I left marks on her hips.
I didn’t warn her.
I didn’t kiss her.
I just wanted. So I took.
Monster.
I’d proven one thing.
I was worthy of the same death sentence that hung over every one of my cousins’ heads.
“Shit!” I slammed my fist into my pillow again and again. Not satisfied, I grabbed my knife and ripped into it. Feathers went flying in a puff of white.
“Sex usually calms you down.” Serena’s voice interrupted my rage-filled tantrum.
I looked up and blinked. She was stunning, always so stunning it hurt to look right at her. “How the hell did you get in?”
“Magic.” She sighed. “Oh, and also, I picked the lock.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I can’t, not right now, Serena. I can’t fight, I don’t want to talk to you, so unless you’re here to suck my dick, leave.”
“Ah, there it is.” Serena’s smile was sad. I needed her to go before I hurt her. Before I destroyed what was left between us with my anger. “The Junior Nicolasi charm. Is this the part where you push me away to make me angry, so you don’t get hurt? Or am I supposed to be into it and just get on my hands and knees? Should I be wearing more clothes or less?” She looked down at her tank and shorts.
I fell back against my bed and groaned. “Why don’t you ever listen?”
“Because I know you.” I could feel her walking toward my bed, and then she was crawling onto it through the mess of white feathers. “And I know that you need me right now, and I don’t care how painful, how terrible, how much—I’m here because that’s what friends do and no matter what happens between us, you have always been and always will be, my best friend.” A tear slid down her cheek and dripped onto my stomach as she waited for me to say something.
A thousand words and sentences filled my head, romantic ones, promises, vows, but all I kept thinking was how damn pretty she was and how I didn’t deserve her would never deserve her. I could imagine only one happy ending to this scenario, to us being together, and it was my own death.
And I knew… it would be worth it.
To have her.
To own her.
To love her.
Even if it meant I had her for a few days, or maybe if we were lucky, I’d get her for a few weeks.
Serena Abandonato was my suicide mission.
And my heart couldn’t help but beat… yes.
Nothing good would come of this, but maybe in the end, at least the bosses would understand that we had to cling to the good, so the bad didn’t destroy us, and she was everything good in my life.
This time. I wasn’t letting go.
This time I’d sign my own death contract.
This time, it would be on my terms.
“Love you.” I squeezed my eyes shut because it hurt to look at her. “For as long as we both shall live.”
And in what felt like a holy moment, Serena Abandonato, my first and only love, bent over and pressed a kiss to my forehead and then moved to her feet. Slowly, she pulled every stitch of clothing off her body until she was naked, and then she whispered, “Take whatever you need because I’ve always, only ever been. Yours.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Serena
It was either the stupidest thing I’d ever done or the bravest. I held my breath when he said he loved me, and then I froze.
I wasn’t sure what he needed.
I wasn’t sure if talking would help.
But something in Junior’s face darkened as his eyes slowly roamed over me, his expression was anything but calm as his hooded gaze locked on my breasts and then drifted lower.
The covers on his bed were pulled back to his hips, revealing such godlike beauty that my chest ached.
Muscles strained around his midsection as he put his hands behind his head and watched, waited, looking ready to pounce.
“Junior?” I took a step toward him, unsure of what he actually wanted me to do now that I was naked in front of him, now that we were doing this… wait, were we doing this?
Confusion must have marred my expression because he finally spoke. “Do you remember your sixteenth birthday?”
Searing heat flooded my face. “Yeah, I cornered you in the hall and asked for my present early.”
His smile was dark, wicked, as he moved to a sitting position and reached out his hand, brushing my right breast with the back of his knuckles, it was so brief and yet I felt an electric current shock me with each touch. “And what did I give you?”
I gulped. My eyes darting to his mouth and then lower as I took in his naked torso and then looked toward his lap.
I squeezed my eyes shut as a shiver wracked my body. “You finally gave me what I’d been begging for.”