Livia
If Mom saw me now, she’d empty an entire Italian dictionary of expletives right onto my head, I think.
I’m sitting in my bathroom with Aedan, on the edge of the tub as he sits on the edge of the toilet seat, dripping blood onto my tiles. I wring the sponge into the tub, wash it with warm water, and then gently scrub at his face. He winces every so often, but he never complains. Soon, the dried blood on his face is gone, leaving only the myriad cuts and bruises, patching over him like Frankenstein’s monster.
Neither of us has said anything since Aedan’s Irish friend dropped us off at my apartment. I just took him in here and starting tending to him as though it was the most natural thing in the world. It’s strange, stranger than strange, but I don’t feel self-conscious around him like I do around other men. All my life, my sheltered upbringing has made me nervous, standoffish, all-too-aware that there’s a wealth of experience out there other women have access to, but which I do not. But now, in this moment at least, I am at ease—or, almost at ease—or…Let’s face it, Livia. You don’t know what you are, do you? Let’s get down to the truth.
I know one thing for sure, though. Despite the blood and the cuts, Aedan looks hot as hell. And I’m thankful to him, as well, since his story was clearly true and he saved Dad’s life.
After I’ve wrung the sponge out the last time and cleared the crimson water down the plughole, I say: “Why didn’t you fight back, Aedan?”
He smiles with bloody, cracked lips. “And kill your dad’s men, after I just saved his life? Nah, and anyway, in this life you take beatings every now and then. It’s no big thing.”
“It was horrible,” I whisper, wondering if I’m saying too much, revealing too much about myself. He can’t know I give a damn, I think. He can’t know I care! “They just went at you.”
He looks me in the eyes and I wonder what it’d be like to have him look me in the eyes as we’re writhing, bouncing, losing ourselves in each other. I wonder what it’d be like to grip those shoulders and look deep into those eyes as he emptied himself inside of me. Stop it. He’s an Irishman; the Irish killed Luca. But now, Aedan saved Dad. Doesn’t that balance the scales? Dammit!
“That’s the life.” He shrugs. “You got any whisky?”
“Um, maybe.”
We go into the living room. Aedan drops onto the couch and leans his head back, clicking his neck from side to side, and rolling his shoulders. I go into the kitchen and find a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“No whisky, I’m afraid,” I say, pouring the wine, all the time wondering why the hell I’ve brought him back, and all the time knowing it’s because of those arms, that belly, his carefree attitude, his hitman capability, and because there’s just something about him I can’t help but be drawn to.
“That’s alright,” he says, sipping his wine. He cocks his head at me, grinning. “This is a seventy five, if I’m not mistaken,” he says, and then winks.
I giggle, can’t help but giggle. He just had the shit kicked out of him and he’s making jokes. “You have no clue, do you?”
“None at all. Does that make a classy lady like you despise me?”
“A little,” I say, blaming the wine for the way my body grows warm at the sight of him, all battered and bruised and looking dangerous and like he needs somewhere to care for him at the same time. “There’s blood in your beard,” I note. “I couldn’t get it out.”
“Not the first time,” he says casually, “and it won’t be the last.”
“Do you really think you could’ve taken them?” I ask. “If there was nothing to hold you back?”
“I have a feeling you want me to say yes,” he replies, lust dancing in his eyes. “I have a feeling you’d get something out of that.”
“Well—don’t,” I snap, not meaning to, but unable to stop myself. My feelings toward Aedan are a pendulum swinging between clit-tingling desire and fist-squeezing repulsion, always between the two, knowing that I should despise him on principal, but unable to stop the attraction in reality.
He shrugs. “Okay.”
“How are you always so relaxed?” I demand. “You never seem to care about anything.”
“Oh, I care,” he says. “Just don’t see the point in crying about it, is all; it’s just a beatin’. I’ve given my fair share, I’ve taken my fair share, and it won’t be the last time, anyway. That’s just the life.”
“I think it’s a front,” I say, and then take a long, hot sip of wine. “I think it’s all just a front and really you’re a scared little boy.”
He flinches, and then looks hard at me. So hard I feel like his hands are on me, like my dreams have become real and he’s touching me, stroking me. His eyes roam down to my legs, bare in my dress, and up to my chest, and then linger on my face. Wherever his eyes settle, a steamy feeling follows, a feeling like I want his cock instead of his gaze. I swallow, refill my wine, and do everything I can not to look him in the eye, lest he see what I’m feeling.
“Maybe it is,” he says. “Maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t tend to spend too long thinking about myself like that, wondering at it. I just get on with it.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “And I don’t trust you. I don’t think I could ever trust you.”
Aedan looks at me silently for a long time. I hold his gaze, but then he just keeps staring and it becomes too much.
“I don’t believe you,” he counters. “You trusted me when I said it was the Mexicans, not me, who shot Bruno, didn’t you? You trusted me enough to send another man to check on it. You trust me enough to have me alone in your apartment. You trusted me enough to help you, drunk, up to your apartment. It seems to me, Livia, you trust me a damn sight more than you want to admit to. Maybe a damn sight more than you can believe.”
“What, are you a psychologist now?” I snap.
“No, not usually. But I find I understand you easier than most women.”
I jump to my feet without meaning to, spilling wine over the rim of the glass onto the floor. Anger, confusion, resentment that this man presumes to know me, resentment because he’s closer to the mark than I’d like—emotions whirl through me. How can this man have such an effect on me? How!
“You don’t know anything about me,” I say, staring daggers down at him. He just looks back up at me calmly, which annoys me even more. “You don’t,” I insist. “We’re strangers, Aedan, complete strangers, and saying you know me is nothing more than a stupid lie.”
“I don’t know you?” He sets his wine down on the table, which means he has to lean past me; his arm brushes my leg. Tingles dance up my thighs at the touch, in between them, up into my panties, spreading over my lips and my clit. I resist the urge to cross my legs around my pussy.
“No,” I say. “You don’t. Not at all. Not one tiny bit. So don’t pretend that you do.”
“So,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward, “you haven’t been dreaming about me, Livia? You haven’t been fantasizing about me since we last met? You haven’t been touching yourself at night, eh?”
“No,” I murmur, but he’s right, damn him. How does he know? Is it that obvious?
He stands up, looming over me, his hard pectorals achingly close to my face, so close all I can think about doing is biting down on them and feeling the muscle between my teeth. Just to bite into his bare skin, see my teeth marks appear, to hear him groan, and then to feel him lift me off my feet and—
And remember Luca, Livia. Remember your twin brother. Remember who you are.
“You’re a horrible liar,” I say, trying to infuse my voice with sincerity, trying to make it believable. He just laughs. Laughs! “I haven’t,” I go on, staring up at him, at his lips, his lips. “I…”
When he leans down, I could step back, I could push him away, I could slap him. I do none of these things. Instead, I lift my arms and wrap them around his shoulders. He presses his lips into mine, hard, passionate, as though he’s been thinking about this moment just as much as I have. I dig my fingernails into his shoulders, pulling on him, desperate for the feel of him, desperate for his tongue…his tongue all over me, deep inside of me.
He moves his hand down my body, grabs my ass, squeezes it hard. The pleasure is immense and immediate. I moan through the kiss and throw my body into his, my breasts squeezing against his muscles, my nipples becoming hard at the feel of his powerful body. I can feel cuts on his lips, but somehow that only makes him more appealing. He’s a tough, mean hitman, he’s a man who knows how to take care of himself. He could’ve taken all of those men, but he didn’t, and he barely even felt what they did to him. Oh. My. God. He’s the hardest man I’ve ever met.
He moves his hand from my ass to my bare leg, grips my thigh, and that’s when the siren returns. I try to force it away, but it blares: Luca! Mom! Luca! Mom! I know where this will lead. His hand will go up and up until he reaches my panties, and then he’ll pull them down and his finger will slip inside of me and…But I want it…But I can’t let that happen…
“Ah!” I snap, pushing him away. He steps back, watching me, face as flushed as mine feels. “I…you have to leave, Aedan.”
My head is spinning far more than it should be with the little wine I’ve drank. I feel like I can’t stand up properly, and then I realize it’s my legs, shaky with lust, trembling with his touch. I take another step back. “You need to leave,” I say, breathing heavily, the desire to launch myself at him, wrap my legs around him, and just fucking ride him almost unbearable. “Leave!” I hiss, scared that if he doesn’t, I’ll do something I might regret. But it’d feel good, so good, and he saved Dad, and he understands you, and he’s tougher and hotter than hell.
“Okay,” Aedan says. “Okay, fine. I’ll leave. But let me say this first, Livia. One day, we’re going to fuck—and it’s going to be the best damn sex either of us has ever had. That’s a promise.”
“Go,” I whisper, voice faint.
“One day, and one day soon, Livia,” he says, and then makes for the door.
“Wait,” I say, but too quietly, less than a whisper, a whisper’s ghost.
And then he’s gone.
“Good,” I mutter under my breath. “That’s a good thing. He can’t be here, anyway. He just can’t. It just isn’t right.”
But even as the words leave my mouth, I don’t believe them.
I lie on the couch, curl my knees up to my chest, and stare at my glass of wine.
I hate him; I want him.