Page 127 of Arrow

Flexing under his arm, I turned toward him, blankets falling away. He trailed his hand over my shoulders, mapping each ridge of muscle, and every bruise he’d carved into my skin.

I could see it plain as day—the subtle shift in his breathing, the way his pupils dilated, the hunger that never quite left his eyes. It was there when his fingers lingered on the darkest marks, in the slight tightening of his jaw.

Arrow already craved the next escalation, the next risk, to see how far I’d let him go before I snapped and started breaking him in return.

* My little viper

* Devil (Italian)

27

TWENTY-SEVEN

ARROW

She was sprawled across my sheets like sin personified, her bare shoulders tangled in silk, dark hair fanned across the pillow like spilled ink. Moonlight poured through the window, painting her skin in silver and shadow, highlighting the curve of her spine and the soft flutter of her lashes against flushed cheeks.

Harlowe Virelli.

Giovanni Virelli’s daughter. The enemy of my enemy. My fiancée. My ruin.

Lighting a cigarette with shaking fingers, I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her breathe like it was the only thing anchoring me to this world. Each rise and fall of her chest. Each soft exhale. My heartbeat synced with hers like it had the fucking audacity to belong to her now.

She shifted slightly in her sleep, murmuring something I couldn’t make out—something fragile and broken in the way only she could sound when she didn’t know I was listening.

And I felt it again.

That fucking ache in my chest.

Fear.

Not the kind I’d grown up with. The kind that sharpened your instincts and made you reach for a gun before your next breath.

No, this was different.

This was slow and sickening. This was the kind of fear that hollowed you out from the inside. The kind that whispered, “What would you do if you lost her?”

I’ve never been afraid to lose anything. Not money. Not power. Not women. They came and went like smoke—soft bodies and red lips, perfume on my skin that washed away by morning. Never fucked the same girl twice. Never saw the point. Emotion made you weak, and weakness got you killed.

But her?

She was different. She was an overdose I took willingly—a razor blade I held against my own throat just to feel something. She was chaos dressed in lace, and I was addicted to the destruction she brought with her.

With her, it wasn’t sex. It wasn’t power.

It was compulsion. It was need.

I couldn’t breathe unless I knew where she was. Couldn’t think unless I had her close enough to touch. I wanted her with a desperation that bordered on feral. And it fucking terrified me.

Crushing the cigarette in the ashtray, I ran a hand over my face. My skin felt too tight, and my thoughts too loud.

If anything ever happened to her . . . If someone were to lay a hand on her . . .

I would burn the world—rip apart every man who ever looked at her the wrong way. I’d take down her father, my father, every name etched in blood across our empires. I’d destroy kingdoms for her and laugh while they burned.

She stirred again, her lips parting slightly, and I leaned in without meaning to—close enough to kiss her but too reverent to try.

My addiction, my fucking goddess, and my greatest liability, because, for the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to have something to lose.