Adelina

Cane drove us back to his house a few miles away. He lived fairly close to his brother, no longer than a fifteen-minute drive. Their proximity was obviously not a coincidence. The men talked shit to each other constantly, but underneath those words were their true feelings. They didn’t like being farther apart than necessary, just far enough to have some privacy.

I was glad Cane returned whole, not scarred and injured the way Crow was. But our relationship hadn’t been the same since that dinner we had. He was distant with me. He paid attention to me, kissed me when he wanted, and his eyes were on me most of the time. But now his thoughts were unknown.

We didn’t talk the way we used to.

He brushed off my silence and said it was okay that I didn’t feel the same way.

But I think I hurt him.

I’d never expected him to say those words to me. Cane didn’t seem like the kind of man capable of emotions like that. While he was good, sweet, and wonderful, he said he’d never had a serious woman in his life. All he cared about was money, power, and sex. We were close and shared experiences no one else could possibly understand, but I thought that was the extent of it.

Besides, he was a criminal.

He did business with bad men and lived outside the law. I thought that he possessed a small ounce of compassion for me because he knew I deserved better, that he saved me because he’d become a better man.

I didn’t know it was because he loved me.

We returned to the house and walked inside. Cane opened the fridge, grabbed a few things, and set them on the counter.

“Can I help?” It was the first time we’d spoken to each other in several hours.

He grabbed the cutting board and placed the carrots on top. “Sure. Wash and slice these.”

“Okay.” I ran them under warm water while Cane prepared the beef and onions. He was making beef stew inside one of the big silver pots on his stove.

“I’m hiring a butler this week. I offered Lars a ton of money, but he turned me down.”

“I think it’s because he loves Pearl.” I patted the carrots dry then cut them into thin slices. “Can’t put a price on that.”

His back was to me. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll find someone else. There’re a lot of talented chefs around here.” He placed everything inside then grabbed the carrots I prepared. He tossed those inside too then set the lid on top. “That’ll be ready in a few hours.” He exited the kitchen and entered the living room. “I’m gonna shower.” Before I could catch up to him again, he was gone.

I didn’t like the wall between us.

I didn’t like the way he pushed me away.

We seemed to be going back in time, to when we hardly knew each other.

But I knew him now.

---

We had dinner at the table, but Cane didn’t look at me. His eyes were focused on his food or the view outside the window. It was dark because the sun was gone so there wasn’t much to see, but he preferred to look at the landscape instead of me.

There was no intimacy anymore.

We hadn’t had sex since I returned from Tristan’s because I needed more time. Now I was properly healed. The scars over my heart and behind my eyelids would be there forever, but I didn’t think about them when Cane was with me. I didn’t feel like a victim at all—only a survivor. Maybe if we were together again, we could have that connection I missed. Or maybe he would stay distant anyway. “I feel so bad for Crow. He looks terrible.”

“You should have seen him a few days ago.” Cane opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass. After taking a sniff, he took a drink. His jaw tensed, and his eyes narrowed in repulsion before he set it down again.

“You don’t like red wine?”

“I don’t like wine—period.”

“Then why are you drinking it?”

“Crow and I are going to be partners in his wine business, so I’m going to have to force myself to like it.”

“That’s exciting. When is that going to start?”

“When he’s back on his feet. He’ll need at least a few weeks.”

“Pearl seems like she’s doing well.”

“She’s just happy he’s home and alive. I know he looks bad, but that’s nothing he can’t get over. If she’d let him, he’d probably be moving around the house and going to work.”

“Doesn’t like to sit still?”

“No. Neither of us does.”

“I picked up on that.” I grabbed the bottle and poured myself a glass. I swirled it around before I took a sip. I was expecting something dry and bland based on his reaction, but it was sultry and smooth. “This is good.”

“You have better taste than I do.”

“Wine is an acquired taste. It can be bold and delicious. It’ll take some time to get used to. I know you prefer strong liquor.”

“Crow does too, but he seems to like it.”

“Give it time.”

Cane still hadn’t looked at me. I knew it wasn’t because of my captivity with Tristan. It was because of the divider he placed between us, the barrier that was present day and night.

I didn’t like this. “Cane?”

“Hmm?” He took another bite of food, his eyes down.

I lost my appetite even though I hadn’t eaten much that day. “We need to talk about this…”

“Talk about what?” He raised his head and looked me in the eye—for the first time that evening. His eyes were devoid of emotion, and he seemed indifferent, as if he was really over that awkward conversation we had.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“You’ll need to spell it out for me, sweetheart. I can’t read your mind…as I learned the hard way.”

Sweetheart? Can’t read my mind? “I know things have been different between us because of that dinner we had.” I didn’t need to specify further than that. I was certain we were both on the same page. “I don’t want it to be this way.”

“That makes no sense.” He dropped his fork onto the plate. “Because this is exactly how you want it to be. You don’t love me, and that’s fine. This is how two people act when they don’t love each other. You expect me to kiss the ground you walk on? I already risked my life and my brother’s life to save you. I’ve given you enough, and I’m not giving you any more.” He left the table and abandoned his food. “You can’t have it both ways, Adelina. I’m not some idiot stuck under your thumb.” He stormed out of the kitchen, his rage filling every inch of the room.

“Cane.”

He didn’t stop.

I went after him and caught up to him in the living room. “It’s not like that, Cane.”

“You used me.” He turned around, his thick arms shaking by his sides. “You used me, and you know it.”

“No, I didn’t. You know I would never do something like that.”

He shook his head, his eyes fierce.

“I really care about you—”

“Shut up.”

My eyes widened at the slap he’d just landed with his words.

“I don’t want to hear how much you care about me. I don’t want to hear you call me your friend. It’s insulting. Anything you say that doesn’t match what I say is just annoying. So just don’t say anything at all.” He looked at me with the same glare he showed Tristan. It seemed like he wanted to wrap his large hands around my neck and strangle me until I was no longer on this earth.

“I don’t want it to be this way.”

“Then don’t talk about it. Problem solved.”

“We need to talk about it. It obviously bothers you—”

“I’m fine, Adelina. You meant nothing to me once upon a time. You’ll mean nothing to me again.”

---

Cane ignored me for the next few days.

We slept in the same bed the way we did before, but that was because I refused to sleep anywhere else. I’d be lying if I said I was completely okay after what happened, and sleeping next to Cane made me feel safe. Tristan was dead, and there was no one out there to get me, but listening to him breathe as I fell asleep was the most comforting thing in the world.

I spent my time watching TV and reading. He spent his time working out, running errands, and maintaining the yard outside. He interviewed a few people for the butler position—all men.

One afternoon, he grabbed his wallet and keys and prepared to leave.

“Where are you going?”

He gave me a dark look that told me I shouldn’t have asked.

“If you’re going to see Crow, I’d like to come.”

After a long pause, he nodded. “Then let’s go.”

We got into the car together and drove across the fields to his brother’s house. Instead of letting the silence linger in the car, Cane turned on the radio and had it at a volume louder than necessary, just to make sure I understood he had no interest in speaking to me.

Message received.

We arrived at the house, and Lars greeted us. He wasn’t as friendly to Cane as he was to Pearl and me. I wasn’t sure what caused the slight tension between them, but I knew Cane wouldn’t tell me if I asked—not anymore.

Pearl came downstairs and greeted us in the entryway. “Here to check on your brother?” Pearl hugged Cane hard before she stepped back.

“Yeah,” Cane answered. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s getting better every single day.” She hugged me next. “He’s been moody staying in bed constantly, and his sourness is aggravating sometimes.”

“Maybe a blow job wouldn’t hurt,” Cane advised with a smile.

“I’m not gonna tell Crow you said that because he’d come down here and kick your ass.” She placed her hands on her hips but spoke with a smile. “But he’s been getting plenty of those, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Then you must be doing it wrong because he wouldn’t be so pissed if you were doing it right,” Cane teased.

Pearl smacked him on the arm. “Maybe I will tell him.”

“He’s looking for an excuse to punch me anyway.” Cane made his way to the stairs and went up to the third floor where Crow’s bedroom was located.

Pearl turned back to me, wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt. She didn’t seem pregnant at all, but in a few months, her belly would finally start to show. “You’re welcome to go up and say hi as well. But I’m sure the men want to speak alone for a bit. They tend to do that…be secretive.”

“Yeah, I picked up on that.”

“You want to come outside with me and help me with the garden? The flowers that were destroyed had to be replaced because they couldn’t recover from the tires and glass.”

“Yeah, sure.”

We went outside together, pulled on some gloves, and dug into the earth.

“Crow is doing well?” I asked.

“Yeah. The doctor came by to check on him, and he said Crow’s in great shape. He just needs to be more patient and let everything heal. His leg seems to be better, but I want him to rest in bed a little longer.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I need him to heal correctly, because when I’m seven months into my pregnancy, I’m gonna need a strong man to help me out.” When she talked about the baby, she possessed an undeniable glow. Her smile was infectious, and joy twinkled in her eyes like Christmas lights.

“You’re excited, huh?”

“I wasn’t ready to have a baby immediately, but now that it’s coming, it feels right.”

“How many do you want to have?”

“Crow thinks we’re going to have two, but we’re going to have four.”

I chuckled. “He’s in for a surprise.”

“Once the first two arrive, he’ll realize we need more.”

“You’re probably right.”

She dug the dirt out of the hole in the earth and set it into the pail at our side. “How are you doing, Adelina? Everything alright?”

“I know the trauma is supposed to hit me now that it’s over, but I’m just so relieved to be free. Right now, I feel good. I feel lucky. The only thing that really hurts is Lizzie. I wish she were here with me now…”

“I’m sorry, Adelina. I wish we could have saved your friend.”

“Me too. But Cane told me she would be happy that I escaped. I know he’s right…”

“He is right. When I was free from Bones and in Crow’s captivity, I never had a breakdown. I never had that moment where everything came crashing down. I think being with Crow was therapy for me. He told me I wasn’t a victim, but a survivor. He said he never saw me as a woman who was raped. He never thought about any man before him because he erased them. I guess he gave me a clean start…wouldn’t let me feel sorry for myself.”

Cane did the same thing to me.

“I know they’ve both been through a lot, and that’s made them into the strong men they are today. I guess they expect us to be the same way.”

“Not a bad way to live.” I could sit around and feel sorry for myself, or I could be grateful I got to feel the sunlight on my face again.

Pearl grabbed the small rosebush and placed it in the ground where the dead plant had been before. She used her hands to compact the dirt into place, not pushing down too hard so water could still drip through. “Cane mentioned your conversation…”

I was surprised he’d told her. It seemed like something he might mention to his brother, but not to anyone else.

She smoothed out the surface then turned to me. “He wouldn’t want me to tell you this, but he was pretty hurt by it.”

“I know.”

“I guess he was expecting a different response from you.” She sat back on her knees and looked at me. There wasn’t disappointment or accusation in the look. She wasn’t judgmental like someone else might be. “You had nothing but good things to say about him, so I guess I’m surprised too.”

“Because I think he’s a good man. Of course I have nothing but nice things to say about him.”

“It seemed like more than that.”

“It is more than that,” I whispered. “Cane is important to me. When he went to save Crow, I was worried about him the entire time. He’s the reason I haven’t lost my sanity. Ever since I came into his home, he’s made me feel like a person and not a piece of property. I don’t see him as just a friend because I like being with him. But, love…? I don’t know about that. I’ve never loved a man before, but I imagined it would be very different from this.”

She got comfortable on the blanket and pulled off her gardening gloves. “How so?”

“I didn’t have any experience before Tristan took me. I’d always been waiting for the right guy. I’d seen all my friends date jerks and get their hearts broken. I didn’t want to deal with all of that. I wanted to find the one and just be happy. So I figured I would meet him at work or in a coffee shop…he’d ask me on a date to the movies or something. It would be simple but spectacular. With Cane…it’s been nothing like that. He accepted me as a loan from another criminal he was doing business with. If I didn’t sleep with him, he was going to return me to Tristan. It’s not how I imagined falling in love.”

Pearl watched me closely, her eyes hiding her opinion. “Nothing ever goes the way we plan, Adelina.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t expect to fall in love with Crow. For a long time, I viewed him as a barbaric criminal. The only reason I considered myself lucky to be with him was because he wasn’t cruel like the other men I’d met. But as time passed, I realized he was the best person for me. The terms we met under weren’t great. Our relationship didn’t start off with a coffee date. But if I’d returned to America permanently and found someone else, they never would have been able to give me what I needed. I fell in love with Crow because I was meant to fall in love with him. Our relationship isn’t perfect—but it works for us.”

I could feel her love for him when she spoke. There was no doubt in her mind that she’d made the right decision. She left behind her entire life in America to live in Tuscany with a man who once owned her.

“I think your feelings for Cane are stronger than you realize. Maybe you just need a little more time to figure it out.”

“Maybe…but he’s angry with me.”

“He’s only angry because he loves you,” she whispered. “And he just wants you to love him in return.”

“I don’t know if I can do that…”

“You don’t have to force yourself to. You just have to not force yourself not to.”

“He’s a criminal, Pearl. I don’t think my parents would be thrilled with my choice of a partner. They’d make me see a psychiatrist.”

“No one in the world will ever understand what you went through besides you,” she said quietly. “So don’t listen to what other people think. Let them think you’re crazy. Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m just not sure if he’s what I want,” I whispered. “Like I said, I want a different kind of relationship.”

She looked at the ground for a moment before she looked up again. “Nobody is perfect. We all have skeletons in our closets. Cane is just more transparent about his than the rest of us.”

“He told me how he hurt you…”

“And he would never do something like that again—to anyone. He’s a much different man now than the one I first met. You’ve seen his transition yourself. He’s not even the same man as when you first laid eyes on him. When I returned to America and tried to get my life back together, I started seeing an old boyfriend. He was good, handsome, clean…everything I would have wanted in a boyfriend once upon a time. But it didn’t work. It didn’t fit. Every time I slept with him, all I could think about was Crow. He left a mark on me that I could never erase. I saw him as a dark and twisted man, but I realized I had become just as dark and twisted. Nothing could change that. That was how I was—forever. And that’s when I knew where I belonged.”

---

Cane undressed himself and left his pile of clothes on the floor. His ass was tight in his boxers, and his hard physique was chiseled as if he had been carved out of stone. He didn’t look at me now, just as he ignored me on the car ride home. “Why do you keep sleeping in here?” He turned to the bed and set his phone on the nightstand. “You can sleep down the hall.”

I was in his t-shirt and my panties. “I don’t want to sleep down the hall.”

His green eyes looked foreboding when they looked at me like that. Intense and angry, they were passionate with frustration. He tugged the blankets back and got into bed beside me. A fire burned quietly in the fireplace and brought a gentle glow to the room once Cane turned off the lamp.

He turned on his side and faced away from me.

I missed the way he used to wrap his body around mine. I missed the suffocation he used to bring to me. I missed his affection, his adoration. I inched to the center of the bed and wrapped my arms around his waist. I pressed a wet kiss to his shoulder, my tongue tasting him. I tugged myself into him harder so my body was pressed flat against his.

His breathing increased, but he didn’t show any other reaction.

I kissed his shoulder again then pressed my lips to his neck. I wanted to feel connected to him again. I missed having him close to me, missed sharing my body as well as my soul. But I also missed being with him. It’d only been a few weeks since Tristan last touched me, but my body craved Cane’s. I wanted him deep inside me, slow and gentle. I wanted him to ease me into it, but then to bring me to a climax a few minutes later.

I moved my lips to his ear. “Make love to me.”

Cane’s body stiffened slightly, and he stopped breathing for just an instant. My hand rested just underneath his heart, and I could feel the way it jumped, racing at a faster pace. He didn’t make a move, but he was certainly thinking about it.

“I’m ready.”

He suddenly turned over and suspended his body over mine. He looked into my eyes, his powerful body flexing as he displayed his strength.

My hands moved up his chest, and I parted my lips, waiting for a kiss.

He tugged my panties down then separated my thighs with his. He positioned himself at my entrance but didn’t push inside. Instead, he looked into my face and watched the expression in my eyes. “You’re sure you want this?”

My hands dug into his hair, and I kissed him. It was slow and soft, and I felt his gentle mouth in contrast to the coarse stubble on his face. We breathed into each other before tongues were introduced. I shifted my hips slightly, grinding against his length. “Yes.”

That was enough for him. He gripped one of my hips and tilted my body slightly so he could slip inside.

I was wet for him. I could feel him slide through my prominent slickness. If he wasn’t sure how much I wanted this, he was certain now. My thoughts were only on the man above me, not on anyone who had been there before him.

He felt so good.

I’d missed this.

He moaned into my mouth as he inserted his entire length. His lips stopped moving against mine as he held himself still, just enjoying me.

My hands slid down his powerful back, and I clawed his skin viciously.

He kissed the corner of my mouth then moved his kisses until he reached my ear. “I’ll be gentle.”

I rocked with him, taking in his length and moaning under my breath. “Just like that…”

He pinned his arms behind my knees and moved slowly, giving me all of his length before he pulled out again. He didn’t pound me into the mattress the way he used to. He was gentler than he’d ever been before.

But it still felt incredible.

Cane suspended himself on one arm while his other hand dug into my hair. He held me possessively the way he used to and looked into my eyes as he thrust into me.

I never took my eyes away, watching his powerful physique shift and ripple with every movement. My hands moved to his chest, and I felt his heavy heartbeat, felt the passion inside his veins.

As if nothing had come between us to begin with, it felt like nothing was different. It was good. It was deep. It made my legs shake. It made my throat raspy from the insistent moans I made. He was thick and long, stretching me to my fullest. I might tear from a previous injury, but he felt so good I probably wouldn’t notice.

“Cane…” My lips trembled, and I closed my eyes as the pleasure washed over me. I hadn’t felt it in so long I almost didn’t recognize it. It was more powerful than ever before, my body catching up on the goodness, when it only experienced the bad lately.

He didn’t quicken his pace like he usually would, but the arousal was as obvious on his face as a billboard. His jaw was tight and rugged, and his eyes were narrowed and impassioned.

I kept going, my body writhing on the sheets where we used to make love all the time. My head rolled back, and I exposed my neck to his kisses, feeling his tongue delve into the hollow of my throat.

He kissed me until my climax had completely passed. Then he buried his face into my neck as he made his final thrusts. A moan erupted in his throat as he released inside me, giving me his mounds of desire. His teeth pressed against my neck as he devoured me with overwhelming urgency. His hand fisted my hair further, and he nearly yanked on it. He was possessive, territorial, and obsessed once again.

I’d missed that side of him.

It felt like us again, the two of us together.

He felt perfect buried between my legs. He felt like he belonged there, like he was the only one ever to have enjoyed me.

He turned his face into mine and kissed me softly on the lips, his affection gentle in comparison to the tight way he gripped me. He kissed the corner of my mouth then right on my lips again, covering me with his caresses.

He pulled out of me then cuddled into my side. His large arms encased me protectively, and he buried his face into my shoulder. There was no space between us because he was invading me completely.

It was exactly where I wanted to be, to be surrounded by his love and security.