Page 48 of The Ache That Stayed

Her body shook from fury.

“I—” the words didn’t come.

She pointed to my knuckles. “Let me see.”

“It’s nothing,” I muttered.

She pulled my hand toward her. I grunted—but not from pain, from the way she was touching me. She examined the scraped knuckles, the swelling, and all I could do was stare at her face.

The tip of her nose, slightly turned up. Her brown eyes, the perfect shade of coffee. Looking into them always felt like caffeine straight to the bloodstream—sharp, alive, dangerous.

Her plump, parted lips—the ones I wanted swollen beneath my mouth.

She turned my hand over once. Her touch was soft, maddening, grounding and inflaming, all at the same damn time. Every swipe of her fingers felt like slow torture.

I didn’t feel pain—not physical pain anyway.

But I felt everything else.

She tended to it with a sigh of frustration, muttering under her breath about “idiots,” and “testosterone,” and “stupid Sicilian men.”

When she finished, she pressed the bandage down harder than necessary. I hissed. She smirked, then dropped my hand like it burned her.

“You’re impossible,” she muttered, storming off toward her room.

The sound of her door slamming sent a full-body throb through me. And because I’m a fucking idiot, I imagined her stripping out of those work clothes, skin flushed, anger still rolling through her.

I imagined her slipping into those tiny shorts she slept in, nipples tight under that soft tee she always wore.

A low curse escaped me. I rubbed my hand against my face.

“Get it together, Santino.”

When she returned, she was in her fuzzy slippers, wearing exactly what I predicted—little shorts barely covering her ass, and that thin navy tee that clung every time she took a deep breath.

Fuck me sideways.

Dinner was silent. Tense. Every breath between us felt loaded. Like the air itself was charged.

She didn’t look at me. Not even once.

Her thigh brushed mine once under the table, and I forgot how to swallow. After dinner, she disappeared down the hall without looking at me.

And for the first time in years, I didn’t know whether to follow. So I did what I do best.

Stayed where I was.

And let the monster pace.

CHAPTER 13

Roxanne

Sleep refused to come.

I turned onto my side for what felt like the hundredth time, staring at the ceiling while the events of the afternoon replayed on a loop behind my eyes.

The crack of plaster.