28. Ariana
28
ARIANA
Dominic is on his knees next to me, his face cast in shadows, the bedside lamp’s light glowing behind him like a halo.
My guardian angel.
Touching me with what feels like the tips of his angel wings. Featherlight teases dance over my wrist as he wraps a dark blue silk tie around my arm, gliding it over my skin, slow and erotic as he knots it, circles it around itself, and again. I have no idea what he’s doing, but I’m mesmerized by his big hands’ rhythmic movement, how he binds one tie together with another and then another, making a length looping around my lower arm.
The little finger on his one hand isn’t playing along, like an errant child always in the way, but he doesn’t seem to notice it. I want to reach for that finger, feel why it’s so wayward. I breathe through the need, knowing this could never be. Unsure why I even want to touch him.
But I know why. He’s twisted me up like no man ever has, like one of those knots, and the urge to rub my thighs together, to still the secret pulse between my legs, washes over me in waves.
Not him.
When he starts to loop the ties around his own arm, I still even more. I had no idea where this was going, no choice but to wait and see, but now… This is so unexpected. He is tethering me to him .
My heart beats slow down, with no anxious little pauses from one thud to the next. My pulse seems to hush where it’s been spiked with adrenaline for days. A river’s rush finally culminating in a calm lake that only doubles the world in size with its mirror-like reflection. From here, I can take my time. Be still. Just breathe.
This man can take all of me, and more. Like a final destination for everything I’ve bottled up, and now that I’ve opened the sluices, taking course in his direction, I don’t know if I can stop.
I close my eyes, trying to block every sensation his touch unleashes in me. Every uncharted desire and want, every emotion I’ve suppressed for years push up to his light. Uninvited and dangerous. Deadly.
I can’t. I can never tell him everything. As it is, my life is hanging on a thin thread of some stupid DNA test. You know what they’ll do to you when they’ve figured you out. Franco’s words when he found me at that sex-slave auction sound like a fire alarm in my head, and it’s a bucket of ice water over my body.
Dominic is Mafia. He will be no different from Franco or any of Randazzo’s ring. Not once he’s figured me out.
The ten thousand euros I stole from Franco got me all the way to Milan and in hiding, but it’s what happened next that I can never talk about. Least of all to Dominic, who seems to have me like a faucet in hand. Just turn, and I spill all my secrets.
I try to regulate my breathing so this war of emotions doesn’t show, unable to stop staring at what he’s doing. Now he’s busy with his own arm and no longer touching mine, I flex my hand to distract myself. He’s left space between the silk and my skin, barely two millimeters but a snug fit that won’t keep me from sleeping. It’s expertly done. The knots are complicated, and there’s no way I can untie them with my dumber left hand without waking him up.
He’s already proven to be a pro at feigning sleep. I bet he’s a light sleeper. If he sleeps at all.
Eventually, he’s done with his side, and with a last firm tug, he closes the gap between us and weaves the end of the tie into a slip knot. Our hands are so close, I just need to stretch my fingers to touch the tips of his. I don’t dare look down to see if this affected him as much as it’s affected me. Whatever I tell my mind to do, my body disobeys. I’m aroused, and his sleep shorts are going to bear the evidence in the morning.
God. I hope he isn’t here when I wake up.
“There,” he says as he finally looks at me again. “Do I tie up something else, or do you only want to play Houdini with this little set-up of mine?”
“Houdini?” I laugh. It cracks the tension in the room, but not the tension trapped in my body. “Next thing, you’re going to tell me you’re a light sleeper.”
“I am. When I don’t take something to help me sleep.”
I blink. “You’ve trouble sleeping?”
I’m not sure why I’m even surprised. After what I’ve heard this after afternoon?—
“Don’t you?” he asks, his eyes searching mine.
When I don’t immediately answer, he leans back to switch off the bedside lamp. I wish he wouldn’t. Ever since the dungeon, I’ve nightmares of being stuck in a dark place, metal clanging, footsteps sounding, and Franco bearing down on me. But he is here, and I’m not alone. I push my face into my pillow and breathe out a deep sigh that only wants to be a scream or a sob. I don’t know which.
With a few slight tugs at my arm, he gets under the duvet and uses his free hand to plump his pillow under his head. I shift, getting comfortable, but my arm is more stretched out than what I’d like. I inch a bit closer to him, knowing this isn’t a good idea.
“What do you need to sleep, Ariana?” he asks softly. “I have a whole drugstore of stuff for you?—”
“No, I… Thank you. After everything Franco fed me—” I break off. I don’t even know what he gave me to numb me enough to get me into the States.
And then, Dominic’s fingers brush against mine, gently sliding between the digits, in the most soothing hold as he strokes a line with his thumb over my index finger. “You’re going to be okay, sweetheart. You’re strong, but I know you’re even stronger than you think.”
For a long while, it’s quiet as I digest his words and succumb to his caress, the quiet unbroken flow of his thumb, up and down, the slight movement of his other fingers as they follow in his thumb’s wake. It’s nothing really, just hands, just fingers, but it touches my soul.
As if I have to answer back, I thread my fingers with his, not getting far as the digits are so much bigger and thicker than mine, the skin harder and callused, and yet, he knows just how to skim over my skin to make goosebumps sparkle and pop right to my core.
As my pinkie traces the line of his own, I feel it. The bump of scar tissue in the middle knuckle. It runs like a ring, with the dark tattoo basically hiding it.
“What happened with this one?” I ask, already knowing I’m not ready for the truth.
“Let’s not talk about that,” he says, an echo to my own words earlier, but he doesn’t retract his hand.
“I shared with you.” Somehow, it wasn’t hard at all. It was like a dam wall bursting, but he doesn’t know this. And he doesn’t need to know more. I’m going to have to regain control over my head and mouth around this man.
“Hmm, you’ve told me some, but not everything.” There’s a smile in his voice, and it’s warm with kindness, as if he’s opening the space for me to just be and let go.
I drop my hand away from his, but we’re tethered so close to each other, his hand still rests against mine. He’ll lulled me into a false sense of security, and I can’t believe I’ve fallen for it.
I’m a fool. A trapped idiot, ruled by hormones that have never given me a day like today.
“I haven’t talked about it to anybody, sweetheart.” He sighs. “So if you want to know what happened to my hand, you’re going to have to earn it.”