Chapter 20 #2
Her skin is soft, warmer than I expected. I run my thumb along the arch of her foot, watching her pupils dilate at the contact.
“Are you ticklish?” I ask, though I already know the answer from the way her toes curl.
“No,” she lies, biting her lip when I press my thumb harder into the arch.
I begin tracing the pink tip across her toenails. Each stroke is deliberate, precise. I’ve always been good with my hands—whether it’s breaking bones or handling delicate objects. Her foot qualifies as the latter, though the way it makes my blood heat is anything but innocent.
“You’re actually not terrible at this,” she murmurs, watching me work.
I finish her big toe and move to the next, taking my time. When I complete all five, I don’t release her. Instead, I bring her foot to my lips, pressing a kiss to the newly decorated toes. Her breath catches, the sound sharp in the quiet room.
“What are you—”
I run my tongue along the arch of her foot, watching her eyes go wide. When I take her big toe into my mouth, sucking gently, her entire body shivers. I release it with a wet pop, enjoying the way her cheeks flame.
“Do you have a thing for feet?” she asks, voice breathier than before.
I laugh, the sound rumbling deep in my chest. “I’m beginning to think I just have a thing for you.” I meet her gaze directly. “You’re my kink.”
The confession hangs between us, too honest for what we are, for what this is supposed to be. But the wine and the quiet intimacy of her apartment have lowered my defenses. And the way she’s looking at me makes me want her to see me. To know me.
She squirms, not pulling her foot away but shifting against the floor. “That’s… quite a line, Matteo.”
“Not a line,” I correct, dragging my thumb across the ball of her foot. “Just a fact.”
I continue painting her other toenails, taking my time with each one. She watches me, flushed and quiet, her usual torrent of words temporarily dammed. The silence between us isn’t awkward—it’s charged, electric even.
When I finish, I press one last kiss to her instep before releasing her foot. She pulls it back slowly, almost reluctantly, her eyes never leaving mine.
“You’re very good with your hands,” she says, an edge of teasing returning to her voice.
“You have no idea,” I respond, letting my gaze drag slowly up her bare legs to the frayed hem of those sinful shorts.
“I think I do,” she volleys, grinning widely. “From what I remember, you weren’t just good. You were amazing.”
She reaches for the wine bottle, only to find it empty. We’ve killed the second one without noticing, lost in each other and the strange domesticity of the moment.
“High praise,” I rasp.
Raven just grins as she caps the marker and tosses it onto the coffee table, stretching her legs out to admire her newly pink toes.
“Pretty,” she declares, wiggling them in the air.
A switch flips somewhere deep inside me as I watch her, and I realize I want more of this. More of her chaos, her laughter. More… her.
“Let’s get ice cream,” I say suddenly.
She blinks at me, clearly caught off guard by the suggestion. “Now? It’s almost midnight.”
“I know a place that’s open late.” I shrug, trying to make the suggestion seem casual even as my pulse races. “Let’s do something real.”
A slow smile spreads across her face, genuine in a way her usual smirks aren’t. “Ice cream with a Mob boss after midnight,” she muses. “Why the hell not?”
It’s such a small thing—ice cream, for fuck’s sake—but the way she says yes, like she’s accepting so much more than a late-night snack, makes something in my chest crack open.
The night air hits my face as we step outside her building, warm for late May but cooler than the heat we’ve generated inside. Raven reaches for my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Her fingers slide between mine, small, and cool against my palm. The gesture catches me off guard—more intimate than the filthy things we’ve done to each other’s bodies. Hand-holding feels like crossing a line I didn’t know existed.
“I think this is something couples do,” she says with a half-smile, giving my hand a little squeeze.
I look down at our intertwined fingers, surprised by how right it feels. “I wouldn’t know,” I respond, the corner of my mouth lifting. “Never been in one.”
To my surprise, she laughs. “Me neither, Matty.” She squeezes my hand again. “But handholding and stupid nicknames can’t be too far off. All the chick flicks make it practically mandatory.”
“Wait,” I say, my voice low. “You’ve never had a boyfriend?”
She scrunches up her nose. “Not really, no.” Peering up at me, she licks her lips. “Is that weird?”
“It’s fucking perfect,” I decide.
Cleveland at midnight is a different animal than the city in daylight. Softer in some ways, sharper in others. Streetlights cast pools of amber across the sidewalk, and the distant hum of traffic provides a steady backbeat to our footsteps.
Raven walks close beside me, her shoulder occasionally brushing against my arm. “You really know a place that’s open this late?” she asks, glancing up at me.
“Russo-owned,” I explain. “They don’t close.”
She laughs, the sound echoing off brick buildings. “Of course. What good is being the big bad wolf if you can’t get a cone whenever you want?” I lead her around a corner, down a side street lined with darkened storefronts.
The ice cream shop is a small, unassuming place with a neon sign that flickers in the window. When we enter, the lone employee behind the counter straightens immediately, recognition and fear flashing across his face.
“Mr. Russo,” he stammers, wiping his hands on his apron. “What can I get you?”
I nod toward Raven. “Ladies first.”
She steps forward, scanning the flavors on display. “Strawberry,” she decides. “In a waffle cone. Extra sprinkles.”
“Of course she wants pink ice cream,” I mutter, but there’s no heat in it.
She hip-checks me, grinning. “Stay on brand, that’s my motto.”
When it’s my turn, I order mint chocolate-chip in a cone. Simple. Clean. The opposite of the woman beside me, who takes her cone and immediately dives in, her tongue darting out to catch a drip before it can slide down her fingers.
I pay, waving away the employee’s insistence that it’s on the house. Some things should remain normal, even when nothing about this night fits that description.
We step back into the warm night, ice cream in hand, and continue walking with no particular destination. The silence between us is comfortable, punctuated only by the occasional sound of Raven’s appreciative hum as she works her way through her cone.
“Do you ever just walk?” she asks suddenly. “Not going anywhere, just… existing in the world?”
I consider the question. “Not often,” I admit. “I’m usually moving with purpose.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It can be.” I bite the top of my ice cream, letting it melt on my tongue. “But it’s kept me alive so far.” She nods as if this makes perfect sense.
We turn onto a busier street, one of the few that still has activity at this hour. The bar up ahead has just let out a group of people while others party on the sidewalk.
They’re loud with that particular brand of midnight bravado that comes from too many drinks and too few inhibitions.
A pair of men approaches from the opposite direction, their gazes locking on Raven with predatory interest that makes my hand tighten around hers. One whistles, low and appreciative, as we pass.
“Damn, baby, that ass is—”
Before I can even react, the second man reaches out and slaps Raven’s ass, palm connecting with denim with a crack that ignites something primal in my chest.
I release her hand and whirl on the man, movement so fluid it feels like an extension of my breathing. My fist connects with his jaw before he registers I’ve moved, the impact jarring up my arm. The satisfying crunch of bone. The spray of blood as his lip splits against his teeth.
I slam him against the brick wall, forearm across his throat, pressing just enough to restrict his airflow without cutting it off completely. My second punch catches him in the solar plexus, forcing the air from his lungs in a wheezing gasp.
“You touched what’s mine,” I growl, voice dropping to that register that makes even hardened criminals piss themselves.
From the corner of my eye, I catch movement—the first man lunging toward me—but it’s not me he needs to worry about.
Raven drops her ice cream and pulls something from her pocket in one fluid motion. A small knife, the blade catches the amber light as she flicks it open with practiced ease. I guess I should have expected this from the daughter of a knife specialist.
“Back the fuck up,” she hisses, voice gone feral. She points the blade at the man’s crotch, her stance shifting to something predatory, balanced. “Or I start touching you.”
I freeze, momentarily shocked by this new version of her. Gone is the bubbly chaos-bringer, and in her place stands something sharper, wilder. A creature I recognize on a bone-deep level because she mirrors what lives inside me.
The man raises his hands, backing away from her blade. “Crazy bitch,” he spits, but fear dilutes the insult.
I release the one I’ve been holding, letting him crumple to the sidewalk, gasping for air. Blood runs from his split lip, staining his shirt crimson. My knuckles are abraded, smeared with his blood and my own where the skin has torn.
“Never touch a woman without permission,” I tell him, voice deceptively soft. “Especially not my woman.”
“Fuck you,” he coughs out, but there’s no conviction in it. Just the empty bravado of a man who knows he’s beaten.
Still, I kick him, loving the crack of his ribs that sounds before he lets out an inhuman howl. Then I let them scramble away and turn to Raven, who stands with knife still in hand, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.
Her eyes are wide, pupils blown with adrenaline, and there’s a flush on her cheeks that has nothing to do with embarrassment. She’s beautiful like this. Dangerous. Alive.
The realization hits me like a bullet to the chest. I never stood a chance against her. From the moment I saw her across the room, she had me. And it was only cemented when she stole my lighter.
I’m hers.
Raven’s the gasoline to my fire.
I close the distance between us in two strides, not caring about the blood on my hands as I cup her face and crash my mouth to hers. The kiss is violent, desperate—a collision of teeth and tongue and breath.
She responds immediately, knife still clutched in one hand as the other fists in my shirt, pulling me closer.
I taste strawberry ice cream and wine and something uniquely Raven. She bites my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, the copper tang mixing with the sweetness. I growl into her mouth, sliding my hand to the back of her neck and gripping the fine hairs there.
We break apart, panting, foreheads pressed together. Her eyes hold mine, brown meeting gray, both wild with recognition.
“You had a knife this whole time?” I breathe against her lips.
She grins, the expression feral and perfect. “Always.”
What I’m feeling right now isn’t just want or possession or obsession. This is something I’ve never felt before, something I have no defense against.
This is love. Raw and dangerous and absolute.
And as we stand there, breathing each other’s air, bloody-knuckled and wild-eyed under the Cleveland streetlights, I know with bone-deep certainty that I will burn the world to ash before I let her go.