Page 132 of When She Falls (The Fallen)
He chuckles, pulling me closer. “Cazzo, you’re cute like this.”
My nails start tracing circles over his taut stomach, and Ras sucks in a low breath. I’m trying to remember what tattoos he has there. I wish I’d looked at him more the night we slept together.
That was last night.
My brows rise with surprise. It feels like a week has passed given how much has happened since. I think I should be scared right about now, but I’m not. The gravity of what we’re doing hasn’t hit yet.
It’s probably the oxy.
I sigh. When Papà realizes I’m gone, he’ll send his men after me and Ras. I don’t see why he wouldn’t. Although it might be tricker for him to organize all that from jail. I wonder if Rafaele will help him. He might prefer to walk away from this entire mess, but there’s a chance he’ll try to find me. No one knows I left with Ras of my own will, and it’s possible they’ll think he forced me.
But Ras has Damiano to try to smooth things over. They must have worked out some kind of plan when Ras talked to him at the hospital.
What will happen with Rafaele’s succession? Without us getting married, the Garzolos won’t accept him as their don, so the deal must be off.
Unless Rafaele tries to marry Cleo instead of me.
I sit up straighter, a burst of panic flashing through my mind. No, Cleo isn’t a virgin, and everybody knows it. She made sure of that. Papà tried to get her to keep her mouth shut, but she told everyone about the pizza-boy fiasco. That cat is out of the bag, so there’s no way Rafaele would even consider her as an option.
I settle back down against Ras. Rafaele will just have to walk away from the deal and leave Papà to fend for himself.
“You okay?” Ras asks, peering down at me.
“Hmm?”
Ras brushes a strand of hair off my face. “You got all tense for a second.”
Should I tell him? We haven’t even landed in Greece, and I’m already worried. “I was just thinking about what’s going to happen back in New York.”
His expression turns pensive, and he drags his fingers over my face, as if trying to commit the angle of my jaw and the swell of my cheeks to memory.
“Do you remember what you wanted that night after I took you to the diner?” he asks.
I nod, the memory of us in the car fresh in my mind. “I wanted to be with you.”
“You wanted to pretend you were someone else.”
A normal twenty-year-old. “Yeah.”
“Let’s pretend again.” He drags his thumb over my bottom lip. “We’re a couple about to go on a vacation to Greece. No one’s going to contact us because we’re going to turn off our phones so that we can enjoy our time away.”
Another fantasy. I smile. I like how this one sounds.
“So we’re dating?” I ask.
One corner of his mouth rises. “Yeah, we’re fucking dating.”
“Exclusive?”
He arches a brow. “Do I seem like someone who shares?”
“I don’t know, you seem like you could get a little wild,” I say with a smile.
He dips his head to give me a deep, searching kiss. When we break apart, I’m breathless.
“Yeah, wild about you,” he murmurs.
Warmth spreads through my chest. “What are our plans for our vacation?”
