Page 52 of Out of Office Nights
A shudder moved through him. ‘Again.’
‘P-please.’
Colour scoured his chiselled cheek bones, the first sign that he too was unravelling. ‘Once more,’ he croaked.
‘Please, Teo.Take me! Fuck me!’
With a primal grunt he drove into her with all the purpose of a possessed man, his mouth swooping that last inch to claim the scream that ripped through her as he gave her everything she craved. The hand around her neck held for another moment, then shot up to grip her still-crossed hands.
Hard chest to soft chest, hips locked in sublime coupling, he made good on his vow and drove every last thought of the past from her head.
The despised churning sensation that had sparked to life with each update of his father’s health grew as Teo stepped out of his residence. It was so much easier losing himself in Sabeen’s arms.
But the last twenty-four hours had been intense, and while she made a stunning picture passed out in his sex-rumpled bed, he wasn’t monstrous enough to interrupt her sleep.
Besides, he suspected his twin would invade his privacy if he ignored one more text. That sibling was waiting for him, silent and watchful as only a deadly ex-special operative could be as he tracked Teo’s approach.
Valenti said nothing as Teo slid into the passenger seat of the Mercedes sports car his brother drove when he was in Cartana, but it didn’t stop his brother from sending him probing looks on the short ride to the main palace.
‘What?’ Teo growled eventually.
‘You brought her here?’
He didn’t bother asking how Valenti knew. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘You usually keep them far away,’ Valenti stated the obvious, setting Teo’s teeth on edge. He wasn’t sure which annoyed him more: having Sabeen lumped in with faceless past liaisons or the truth that he’d brought her here, to the heart of every accusation of his flaws he’d ever faced in his life. ‘You let her into your workshop too?’
He hadn’t yet, but since he was unnerved by the very idea that he wouldn’t mind letting Sabeen into his most sacred place, he kept his gaze pinned on the centuries-old façade of the place that had never truly felt like home.
‘And what if I did?’ His snap trumpeted his fraying control, but he didn’t care.
Valenti’s perusal sliced deeper. ‘You won’t even let me in there. Some would say you’re letting the twin code down,’ hesaid, his voice tinder-dry.
Teo’s breath whistled out of a tight throat. Hell, his whole body was tight. ‘Have you forgotten that she’s my creative director?’
‘Stop wriggling out of it. That place is your sanctum sanctorum. You flip metaphorical tables if anyone so much as looks at the door, never mind approaches it.’
Teo’s teeth set tighter. Valenti’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel for several seconds. ‘You don’t think I know what this is about?’
Teo tensed again but kept his lips sealed.
‘You could’ve set up your workshop anywhere on earth. You threw everyone off the scent by setting up the second-best one in Milan. Because of him.’
Him. Their father.
Something burned at the back of his eyes. He turned his head away, blinked rapidly to disperse the impediment. ‘You have no idea what—’
‘Your soul is here, Teo. Because you want him to see you,’ he said with such solemn conviction, the bottom fell out of Teo’s gut. ‘Did it occur to you that you made it easy for him by pretending not to want what you want?’
His gut clenched hard because hadn’t that already occurred to him? That by assuming the very persona he had, he’d flipped the bird at the very thing he actually wanted? ‘What’s the fun in making things easy? Even absurd things my twin brother purports to think I want?’ The joke fell as flat as the denial, both dying before they’d even been born.
‘If you say so,’ Valenti rasped as they arrived at the palace doors.
‘I do. So drop it.’
Valenti sent him one last, hard look and opened his door. In silence they entered the palace wing that led to their father’s residence.
Azar waited outside the double doors. When Teo reached him, his brother tugged him into a one-armed embrace. A fraction of his turbulent emotions settled. If nothing else, he’d always had his brothers’ unwavering affection.
