Chapter 49
GIANNA
He didn’t come back to the room until dawn. The storm had passed, leaving behind the scent of wet earth and a chill that clearly said summer was over.
He spent some time caressing my hair and my back, but I pretended to be fast asleep and he didn’t try very hard to wake me. Good. Because I would probably have scratched his eyes out if he tried to kiss me.
My sister might be dying but he keeps me locked up here. Alone.
I have no idea if I’ll ever see the rest of my family again. And he makes love to me in ways that make me forget all that and crave more.
He’s still asleep now and it’s nearly noon.
I know, because I took his phone and snuck it into the bathroom to try and call the hospital.
But all I got from it was the time, because I couldn’t unlock the screen.
His face didn’t work, his fingerprint didn’t either, and whatever code he set is not one I can guess.
I don’t even know when his birthday is. I know next to nothing about him.
How can he expect me to believe he loves me when he tells me nothing. When he kidnapped me. How?
His black-bladed knife is on the nightstand by his bed. He keeps it close at all times, except when he’s with me. Then he just leaves it lying around, as though he has nothing to fear from me.
I could pick it up now and plunge it into his heart. The thought makes me shiver even as my palm itches to grip the handle and do it.
I hate him and I love him. And it’s tearing me apart.
He wakes up with a jerk, his eyes very wide as he sees me standing over him by the bed. I missed my moment. And now the sun is back in his eyes and even the winter chill that’s coming doesn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore.
Damn him and his sunshine eyes.
“Good, you’re awake,” he says and sits up, the duvet sliding down to reveal his chiseled, tattooed chest and arms. A lot of his tattoos feature gravestones and dates, crosses, skulls and skeleton hands.
Names too. But they cover other things too, prettier things, like roses, and palm trees, stars, and the moon.
But only glimpses of all that appear under all the death depicted on his body.
“I want to go see my sister,” I tell him, my voice a little shaky because I had just been thinking of killing him.
“No time,” he says and gets out of bed, picking up his knife and his phone which I’d been returning to the nightstand when he woke up.
He slept in his boxers and his legs and back are covered with yet more crosses and skulls and other images of death and loss. Back when I started falling in love with him, I imagined I’d spend hours deciphering all the pictures adorning his beautiful body. Now I don’t want to see any of them.
“Why?” I ask standing aside so he can pass me.
“Because we’re leaving. You should pack.”
“Going where?” I ask.
“LA.”
To fight the war he’s been talking about. He doesn’t say that, but I already know. The war that will take my family from me for good. I should’ve stabbed him with his knife when I had the chance.
“I don’t want to go.”
He’s by the wardrobe, pulling out one of his suits—steel grey again.
In the life I pictured for us, before he revealed himself to be a monster, I’d be standing by his side, helping him pick out a shirt and tie to go with whatever suit he chose and thinking about what I would wear to complement his outfit.
And here I am, plotting to kill him. I can practically hear my mind tearing at the at the oppositeness of it all.
I hate him and I love him, and it will never stop.
“Can I at least say goodbye to Chiara?” I ask. “And my family?”
He turns to me, something that looks like compassion in his eyes. But it’s immediately swallowed by the darkness that is the true material he’s made of.
“If you don’t make a scene and come quietly, we can call Chiara from the airport,” he says. “As for the rest of your family, you’ll have to wait a little longer. But your dad’s coming with us.”
“To die in your war,” I mutter.
“Everyone dies eventually,” he says.
“I wish you would, so I’d be free.”
The flash of light that shoots from his eyes hits me like lightning. And in the next moment he brings the thunder too, crossing the distance between us in a split second, grabbing the back of my head with one hand while pulling me close with the other.
“You might get your wish soon enough,” he says menacingly. “So we should make the most of the time we still have together.”
Then he kisses me, feeds me that light and sunshine, and no darkness can survive that magic. I forget to hate him. I forget all he’s done to me and only remember the good when he kisses me like this.
And before I know it, the sheets, still warm from his body, are against my naked back and his weight is pressing me into the mattress, his kisses fierce as though he’s making good on his promise to make the most of our time together.
The thought of him dying pierces my heart like the knife I thought about plunging into his.
But even that pain is erased as his kisses intensify still more.
I moan loudly as he enters me, my hips rising to meet him, instead of fighting him off. Instead of rejecting him and all he stands for. Because there’s magic only the two of us can create, and it’s stronger than anything that can and will or has happened in the real world.
A part of my mind knows this as the only truth. The part that always craves his touch, his kisses, his looks full of sunshine. The part that still loves him. Loves him more than I ever did.
The part the hates him is always silent when he makes love to me.
His thrusts are deep, each bringing a stab of pleasure that is at once unbearable and the only thing I’ve ever needed.
I’m moaning and kissing him back, meeting each of his thrusts with my hips, opening for him, pulling him deeper still. My body is showing him how much I need him, how much I want him, showing him all the things I will never speak to him. Ever.
His thrusts get wilder, fiercer, more urgent, bringing me to the brink of an all-consuming orgasm—a scorching light that will take the rest of my reason and make us one. I fight it. But there’s no fighting it.
One more thrust and I’m done, unravelling for him, the pleasure all there is, the magic we’ve created all I need. No hate. No regret. No death.
Only love and light and the kind of bliss I couldn’t ever imagine. The kind of magic that has to be felt to be believed.
Too bad it will fade like it always does, and I will hate him again. Hate him more than before, because he made me love him for those few brief moments.