Page 52 of Blood Orange Christmas
When the second climax comes, it's shared, a mutual cresting where we gasp into each other's mouths, bodies trembling in sync, the connection profound and unhurried. He spills inside me again, softer this time, and I follow with a quiet keen, my walls milking him as warmth spreads through us both. We hold each other through the aftershocks, kisses turning to nuzzles, the world narrowing to this bed, this moment.
Eventually, sleep tugs at the edges, but before it claims us, I trace the bruises on his hand once more, pressing a kiss to each one. "Rest," I whisper, and he nods, pulling the covers over us, his arm a protective band around my waist. The fire is a low amber eye, breathing. He fits a curl behind my ear with those wrecked fingers. “Does anything hurt?” he asks, voice roughened, not from power but from relief.
I shake my head gently. “I’m fine.”
His gaze drops to our hands. “I should’ve been here when you needed me.”
“You’re here now,” I say, thumb sweeping his pulse. “And he’s asleep. Your men are on his door.” I nod at his phone on the table. The screen is dark. “We’re covered. For this minute.”
“For this minute,” he repeats, like he’s filing it under vows. He leans in, rests his forehead to mine. “I keep counting exits when I should be counting blessings.”
“Count both,” I say. “But don’t count me out.”
His mouth curves. “I told you in the kitchen,” he murmurs. “I would burn it all for him. For you.”
Something inside me loosens and braces at the same time. “Then start with the rot under your roof,” I say. “Start with the man who smiles too hard.”
He nods once, like a general accepting a line he should have drawn earlier. “I moved the guards. Doubled the ridge. Switched the wine service to bottles I pulled myself. No one gets near the cellar without Harrison. No one touches your station.”
“My knife kit was open,” I say. “One blade is gone.”
The color drains from his face. At that same moment, footsteps bite the corridor. A knuckle taps once on wood, firm, urgent. Luca’s voice carries through the door. “Dante,” he calls. “The wine is missing.”
21
SERENA
Luca’s voice is still in the door when I stand. Dante doesn’t move at first. He looks at my face like he wants to memorize it before the room changes. The lamp clicks once and the quiet stops feeling like a blanket and starts feeling like a warning.
“Marco,” I say.
He’s already nodding. “First, him.”
We’re moving before the echo of Luca’s knock fades. The corridor air is cooler than the tasting room, all stone and old oaks and the faint metal breath of the house after midnight. Dante’s fingers brush my lower back—steady, present, a checkpoint—and we cross under the saints, their painted hands raised like they’re blessing or scolding us, I can never tell which.
At Marco’s door, the guard straightens. “All quiet,” he reports softly. “Nanny’s inside.”
Dante knocks a knuckle—our code, two short, one long—and we step into dim lamplight and warm milk air. My boy is a small hill under blankets, the comic book open on his chest, the stuffedelephant flat on its back like it fainted after a great adventure. His shoes sit side by side on the floor, laces tucked like a rule followed. The old woman in the chair—Dante’s childhood nanny, hair silver and bun tight as a fist—tilts her head in a nod. I press my palm to Marco’s hair. It’s warm and damp where sleep has done its work. He sighs once, turns his face into the pillow, and goes deeper. I kiss the curl at his nape and feel my ribs give me back a little air.
“We’re good,” I whisper.
Dante kisses two fingers and sets them on the blanket near our son’s ankle. I see it—how much that costs him, how much it gives him. He straightens, face closing back down to the version the house listens to.
“Cellar,” he says quietly.
We’re back out, the door locked behind us, the guard settling like a hinge again. Luca is waiting at the next corner, jacket open, eyes hot and tired. “Inventory ping,” he says. “Dessert vintage. Half a case short.”
“Which dessert?” I ask, heart dropping even though I don’t want to give it that head start.
“Recioto. Our Christmas Eve toast.” His mouth tightens. “Same producer as the vineyard bottle. Same crest. That diagonal R like a scar.”
Barolo for the message. Recioto for the celebration. One house, two faces. Someone had a sense of theater and a calculator for blood.
We move as a unit—Dante a step ahead, Luca on our flank, me keeping pace even though the floor subtly leans here and myshoes prefer kitchens to stone. Harrison peels off a shadow and joins without asking. That’s his magic. Camilla ghosts the other direction, phones in two bags, already pulling logs that will have answers or more questions. The saints watch us pass and say nothing.
The cellar hall breathes cold. An oak door taller than anything living waits at the bottom, iron banded, key plate old enough to remember other hands. My stomach tightens at the sight of the new scars in the jamb. The last time we came here, the lock had been levered like a gentle crime. Tonight, a fresh hasp holds and a camera eye glints above.
Rocco stands there, big as a wall and twice as patient. He holds up the key ring. “Accounting key never left its hook,” he says. “Kitchen duplicate still in the safe. We put a third here after the break-in, only my hand and Harrison’s on it. Nothing on the feed.”
