Page 185 of Salvatore

If I were honorable, I’d tell her to leave. I’d demand Lorenzo’s blessing, set her up in some quiet corner of the world, and never look back.

Instead, each day is spent plotting a way to keep her by my side, where I could maintain some semblance of control. And with every new morning, I know I’m one step closer to not giving her a choice in her future.

Every fiber of my being—stitched together by monsters and hardened by violence—yearns to bend her to my will. To carve my mark upon her soul. To make her as addicted to me as I am to her.

I cook for her in Catarina’s absence. Help her bathe and tend to her wounds once Flores deems she no longer needs to be monitored.

I devour each moment she allows me in her presence—every sassy reply she volleys, every contented sigh she doesn’t mean togive. And with every passing day, I pretend I don’t feel this thing between us growing, tightening, sinking its claws in. Because I know damn well she doesn’t want to slip any further under my spell than I am under hers.

Problem is, it’s too late.

For both of us.

There’s no going back from this.

I’m tied to her. Bound. Shackled. Consumed. In ways that would ruin lesser men.

And once she finally realizes, it’ll be too damn late for me to allow her to run.

38

IVY

It’s been morethan a week alone with Salvatore in this big house, battling a war between common sense and desire that has tilted dangerously out of favor.

Every time I’m alone, my thoughts keep drifting back to his demand—have my child—and how the dictate was reminiscent of a childhood full of authoritarianism. So why did it make me feel warm and fuzzy instead of outraged and homicidal?

I had to pretend I was angry just to bide time to figure out why my emotions were in simp territory when they should’ve been firmly affixed behind hostile lines. And here I am, still tangled up in confusion and a messy web of misplaced affection nine days later, unable to figure out why.

His early morning swims don’t help—the way the rising sun glistens over his muscled arms and back as he cuts through the water with infuriating ease.

I’m sure he knows I watch him through the kitchen window. Why else would he make the climb from the pool so painfully deliberate? The slow, powerful ascent up the steps, his boxer briefs clinging to a package so outrageously proportioned it feels like a personal attack. And the way he’s nurtured me back tosome semblance of health after being stabbed only makes it harder to distance myself from the nauseating infatuation.

I curse a blue streak as I retreat from the kitchen counter, grab a glass of juice from the fridge, then sit at the dining table in silence as he enters the house.

“You’re awake.” He secures a towel around his waist, his hair dripping, muscles taut and flexing with each step as if daring me to keep my thoughts in check.

“Your observational skills know no bounds, Sally.”

He gives me a wicked look, a visual warning to behave. “It sounds like someone needs to go back to bed. I suggest you quit the attitude before I force the issue.” He walks for the hall and out of view.

I ditch my glass of juice and follow, definitely not because I plan on listening to his off-base suggestion, but merely because I’m growing bored of being in this house, and the man-candy show is free entertainment.

I approach his bedroom a few feet behind him, my body moving with more ease than it did a week ago. My bandages have been removed, leaving behind scars that mark the journey of my recovery, still fresh but no longer raw.

I stop in his doorway, my heart, soul, and parts farther south tightening with a near-painful urgency as he drops his towel and peels off his soaked boxer briefs.

I should be used to seeing him naked by now, yet my body refuses to accept it as routine. Butterflies still erupt in my stomach. My pulse continues to trip over itself.

He has no business being as devastatingly fine as he is, and I’m running out of ways to pretend I’m not completely attached—to his body, yes, but more dangerously, to the man who comes with it.

We’ve gotten good at pretending life doesn’t exist outside the walls of Lorenzo’s property. That the threats and complicationsaren’t actually as dire as what waits for us when we’re finally allowed to leave.

But it’s time to stop living in a fairy tale. I have to make a move.

“I can’t stay here forever.” I was tempted to saywe. To pair us as one, like a dimwitted damsel. “Has Lorenzo answered any of your calls?”

“He has.” He glides a restrained hand over a part of his anatomy that’s equally as hard as the rest of his muscled body. “Shower with me while we talk.”

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