My chest seized, and I lifted a hand and placed it over my heart as I breathed through the pain.
I wanted her gone.
I wanted her out of my life once and for all so I didn’t have to see her, or hear her, or relive how I’d betrayed her every fucking moment.
That darkness swirled around me faster. A darkness I was tired of fighting. Giving in to it, I slid to the floor so I was lying on my side on the cold tile, staring at the baseboards, wishing like hell I could just fade into that wood and feel nothing.
Because, holy hell, anything had to be better than the nightmare I was living.
I wasn’t sure what woke me. I only knew when I pulled my eyes open, it was dark, I was lying on my side in bed, and someone was moving around in my room.
I lifted my head from the pillow and squinted to see through the darkness, only I couldn’t make out shit. “Marco?”
“Nope.” Footsteps sounded at the foot of my bed, then the nightstand light beside me flicked on, blinding me. “Roll to your stomach so I can check those stitches.”
I grimaced, slapped a hand over my eyes, and pressed my face into the pillow. Not because Natalie had told me too, dammit, but because my retinas were burning from her little stunt. “Porca troia.”
“You want to swear at me? Go ahead.” She jerked the sheet from my back. “I really don’t care. Now hold still. These have to come out.”
She placed a hand against my lower spine, and something cold and metal grazed my skin. I sucked in a breath and didn’t move. It wasn’t fear she was going to cut me with the scissors that caused the reaction. It was the warm heat of her palm against my lower spine. A heat that felt way too damn good.
Holy hell, it felt way better than I deserved for it to feel. And just that little bit of skin against skin was making me hard. Harder than I’d been since that kitten had ridden me to release right front of my goddamn wife.
Whatever arousal I’d felt instantly faded, leaving me ice cold inside.
“Does that hurt?”
The scissors paused against my skin. Realizing I must have groaned, I bit down hard on my lip. “No,” I said into my pillow. “Just fucking finish.”
Motherfucker, I wanted this over with. I wanted her out of my room. And dammit, I wanted her to stop touching me even though I loved that she was touching me because I was getting hard all over again.
Every time she moved her hand a fraction of an inch, my dick stiffened a little more, which only made me think about that fucked-up ritual and what I’d done, sending a new wave of nausea spinning in my gut.
“There, that’s the last of it.” She lifted the scissors from my skin.
“Good.” I turned my head just enough so I could draw fresh air, but I left the pillow hanging over my eyes so I didn’t have to look at her. And I fought the urge to shove her away so she couldn’t see what her touch had done to me. “Now go.”
“You need bandages on these.”
“No, I do—”
“Would you stop being such an asshole for two seconds?”
My mouth snapped closed, and against the mattress, I grew still.
“I’m busting my butt trying to help you, you know.” She slapped several bandages against my lower spine, harder than I’m sure she intended but not even close to what I deserved. Pain shot across my back, making me grimace, but I held it in so she couldn’t see. “The least you could do is be the slightest bit grateful.”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” I snapped.
“No, of course you didn’t. Because when push comes to shove, you revert right back to the dick you were when we first met.” She smacked the last bandage on my back even harder than the others and pushed her weight off the bed. “Doing everything on your own without any regard for anyone else’s feelings. If it weren’t for me and Marco and Felicity, you’d probably be dead right now from sepsis.”
The shaky hold on my temper blew free, and I shot to my feet before I knew what I was doing. “I didn’t ask for anyone’s help.”
“Who the hell cares?” She stopped at the foot of the bed and whipped back to face me, her eyes so wide, I could see the whites around her pretty blue irises. “We’re family, or did you forget that? When one of us is hurt or sick or in pain, we help each other. That’s what families do.”
“Not my fucking family. My family inflicts the pain. You saw it with your own damn eyes.”
Her features softened, and she stepped toward me. “Luc—”
“Porca puttana.” Why the hell had I brought that up? I whipped away from her, my hands and body and everything shaking with a fury I could only just contain. “Get out of my room.”
“No,” she said softly. Close. Too close at my back. “I’ve left every time you’ve barked at me before, but I’m not leaving anymore. You need me.”
“I don’t fucking need you,” I scoffed.
“Yes, you do.” She moved even closer, until I could feel her heat spreading over the fresh scars on my bare skin, making me tingle with excitement. Making my skin crawl and itch with disgust at the same damn time, the two reactions scrambling the wires in my brain. “You need me the same way I need you.”
“Dio dannato. I don’t need anyone.” Unable to control the firestorm inside me, I swept my arm across the nightstand, sending the lamp flying. It hit the ground with a thunk and shattered the bulb, dousing the room in darkness. “Get the hell out!”
My body vibrated. My hands shook. Breathing fast and shallow, I listened for the sound of her retreating footsteps, for the door slamming shut in her wake, but the sounds never met my ears. And as I twisted to confirm that she’d gone, I realized she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even flinched. She was still standing mere inches from me by the side of the bed, staring up at me in the darkness with every bit of challenge and independence she’d ever had before.
“No,” she whispered. “I said I’m not leaving you, and I’m not. You’re suffering.”
She stepped into me, and I froze the second her fingertips brushed my bare stomach. Because holy fuck, her touch made me sick to my stomach. But it also made me hotter than hell in a way I didn’t understand.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep. I wanted to shove her hands away and tell her never to touch me again. At the same time, though, I wanted to beg for her to hold me forever. The conflicting thoughts were making me crazy, hot, fucking hard.
She moved even closer, until—oh mother of God—I felt her lips graze my chest.
My legs grew weak. I swayed and backed up until I hit the nightstand.
“You need me,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss right above my left pec, right over my heart. “And I need you just as much. It’s been so long, Luc. I’m suffering too. I need to be close to you.”
She kissed me again, but this time, instead of the hot burst of arousal that stiffened my dick, all I felt was nausea. A swirling, rolling, growing nausea, because her meaning had just hit me like a two-by-four straight to the forehead.
Sex. She wants sex.
My breaths quickened as her lips skimmed my throat and her fingertips trailed up my chest and around my nape.
With me.