Page 101 of Dagger in the Sea

I ran but my feet were caught in muck. I fought to raise my leg higher but it was stuck. My mouth opened to yell. Nothing came out.

A violin screeched in the distance, shoving at me.

“Do this for me. Do this for me,”Mauro’s voice filled my ears.

“Do this for me. Do this for me,”Luca’s voice took over.

My mother’s cool almost imperceptible smile flickered before me. My arm was too heavy to reach out to her, my limbs pushed through muck. I opened my mouth to speak, but my vocal chords wouldn’t work. I strained, but only a grunt came out. She vanished.

The violin charged ahead. That laughter. Berezin touching Adri.

“Turo—Turo—”

I pushed my eyes open. Adri leaned over me, her hair a curtain around us. My hands were clamped on her arms. My heart pounded like one of those goblet drums.

“A dream. Only a dream,” she said.

I released her. “Sorry.”

All of that inexplicable yearning I’d wrung dry and stuffed down deep inside me since forever had floated up to the surface, taunting me with its screeching as it always had like some loud, evil cartoon character I wanted to throttle. What I’d had to do on Berezin’s boat had agitated the sediment I’d let settle inside me all these years. That dark, foul residue had come up from the bottom. It brewed, it loomed.

I rubbed at my eyes and glanced at my watch. I’d slept for two hours. The breeze was now cooler and damper, the quarter moon still hovering over us, a cut out in the sky. Adri’s cold body was plastered against mine. Her spicy floral scent poked at my senses.

“You’re cold,” I said.

“So are you.”

I embraced her, and she snuggled against my chest. My grip on her tightened, my pulse doing double time.

What the hell is that?

Quickly, I brought her inside to the bed and laid her on it, covering her with the quilt. She took my hand, her eyes holding mine.

And then it occurred to me.

There was only one explanation for my unusual reactions toward this woman. Heart pounding, pulse racing, cock at attention at all times. It wasn’t just some hard attraction, the fierce desire to fuck her and be done with it, or the instinct to protect a young woman who was vulnerable and in danger. With her there were no mazes to figure out, no strategies to come up with, just her and me and—

She reached out and pulled me down on the bed with her and, fitting the quilt over us both, curled her body around mine.

I pressed my lips against her forehead, a swirl of heat filling me. This wasn’t a passing impulse. I knew, because I had many, all the time.

There was only one reason.

Only one.

I was completely in her thrall. How the hell was I ever going to let her go?

My phone vibrated in my pocket, signaling a message. I got it out, flipped it open, my eyes squinting at the bright screen.

Where did you go, Romeo? You better bring Giulietta back if you know what’s good for you - Luca

Luca.

I let out a heavy breath. I didn’t get a message from the jilted lover, but from his brother. Although Luca had given me his guarantee for his uncle’s word, although I had put my life on the line for the good of his business and reputation, I still needed to make nice with that asshole. Running off with his brother’s pseudo-girlfriend wasn’t the greatest idea. Was Adri my Helen of Troy?

The warmth and weight of her sleeping body pressed against mine. I wasn’t bringing her back to that yacht unless she wanted to go. And she didn’t want to go.

Luca Aliberti could go fuck himself.

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