His hand closed around my fingers, showing me exactly how he liked to be touched.

My own breathing quickened as I stroked him harder and faster. He never took his eyes off me, and there it was again that flicker of emotion. I tightened my grip even more, made him growl low in his throat, and replaced the tender emotion in his eyes with lust. Better. Safer. I could break the moment too. Had to break it, if I wanted to come out of this unscathed.

Fabiano tensed, control finally slipping, and he came with a shudder. The revulsion I expected never came. I’d wanted to touch him, and it felt amazing to watch him like that. I wanted more of it, and more than that.

When our breathing finally calmed, Fabiano took the wool blanket from the ground and wrapped it around us, his body warm against mine. I leaned back, closing my eyes. Despite the beauty of the city below, nothing could compare to the feel of our bodies pressed against each other. I’d been alone for so long. Perhaps all my life. And now there was someone whose closeness gave me a sense of belonging I hadn’t thought possible. Fabiano was a danger to anyone around, but to my heart he posed the greatest danger of all.

Chapter Fourteen

Christmas morning. My father wolfed down the French toast I’d prepared, then got up. “On Christmas one of the biggest races of the year goes down. I need to place my bet.”

Of course he had to. It was always about betting and gambling. About races and fights. How could I expect my father to want to spend Christmas with me? I nodded, swallowing the bitter words that wanted to rise up. He left the kitchen, leaving me alone with the dirty dishes. I waited for him to leave the apartment before I took the folded piece of paper with the number of the rehab center from my backpack and dialed it with my new phone. After two rings, a clip female voice answered. “I’m calling for Melissa Hall, I’m her daughter.” Guilt filled me. This was only the second time I’d tried to call since I was in Las Vegas, but the doctors had told me that it was better to give my mother time to settle in before she was confronted with influences from the outside again. And secretly I’d been relieved to be away from her troubles for a while.

There was silence on the other end except for the click click of someone tipping something into a keyboard. “She left two days ago.”

“Left?” I repeated, my stomach clenching tightly.

“Relapse.” The woman was silent on the other end, waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, she added, “Do you want me to get one of her attending doctors so he can explain the details to you?”

“No,” I said angrily, then hung up. I knew everything. My mother had relapsed again. I wasn’t sure why I had expected anything else from her. And now she was out there alone, without me. Fear jabbed at my insides. This had been her last chance. She’d overdosed twice in the past, and I had been the one to save her, but now I was far away. She couldn’t be on her own. She forgot to eat, and she got sad, too sad, especially after a john treated her like shit. She needed me.

I stared bleakly at the plates in front of me, listened to the deafening silence of the apartment. Tears blurred my vision. I needed to find her before it was too late. I had always been the caretaker in our relationship. My mother was like a child in so many regards. I should have never listened to the doctors. I’d known from the start that my mother was a lost cause. There was only one person I could turn to.