Chapter Nine
I WAS GROGGY. My eyes were heavy, and it felt like there was sand in my throat.
My throat, I thought, and that penetrated the strange fog I was in.
I lifted my hand for my throat, expecting it to feel swollen and strange, but it felt the same as it always had. The fog receded a bit. I felt myself come back as if I’d been somewhere far, far away, and I understood.
It was me who was different.
I sat up then and found myself tangled in the sheets of a simple bed that was the only piece of furniture in an otherwise bare room.
But it wasn’t just any room. The walls were paneled, the ceiling frescoed, and the floor gleamed with age and wealth.
I found myself pulling the sheet around me as I got to my feet, making my way gingerly and carefully over to the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows that I realized when I drew closer were doors.
Outside, I saw a ruined garden gleaming in the soft light. I saw lush trees in every direction. A mountain covered in scrub pine, rocks, and wildflowers set into deep, brown earth.
I opened the doors and stepped out onto the balcony and found the air sultry, like an embrace. And when I turned my head, I could see the sea.
Not only the sea. There was a city lying there between more hills, but it was the sea that caught at me. I’d never seen it before, that waiting, wondrous blue. I couldn’t believe that I was near to it now. That I was surrounded by water instead of locked into the land.
I swore I could feel the difference inside me, as if I’d always been meant to find my way to a place by the sea.
I could not hear another human, but that didn’t make it quiet. There was a riot of birds, wheeling and soaring all around. There was the rustle of wind through the trees and bushes, all of it scented of salt and lemon.
I left the tall windows open to let it all in and turned back to the bedroom that felt elegant in its complete simplicity, realizing that I didn’t actually know if Jovi had dressed me at all.
And it turned out I had more feelings—sensations—about the notion of being transported naked, though I wasn’t sure why that made a difference when it was still him doing it.
I lifted my hand and smelled my own skin, certain that he’d washed me. I didn’t smell like any of the products I used at home. I also didn’t smell like him.
Turned out, that made a whole set of new feelings swirl around inside me.
Down at the foot of the bed, I found a set of loose, flowing trousers and a simple T-shirt. I pulled them on, though I wondered about them, too. Where had he gotten them? Had he gone shopping after he’d knocked me out in Prague? Did he carry women’s clothing with him wherever he went?
But something in me knew he did not. The provenance of these clothes might be questionable, but I knew—the way I knew the shape of my own body and the taste of his kiss—that I was the only woman he’d ever thought to dress.
There was nothing like a mirror in this gracefully minimal room, so I smoothed my hands over my hair and had the same moment of trepidation I always did when I beheld a closed door.
I held my breath as I turned the knob. And let it out again when the door opened with a faint squeak, as if to remind me that this was not a grotesque new build like my father’s fortress.
That this was a house steeped in its own grandeur.
I made my way through the hushed, beautiful place, expecting to turn some corner or go down the stair and find the actual living area—filled with cozy keepsakes or even a comfortable sofa or a rug—but I never did.
It was a beautiful house, rambling and magnificent.
It was airy and architecturally stunning, with views of the distant sea from every window, and the city that sprawled between it and me.
But it was only the bones of the place. As if the people who lived here once had moved out a long, long time ago, leaving only the odd antique cupboard and incidental, artistic chair behind.
Walking through these empty rooms didn’t make me muse on minimalism and modern art in the form of everyday objects and spaces, it made me want to cry, as if the house itself ached for its own storied past.
Finally, I found my way to the ground floor and toward more windows that overlooked the garden in the back of the house.
I went toward it, opening up one of the grand doors and finding my way out onto a bisected stair that led down toward the untended, overgrown garden that still showed signs of intense planning sometime long in the past.
It was only when I was halfway down that I realized that Jovi was there.
He was sitting so still, in the shade of the largest tree, that I hadn’t seen him. My gaze had slid right over him like he was a statue.
But once I saw him, it was as if that current of heat snapped back into place between us once more. I was electrified. And I could see that he was, too.
Another thing I knew like the blood in my veins, the breath in my lungs.
I realized once I hit the paving stones that my feet were bare, but I didn’t mind. I crossed the small courtyard that was more acrobatic weeds than elegant stone, then moved my way through the overgrown grass to Jovi’s chair.
Once there, I obeyed the whisper of something like intuition deep inside me, and went to my knees before him.
And it was like something between us…erupted.
The look on his face was not cold. It was not at all remote. The intensity I saw there was almost overwhelming, but I didn’t look away.
And the strangest part of it was, I did not feel the least bit submissive. I felt powerful. I felt whole.
More than that, when Jovi looked at me, I felt entirely seen.
“You are a beautiful terror,” he told me, his voice a low sort of scrape that made my skin seem to tingle in its wake. “What am I to do with you, Rux?”
His hand was on my cheek, and I leaned into it, letting out a sigh as he traced the plumpness of my lower lip and the curve it made.
“Whatever you like,” I said, and I meant it. But I also liked the way it made his eyes go dark and hot. “I thought I made that clear.”
I watched him swallow and it wasn’t lost on me that the fact he was showing me his reactions was monumental. He was showing me everything. He had melted away all the ice and peeled back the stone and what I was seeing was him.
I accepted that as the gift that I knew it was.
Because even if I’d managed to convince myself that a man as widely and rightly feared as Giovanbattista D’Amato had a vast circle of friends and endless intimates to choose from, seeing this house of his was like seeing the deep, unhealed wound inside him.
A beautiful house of empty rooms instead of a home.
He pulled me forward and I lifted my chin as I knelt up taller. Then he took his time examining me. As if looking for signs that something had happened to me, somewhere between Prague and here.
“How long did we travel?” I asked. I did not ask about the details. I thought maybe the bit of fog was a blessing.
“The travel itself was not long. There were certain protocols necessary to leave Czechia without causing comment. But this was easily enough achieved.”
I considered asking him how he’d transported me here. But since I suspected it was in a manner that wouldn’t require a passport even if he’d had mine in hand, I chose not to.
Having an imagination was not always helpful, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to put mine to work on this. Not when what mattered was the fact that I was here, now. That I was out of Prague. That my father had no idea where I was and no control over what I might do next.
When Jovi was done with his extremely thorough examination, he lifted me from the ground and settled me on his lap, my back to his chest. And once again, I had the strangest sensation that I was whole. That this was home. That he was.
I didn’t tell him that, either. I held it as close to me as he was holding me.
I breathed out and let myself…melt into him.
He held me there as the birds called to each other up above us and the sun fell into patterns of light through the tree’s leaves. I could feel his heart beating, as if it was a part of me. I could feel mine doing its best to match his rhythm.
For a few moments it felt as if we were one. The very same person.
My trousers floated over his hard thighs, tugged back and forth by that sea breeze. I could feel his cock against my back, nestled in tight between us. I could feel the heat we made and the warmth of the sun. I could smell the rich, deep green of the tangled garden behind us.
I had never felt like this before. I searched for the right word and when I found it, my heart seemed to stutter.
Content.
Even though, something in me understood that contentment was a mirage. This was Sicily. The men who wanted me dead as a lesson to my father lived here. There was nothing about my presence here that wasn’t poised on the edge of a knife.
I blew out a shaky breath. “This is a beautiful house.” I tried to focus on the sprawling old building that rose up before us and preened in the light without a care for how its cracks showed.
Or how the creeping vines that had spread all over one of its walls looked like they might actually tear it down.
On the one hand, I thought these details made it even more magnificent.
But then I thought about all those rooms I’d wandered through, filled with only light. “Though it looks…lonely, don’t you think?”
I could feel his body tense, if only slightly, below mine.
“This is nothing more than a graveyard,” he replied, shortly. But he didn’t put me off him. He didn’t let go. If anything, I thought he held me a little bit tighter.
I wished that I could see his face when he’d said that. A graveyard. I wondered if he meant that literally, and I was happy that he couldn’t see my expression as I doubted that I was keeping it under control.
But I was certain that if I asked him too many questions, he would tell me even less.