Page 72 of The Mad Don
I close the door softly behind me, and Yana is in the corridor.
She has waited. She is leaning against the wall a few feet from the door with her arms crossed, and she straightens when I come out.
“How is she?”
I nod.
“That’s good,” she murmurs, almost to herself.
I take her hand; she looks back at me and then down at my hand around hers.
“I’ve missed talking to you,” I say.
She looks at me like the words are a trap. Her eyes move over my face, reading it. I pull her gently away from Lucia’s door, around the corner, into the quiet of the next hall where the lamps are low.
I cup her face, and I kiss her the way I have wanted to all day, watching her across the picnic cloth, watching her laugh at my sister’s jokes, watching her hands put the porridge into a bowl. Finally, her mouth under mine and my thumb against her jaw.
She does not resist. I pull back and look at her. Her lips, her eyes, the small line between her brows that has gone soft.
I take her hand again, and she follows.
I lead her down the corridor to my room and open the door and bring her inside. I shut it behind us, and I turn to her and cup her face in both hands.
“It feels like ages,” I say, “since it was just you and me,Lupa.”
Chapter Nineteen
Yana
It feels like ages since it was just you and me, Lupa.
I haven’t seen him properly in days, only glimpses across rooms, brief exchanges in front of others, the constant eyes on us. But I quickly shove the thought of missing him away; there are things I need to tell him about Fabiano’s behavior. I hadn’t gotten the chance to meet him while Fabiano was not around, and I was too busy with Yana to come at night. This was the perfect time. The way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking. I asked Lucia not to say anything to Giovanni until I did. He would overreact if he heard it from her. I wanted the right moment. But right now, with his hands on my face and the lamplight illuminating his features, the words won’t come.
He kisses me again, his mouth moves against mine, and my breath goes with it. I have not let myself admit how much I wanted this — his mouth and nearness. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer. My hands slide down his back, over the lines of muscle, over the faint scars I know by heart now.His tongue meets mine, and I let it, and my pulse throbs in my throat.
He tastes like the wine from the picnic, porridge, and hints of toothpaste. My palms move up under the hem of his shirt and find bare skin. I trace the ridges of his stomach, the curve of his chest, the strength in his shoulders. He moans into my mouth, and the kiss deepens. His hands drag down my sides and slip under my shirt to stroke the bare skin of my waist.
He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine. His breathing is ragged.
“Lupa,” he says roughly, “I want to sleep with you tonight.”
My heart stutters against my ribs. The words feel intimate in a dangerous way. I lean in to kiss him again, chasing the heat of his mouth, but his fingers come up gently against my lips.
“Not that way,” he says. There’s a small smirk on his mouth, but his eyes are soft.
He steps back and pulls his shirt off over his head — the bare chest. The snake appears, watching me, and so do the scars and the muscles I have learned. He reaches for me and draws me toward the bed.
We slip under the blankets together. He arranges them around us and then pulls me into his arms until I am against him, my head on his chest. His skin is warm, and his heartbeat is steady.
This isn’t what I expected, not after the kiss, not after his hands moved over me like that. But his arm bands around my back, and he breathes me in, and a strange quiet settles over me. My body relaxes against him before I can decide whether to let it. This is the second time I’ve rested on his chest like this. And like the first time, it feels safe. It shouldn’t; he is a man with every reason to be my enemy, a man I still don’t understand, but it feels safe anyway.
His fingers move along my spine, tracing nothing in particular. I tilt my head up to look at him.
“Are you okay?” I ask
He smiles, and he kisses the tip of my nose.
I pull away.
