Page 59 of Raziel
I opened the door and stepped out into the night. He followed.
The sand was cold under my bare feet, the air thick with salt. I breathed in. Raziel was on my mind, even as I laughed, pulled my dress over my head, and stood naked in the dark under the moon.
Matteo stopped, his eyes sweeping me in. His breathing sped up, his chest rising and falling fast.
He smiled, slowly. “So…” He spread his hands, teasing. “Where do you want to start?”
I frowned. “What you mean?”
“You told me you’d eat me alive. Where do you want to take your first bite from?”
I threw my head back and laughed.
“I want you to start by getting just as naked as I am.”
He saluted me. He was so corny.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and started removing his shirt. My eyes got stuck on his eight-pack. I bit my lower lip as I watched.
This was turning out to be a more interesting night than I thought it would be.
Chapter Twenty Three- Raziel
The first sliver of sun was bleeding over the horizon, painting the cheap siding of her house in a dirty orange, when I finally saw Matteo’s Maserati pull up. I’d been sitting in the blacked-out Navigator for hours, watching the windows of her unit, my knuckles white on the steering wheel for a few hours.
I watched her as she climbed out of Matteo’s car, barefoot, heels in her hand, hair tangled. She laughed at something he said, then leaned into the open door to whisper back. His smile was easy.
Of all the men in this city, she’d chosen to piss me off with him. Alessia’s pretty-boy cousin. The doctor. The one man who represented a life so clean, so diametrically opposed to my own, it was a personal insult. She’d been out with him for hours.
My fury was a live wire in my chest, sizzling and snapping. I’d told myself it was for the best, to let her go when I saw her climbing into his car. A necessary cut to stop the infection she was becoming in my life. I would have to do things I didn’t want to keep her. To protect her. Alessia was easy. Less complicated.
But watching her laugh as she stumbled from his car, barefoot, her yellow dress wrinkled and her hair wild—letting her go was the last thing on my mind.
She was humming. She liked him.
I was out of the car before I’d made a conscious decision to move, crossing the dew-damp lawn in five long strides. She was fumbling with her keys at the door.
The lock clicked. She pushed the door open, and I was right behind her, shoving it wider and stepping into her space. She gasped, whirling around, a hand flying to her throat. The scent of saltwater, cheap diner coffee, and another man’s cologne hit me like a physical blow.
“Enjoy your date?” My voice was low, a gravelly thing I barely recognized.
Her eyes were wide, shock quickly morphing into defiance. “Raziel. What the hell are you doing here? Get out.”
“This is what you do? You throw a hissy fit?” I took another step forward, forcing her to retreat into the dim living room. “You run straight into the arms of the pretty boy?”
“I’m throwing a hissy fit?” she shot back, her voice rising. “You ignored me. You treated me like a waitress in front of your friends. Like I was nothing.”
The hurt in her words was a thin veneer over a core of pure, hot anger. Good. I wanted her angry. Anger I could work with. I could hold onto my justified anger. Hurt… her hurt would undo me.
“You were acting like a desperate groupie,” I snarled. “What was I supposed to do? Introduce you as my side piece? My little secret?”
“You could have acknowledged I existed!” she yelled, throwing her hands up. The movement made the neckline of her dress slip, and I saw she didn’t have on a bra.
The wire in my chest snapped.
In two steps I had her pinned against the wall, my forearm pressed against her collarbone, not enough to hurt, just enough to hold her there. To make her listen. The wall shook with theforce of it. Her eyes flashed, not with fear, but with a thrilling, terrifying fury.
“Get off of me!”
