Chapter 34: Alluring Darkness: Chapter 34

My chest heaves as I lie in my bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. Raina is lying beside me, her body utterly spent as well.

After I fucked her on my desk, I claimed her against the wall as well, and then on the dresser. And then I fucked her two times on the bed after that too. But now, it appears as though we have both reached our limit. At least for tonight.

Wrapping my arm around her soft body, I pull her firmly against me and rest my hand possessively on her hip. I will burn the fucking world down before I ever let this girl go.

“Why is it that you don’t sleep?”

I blink in surprise, taken completely off guard by the question. Tilting my head, I glance down at Raina. She is resting her cheek on my bicep and she has her arm draped across my chest, but her head is tilted back as she watches me with curious eyes.

“Who says I don’t?” I reply.

“You. And Rico.”

I arch an eyebrow at her in silent question.

“Did you really think that I didn’t notice your little exchange the first time I slept here? How shocked you seemed at having slept until so late and how happy Rico’s eyes were when you told him that you had slept fine.” A sly smile lifts her lips. “I wasn’t entirely sure at first. But then when you made it part of the bargain, I knew. You see, it’s because if you—”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” I grumble, interrupting her self-congratulatory explanation. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

“There is no such thing as being too smart.”

I huff out an amused breath.

“So…?” she prompts when I don’t offer any kind of explanation. “Why is it that you don’t sleep?”

Heaving a deep sigh, I tear my gaze from hers and instead stare up into the dark ceiling again. Outside the windows, a strong night wind whirls around the building, creating a faint howling sound. I adjust my position, pulling the soft cover up to our waists with my free hand while I continue resting the other on Raina’s hip. She wiggles closer to me but continues to study my face as if she can read the answers there.

“Because bad things happen when I’m not in complete control of everything and everyone around me,” I reply at last.

“And when you’re asleep, you’re not aware of your surroundings anymore,” she fills in.

“Yeah.”

Silence falls over the dark bedroom for a while. I keep watching the ceiling until her soft voice drifts towards me again.

“What happened?” she asks.

My first instinct is to shut her down and refuse to answer. But for the first time since it happened, I feel like I actually want to tell someone about it. No, not someone. I want to tell her about it.

After drawing in a deep breath, I tear my gaze from the ceiling and meet her eyes again. “You remember how I told you our family is connected to the Italian mafia?”

“Yes.”

“Well, being a Morelli means you have a lot of power. It also means you have a lot of enemies.” I caress her hipbone with my thumb. “When I was thirteen, I was kidnapped by a rival family. I spent a week naked and shackled in a concrete basement while they tortured me.”

Her eyes widen, and then her gaze drifts to the map of scars across my bare chest and arms before it returns to the scar that cuts through my eyebrow and down my cheek. Fury roars to life in Raina’s green eyes. It’s so fierce, and so unexpected, that I momentarily lose track of what I had been about to say.

I clear my throat in order to give myself a second to get my head back on track. Then I continue. “They filmed me. Every day. While I was naked and helpless, they filmed as they tortured me and then sent it to the Morelli family.”

Dread and embarrassment crash into me unbidden. That was the worst week in my entire life. The feeling of being so completely at someone else’s mercy almost broke me. After that, I swore that I would never let anyone else have even an ounce of power over me. And I started craving the feeling of taking other people’s control away from them. Preferably by threat or by force.

“And the thing is…” I continue. A sigh escapes my chest. “I wasn’t even the target. Rico was.”

“Rico?”

“Yeah, he’s…” I shake my head. That’s not my secret to tell. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, they came for Rico but I happened to be sleeping…” I hesitate while trying to figure out how to explain this without divulging that Rico is not actually my brother and blowing his cover. So as to not complicate things, I settle for simply, “In Rico’s room. So when they broke in, they thought that I was Rico and took me instead. We’re similar enough in appearance, and especially back when we were kids, that they never realized their mistake.”

“So they tortured you in his place?”

“Yes.”

“And you never told them that they had the wrong person?”

“No.”

She nods, her eyes full of understanding. The expression in them makes it clear that she would have done the exact same thing for her brother. It sends a pang through my heart. It’s another thing I’ve come to love about her. She’s incredibly, almost suicidally, protective of her family. Just like me.

“Is that why Rico is so protective of you?” she asks eventually.

“We’re protective of each other. But yeah. He blames himself for what happened, and for the… issues I developed as a result of it.”

“They kidnapped you while you were sleeping.” It’s more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah. Like I said, if I’m not in control of my surroundings, bad shit happens. So after that, it’s as if my body refuses to let go of control and go to sleep because I should be keeping watch in case something like that happens again.”

Her eyebrows crease slightly. “But you sleep when you’re with me.”

“Yeah.” I heave a deep sigh and caress her hip with my thumb again. “I do.”

“Why?”

“Because, for some reason, when I’m with you I feel… safe.”

The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I snap my gaze back to hers, waiting for her laughter.

It never comes.

Instead, her eyes fill with such warmth that my heart almost shatters.

“You do?” she asks, her voice barely more than a whisper. As if she’s worried that I’ll take it all back if she says it too loudly.

For a few seconds, I do actually consider taking it all back. For no other reason than the fact that saying something like that out loud gives her power over me. But I force the instinct away because, with a jolt of shock, I realize that I actually want her to know this.

“Yes,” I reply, holding her gaze. “I think it’s because…” Trailing off, I draw in a breath while I try to sort through the strange emotions inside me. “Because you’re like me.” A smile tugs at my lips. “You’re absolutely insane. You don’t play by any of the normal rules, and you do things few people would even consider. And I guess my soul somehow recognizes that and relaxes when you’re with me, because it knows that if something happens, there are no limits to what you would do to stop the threat. So when you’re here, I can sleep. Because I don’t have to keep the world at bay alone anymore.”

The emotions that well up in her eyes make my heart constrict. I swallow against a sudden thickness in my throat.

Raina tightens her arm around me, holding me closer as she whispers, “Did you know that you’re the first person to make me feel as if there is absolutely nothing wrong with me? You’re the first person who has seen all the fucked-up sides of me and still not looked at me as if I’m defective in some way. The first person to make me feel as if being insane is an asset, not a liability. To make me feel as if I don’t need to be fixed.”

“You don’t need to be fixed.” The words tear from my lungs with enough force to make Raina blink at me. I raise my free hand and draw it over her hair, smoothing it down and hooking a few loose strands behind her ear. “You’re perfect exactly the way you are.”

Her lips part slightly and her eyes shimmer with emotion.

My heart constricts again and then beats twice as hard as I hug her body tighter against mine.

I am never letting this girl go.