When our meeting was over, I went searching for Sera. I’d gone through the entire upstairs before I began to panic. My heart raced and my hands shook as I rushed down the stairs, nearly running over Lisa in the process, who was heading upstairs with a pile of clean sheets in her arms. “Have you seen Sera?” I practically yelled at her.
“Yes.” She smiled and pointed toward the patio doors. “She’s enjoying the heated pool. I told her I’d get her a towel as soon as I made up the bed in Luca and Veda’s room.”
My head whipped around to the patio doors, and I could see ripples in the water at the end of the pool closest to the house. “I’ll get her towel for her. But thank you.”
“Of course.” With another smile, she continued on her way.
In the laundry room, I opened the cabinet where Luca kept extra pool towels and grabbed one that was large and soft, white with blue stripes. Then I strode across the great room to the patio doors and quietly opened one and slipped outside.
My eyes found her right away, floating at the far end of the pool with her arms crossed beneath her chin on the side of the pool, staring out at the yellows and oranges and pinks of the setting sun that highlighted her pale skin. Her bright pink hair hung down her back, darkened by the water, and her legs kicked with lazy strokes beneath the water. I wished I could watch her all night. But darkness was coming, and the temperature was dropping. “I brought you a towel.”
She gasped and spun around in the water, nearly sinking beneath the surface before she caught herself with one hand on the edge. “Enzo! You scared the hell out of me!”
I set the towel down in a chair and stuffed my hands into the front pockets of my slacks as I strolled over to her. “Are you ready to get out? Lisa will be starting dinner soon.”
“No,” she said. “This water is so warm it’s like a giant bathtub.” She hesitated, then said, “Why don’t you come in with me?”
“I don’t have a bathing suit.”
She looked at me with an expression of complete innocence. “Neither do I.”
My cock swelled at the thought of nothing touching her skin but the warm, silky water, even as anger heated my blood that she may have put on a show for anyone who could’ve been watching. The hypocrisy there didn’t escape me, but at the moment, I didn’t give a fuck. I glanced toward the glass doors, but no one lingered in the great room. “What are you fucking doing? What if someone saw you?”
“All the menfolk were locked away in Luca’s office. The only ones who might’ve seen anything were Veda or Lisa. And they didn’t.”
“What about the soldiers patrolling the grounds?” I ground out.
Her gaze was challenging as she said, “It’s nothing they haven’t seen before.”
“Sera.” There was a strong warning in my tone. I was not in the mood.
She rolled her eyes and shrugged, one smooth, pale shoulder lifting from the water. “I don’t think they can see up here. And if they can, well, they can consider it a bonus.” A naughty grin spread across her face until it grew too wide, pulling the scrapes on her face. She winced, and the smile slipped away.
I lowered myself onto my haunches and pulled off my sunglasses, letting them dangle from my fingers. “Why are you fucking with me?”
“Because I can.” She stared up at me defiantly, but as the seconds ticked by, the fire slowly faded from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling like…my life is out of my control again.”
My anger faded with her confession. This was the last thing that I wanted. But I completely understood where she was coming from.
“Are you regretting what you told me earlier?”
“No,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “If my only other option is going back to Ciro, I’d rather take my chances with you.”
“I’m not sure whether to feel flattered or insulted.”
“Same.”
“Why do you say that?”
Her eyes met mine for a brief second before they danced away, and in the oncoming darkness, I couldn’t read them.
“Sera?”
She gave me a forced smile. “Forget it. I’m getting cold. I think I am going to get out.”
I rose to my feet. “One moment, please.” Taking out my cell, I called in the order for all soldiers to make their way to the front of the house, where no wandering eyes would be able to see what was going on back here. Scanning the lake below, I didn’t see any of our boats in the immediate vicinity, so I walked over and fetched her towel from the chair, leaving my sunglasses in its place, and making sure no one was in the house before I held it open for her.
Sera swam over to the ladder and quickly climbed out and into the waiting towel. I couldn’t keep my eyes from traveling over her lush figure before I wrapped it around her, trapping her arms underneath. Then I pulled her against me, my breath leaving me on a deep sigh once she was safely in my embrace.
I thought she might pull away, but instead, she burrowed into my chest, soaking up my warmth. “Tell me about your family.” Her voice was muffled in my suit jacket.
I immediately tensed. “My family? You’ve met my family. Luca, Veda, and Tristan are my family.”
“Your wife and son,” she clarified. “I’d like to hear about them.”
The liquid heat that had been warming my blood the instant I felt her curves pressed against me froze in my veins. “It’s cold, Sera,” I said stiffly. “We should get inside.”
“I’m not cold when I’m with you,” she murmured. “And I want to stay out here for a while. I feel trapped in that house.”
“It’s only temporary,” I assured her.
“I know.” She sighed against me, and I pressed my lips to the top of her head. “So, tell me about your family.”
Knowing I wouldn’t get her off of the topic until I gave her something, I asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Where did you meet your wife? What was she like? What was your son like?”
“I met Alessandra when I was still in school. She was a year below me.”
“So you were high school sweethearts?”
“No. We didn’t start dating until I saw her again four years later. She started working at a store in our area.” A store I was sent to by Luigi to collect our “fee” in exchange for our protection. “We started planning our wedding just a few months after we started dating, even though both of our families advised against it. But we were young and foolish and thought love would conquer all.”
Sera leaned back to look up at me. “What was she like?”
I let my eyes travel over her perfect face. Not even the scratches from the tree bark could deter from it. “She was nothing at all like you,” I admitted. “Ale wasn’t from our world, and she didn’t understand it, though she tried. At least at first.” I paused, thinking back to when it all began to fall apart. “Over time, she started trying to convince me to leave. To get out. But I couldn’t. Luigi wouldn’t allow it. He needed me to stay with Luca.”
I didn’t tell her that I never actually tried to leave this life. It was the only life I knew. I wouldn’t know how to survive without the family, especially Luca and Tristan. “She became bitter and anxious. Scared to go out. She was convinced Luigi had it out for her.”
“Did he?”
That was a question I still asked myself. Back then, I’d told Alessandra she was being paranoid. That she was letting her imagination run away with her. But now? I honestly didn’t know. But that wasn’t something I needed her to worry about. “No,” I told Sera. “He barely knew her.” Not that that mattered. “But he didn’t trust her because she was an outsider, as he put it.”
I thought she was going to ask me more, like if it was true that I’d killed her, but then she changed the subject. “And what about your son?”
Elliot’s dark curly hair, chubby face, and big, dark eyes flashed in front of my face. He was always a good boy, even when he was a baby. A happy boy. And he loved me. A love I wasn’t sure I deserved. But as soon as he started walking, every time he saw me, he’d run to me and throw his little arms around my neck, even if I just stepped outside to make a call. I could still hear his giggles. And the way he begged me for “one more tickles” when I’d tuck him in at night, while his mother stood in the doorway and smiled.
“I’m sorry,” Sera said, interrupting my memories. “You don’t have to talk about him if it’s too hard.”
Glancing down at her, I was surprised to see tears in her eyes, and I wondered what it was she saw in my own. “He was a good boy,” I said quietly. “Sweet. With dark curls and chubby cheeks.” I watched, fascinated, as one of the tears escaped to run slowly down her cheek. “He was my whole world,” I whispered, letting the pain wash over me. I didn’t allow it to happen often, too afraid I would drown in it and never be able to fight my way up to the surface again.
She squeezed one arm up between us to cup my cheek in her palm, and I gripped it in my own, holding it there and turning my head to kiss the center, then the inside of her wrist, as the agony of losing my only child twisted and churned inside of me, gutting me alive until I lost my breath. The way it always did when I allowed myself to think about him.
“Enzo…”
I heard a similar pain in her voice. But I didn’t want her to hurt. I didn’t want to share this agony with her. Didn’t want anything to dim the sunshine that radiated from her to warm my cold, dead heart. “Don’t,” I ordered. Releasing her hand, I wrapped my fingers in her wet hair and tugged her head back, bringing her lush mouth to mine. She tasted like tea and honey and I moaned, delving my tongue deeper into her sweetness.
Instantly, my cock grew hard. So hard I thought it was going to punch right through my slacks. I welcomed the distraction of her body as she pressed herself against me, needing somewhere to focus the pain before it suffocated me. Needing to release it.
Bending my knees, I wrapped one arm beneath her round ass and lifted her, breaking off the kiss as I looked around frantically for somewhere out of the view of the house. A covered seating area was off to my right where the roof of the house extended out to cover the deck. I took her over there as she clung to my neck and wrapped her legs around my hips.
There were no cushions on the chairs as Texas was heading into the cold season, but I barely felt the chill in the air as I pressed her against the side of the house, careful to keep the thick towel between her and the stone. I felt nothing but the heat of her body warming my cold soul. As soon as we were out of sight, I reached between us and freed my cock from my pants and buried myself inside of her, crying out against her shoulder when her wet pussy gripped me tight.
“Oh, god…Enzo…”
I took her hard and fast, right there against the house, our faces tucked against each other’s shoulders to muffle the sounds we made until I bucked against her, my orgasm hitting me like a fucking earthquake. I emptied myself inside of her, then dropped to my knees, draping one of her legs over my shoulder to open her wide and putting my mouth on her. I could taste my semen and her desire as I found her clit with my tongue and slid two fingers inside of her, curling them until I found the spot that drove her wild.
Within seconds, Sera’s fingers tightened in my hair as her entire body tensed and she came with hard pulses of her inner muscles, drenching my fingers even more, her breathy cries making me hard again.
She moaned as I slowly pulled my fingers out and licked them clean. Then I kissed the inside of her thigh, feeling the abrasions beneath my hand and kissing them, too. I looked up, hoping she could see the apology in my eyes.
She stood over me with parted lips, the towel draping open, revealing her soft belly, full breasts, and hardened nipples that rose and fell with every ragged breath, the expression on her face one I wanted to see every fucking day.
There was so much I wanted to say. But none of it would matter. Not now.
A small gust of cold air blew over us and goosebumps spread across her smooth skin. I immediately stood and pulled the towel closed around her again, then tucked myself back into my pants. “Come on.” Tucking her against my side, I led her into the house. The smell of Italian sausage and tomato sauce hit my nose and made my stomach grumble as we hurried across the great room and up the stairs. Amazingly, we managed to get inside our room with the door closed before anyone saw us.
Grabbing her hand as she tried to walk away, I told her, “I need to tell you something.”
She looked down at my hand gripping hers and then up at me with a questioning look on her face.
“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for being so caught up in my own shit last night that I failed to notice I was hurting you.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “It won’t happen again.”
“Stop apologizing. You didn’t hurt me, Enzo. The tree did.” Though her words were teasing, there was no amusement in her eyes.
But I wouldn’t apologize for taking her in front of my men. She needed to learn that what she had done—running from me the way she had—was not acceptable. I stepped in front of her and pressed my forehead to hers. “I would do anything for you, Serafina. But I cannot allow you to disrespect me in front of my men.”
“I wasn’t disrespecting you. I was saving myself.”
I will save you, I promised silently.
I’ll save us both.
