Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“Really?” I shift, pulling back slightly to look up at him. “Like visions?”
“Something like that…” He pulls me right back into his side, as if even a breath of space is too much.
“They’re not straightforward. If I said, ‘Hey, I dreamed this,’ it probably wouldn’t make any sense, because they usually have symbols and things that represent people or situations around me.
But somehow…I don’t know. I just know precisely what they mean. ”
“Do the things you see always happen?”
“Always,” he replies with a nod. “Mamma had them too. She even knew when she would die. Age, date, time.”
“Yikes. Sounds like a torturous gift to have.”
He sighs. “It is.”
This is the beauty of getting to know someone on a personal level. Because I truly didn’t think there was anything I don’t know about this man. Now color me surprised. “Do the premonitions happen once or do they repeat?”
“Recurring. Over and over until they finally come true,” he says. “That’s why I sleep in short bursts. Easier than being tortured for a full eight hours.”
“And that explains your migraines.”
“Probably.” He tugs idly at the little bow strings on the bust of my dress. “Tell me something only a few people know about you.”
So much. “I hate living and fantasize about death a lot.”
A dry chuckle rattles in his chest. “That’s a secret to no one, Delilah.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, there’s nothing else.”
“Sure there isn’t,” he mutters, in that tone that says he’ll believe it when hell freezes over. Then in a softer tone, curious but not unkind, he asks, “Why do you hate living?”
“I…” A jagged breath leaves me, bloated with emotions I normally keep locked inside.
“I don’t like the life I was born into. The normalcy I was denied.
The expectations of me... Never alone, but still lonely.
” The laugh that slips out of me is hollow.
“There’s a lot…a lot to hate about living this life. ”
He rubs my arm, grounding me. “If you could go back in time and choose the life you want, what would it be?”
It takes me mere seconds to think about it.
“I’d be born into a normal, middle-income family.
With multiple siblings—sisters, of course.
I’d go to public school and make out with jocks under the bleachers, make dumb mistakes and worse decisions.
Go to college, play beer pong, skip class, make out with a hot teacher.
Take spring break trips to the tropics with friends and do stupid, drunken shit.
Graduate. Work toward becoming an engineer.
Do something artistic on the side. Just… be a normal girl living a normal life.”
“Normal is overrated.” He traces his thumb along the underside of my bottom lip.
“Average people are given average lives. Extraordinary people are given extraordinary lives. And you, my little liar, are anything but fucking average.” He leans in, close enough that only a thread of air separates our lips. “Breathe on me, beautiful.”
Jesus, I’m a melted puddle.
Parting my lips, I breathe across his.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Who sent you?”
“I came on my own,” I exhale, warmth coating his lips.
“Tell me,” he demands in earnest. “Tell me why.”
For you.
As it tends to do in the most inconvenient of times, his phone rings.
“Maybe I should confiscate your phone,” I grumble.
With a frustrated groan, he gets up and answers, disappearing from the room.
Left alone, aroused and repressed and seriously on edge, I flop back against the couch and prop my feet up. This is one sumptuously comfortable couch. Massive and cloudy, it swallows me whole.
“You have the best couches,” I say when Stefano returns a few minutes later. “Who builds them for you?”
“A guy,” is all he offers.
“Gate-keep much?”
“Black Gold’s going to be overflowing tonight because of the storm, and I’m staying in,” he tells me.
“So those idiots are going to be calling me for everything.” He drops onto the couch beside me, and I wait for him to pull me back into him, but he crosses his arms behind his head instead.
“Need to get in a quick nap. Phone’s on DND for an hour. Wake me up in thirty.”
Feeling bereft of his touch, I ask, “You’re napping here?”
He nods, then jerks his chin toward a built-in compartment on the left. “You’ll find Bluetooth earphones, tablets, and remotes in there. The earphones are already synced to the TV, if you’re a TV person.”
“I’m not.” I lift a brow. “My phone would be better.”
“No.” He studies me for a beat, his hot gaze roaming all over my face. “Thirty minutes.”
With that, he closes his eyes.
And within five minutes, he’s out. Features relaxed, breathing evened out. Just like that.
Only people with a clear conscience, clean hands, no demons to haunt them, no regrets to gnaw at them, no guilt in their blood, should be able to fall asleep this easily.
So how the hell does this menace do it? Just closes his eyes and falls asleep as if he’s never so much as stepped on an ant in his entire life.
Glancing at the wall clock, I take note of the time, then fish out the remotes and earphones from the built-in compartment. Might as well try to find something on this giant, brain-rotting box to keep me occupied.
Although he’s taken my phone, I still have my laptop upstairs in my bag. But I’m way too comfortable here. Next to him.
So, brain-rotting entertainment it is.