Once Burned (Morelli Family 3)

She quickly turns out the lights in the living room, then she comes into the bedroom and climbs in beside me.

“Do you feel okay?” she whispers.

Her concern makes me smile. “Mmhmm.”

“What’s my first assignment?”

Eyes closed, I murmur, “Ask me when I’m sober.”

She laughs lightly. “Okay.”

Opening my eyes, I indicate the powder blue satin thing she’s still scantily clad in. “I like this.”

“Yeah?” she asks, with interest.

“Mmhmm,” I verify, closing them again.

“You should drink more often,” she informs me.

I snort, then I really push my luck, draping my arm across her waist. I open my eyes to watch first, and while she does appear startled, she doesn’t seem displeased.

After a moment, she looks up at me and smiles. “I had a crush on you, you know.”

I did not know, and that almost sobers me. “What? When?”

She blushes adorably, averting her gaze. “When you used to tutor me. I think the authority figure thing…” She doesn’t finish, but she bites her lip, all but explaining the rest.

Elise is attracted to authority.

Go figure.

I ripped her away from Mateo, literally Mister Authority, and I gave her absolutely none, because I didn’t want her to feel oppressed. Because I wanted to be the opposite of him, the opposite of what she’s drawn to, and I wanted her to like it anyway.

“I did everything wrong this week, didn’t I?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says, and it even sounds like she means it. “We’re just adjusting to each other, that’s all. It’s a learning process.” She smiles softly. “That’s kind of our thing, though, isn’t it?”

Trying something new, likely because of the alcohol, I tug her across the bed until she’s snug against me.

She gasps at first, taken off-guard, but then she settles into the embrace and snuggles up against me.

Heaven. I’ve found heaven. It’s real and it exists, in my bed, with Elise in my arms.

Snuggling me.

I can’t help but grin. I tuck her head under my chin so she can’t see it, and she experimentally drapes an arm around my torso, like she’s waiting to see if I’ll allow it.

In the moment, I can’t imagine for the life of me why I wouldn’t.

Chapter Five

Reality greets me with a vengeance the following morning.

My head is pounding. My mouth is dry. Elise remains snuggled up against me, her body warm, her face peaceful. Her soft skin is pressed against the ruined, puckered skin on my side.

“Fuck,” I mutter to myself, carefully lifting her arm and climbing out of her embrace.

As soon as I’m standing, I regret leaving her, but I’ve got shit to do.

Of course I didn’t bother charging my phone last night, so I fish it out of my pocket and grimace at the low battery. I plug it in to charge up a bit while I shower.

Once I’m out, even though I don’t have to anymore, I put on a damn suit. Now that I know Elise likes it, it’s an easy enough concession to make.

I dump out the pot of coffee she made me last night, rinsing it out, but I leave it for her to clean.

Then I take her journals out of the bag, looking between them. Ideally I would’ve liked for her to pick which one was hers and which one was mine, but she’s asleep and something tells me she won’t object to me making the decision for her.

Drawing out the first one I picked out, I grab a pen and jot down today’s assignment at the top of the first page.

“While I’m out today, write about something you want to do someday. Something you want to experience, whether you want to do it with someone or alone, and why.”

I don’t fucking know. I’ll throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

That task complete, I take my phone off charge, sparing Elise a passing glance before heading back to the living room and calling Alec Morelli. He doesn’t answer, so I call Joey.

He picks up. Sounds surprised to hear from me, but I don’t know why. Of course I’m going to call and check in when something like this happens.

“What the hell happened?” I ask him.

“I don’t know, man. Castellanos made a move.”

I don’t understand how any of it happened though—when I left the mansion, Meg was locked in Mateo’s basement and he was locked away in his surveillance room, searching for evidence of her sins. Now they’re going out on the town and he’s proposing?

Joey spends the next few minutes catching me up, explaining how Meg wasn’t guilty and Francesca’s disappeared. I have questions about this, since I had verifiable evidence of Meg’s link to Castellanos, but there’s too much to absorb right now to bother arguing.

“Well, is he home? I wanna stop by and say hi.”

“No, he’s staying at the hospital with her.”

That surprises me. “The hospital?”

We never go to the hospital. Too complicated, leaves you too vulnerable, open to investigation. I’m shocked Mateo, of all people, would go to the hospital.