Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,19
legs, making me cum over and over again.
We haven’t had sex yet. But I can feel us edging closer.
Dante knows he’d be my first. He’s trying to be patient. I can tell that every time he touches me, it awakens that part of him that has no patience and very little gentleness. It’s terrifying, because I know he could snap me in half if he truly lost control. But at the same time, I want him as badly as he wants me.
It’s not only physical, either.
We spend hours talking together. About books, movies, music, our best and our worst memories. The things we want to do and the things we’re afraid of trying.
The only thing we don’t talk about is our future together.
We skirt around the issue of my family. I’ve told Dante all about Mama and Tata and Serwa. He knows what they’re like.
So he must know how violently they would oppose the two of us being together. I don’t care about Dante’s past—they won’t be so forgiving.
My father is rigid. He demands everything of himself and the people around him. He’s had a path laid out for me since birth. It doesn’t include a relationship with the son of a mafia boss.
Plus, Dante has no intention of abandoning the “family business.” I don’t think I could ask him to.
Especially after I meet his family.
I meet Aida first, the baby sister. She’s not really a baby—eleven years old, skinny, dressed in torn-up jeans and a baseball shirt. Her fingernails are broken and filthy, and her hair is wildly tangled. I can see scabs on both knees through the holes in her jeans.
She’s pretty, despite that. Or she will be, when she grows into her face. Her eyes aren’t dark like Dante’s—they’re a silvery-gray, bright with curiosity.
“Oh!” she says. “You look different than I expected.”
“What did you think I’d look like?” I ask her.
“I dunno,” she laughs. “I guess I thought you’d be big like Dante.”
“When did you ever see a girl as big as me?” Dante rumbles.
“I’m going to be! I’m going to be bigger and stronger than all of you,” Aida says.
“You have to eat something other than ice cream and popsicles if you want that to happen,” Dante says.
We’re actually eating ice cream during this conversation, down by Lane Beach.
“I said I wanted a cone, not a cup,” Aida reminds Dante.
“You’re dirty enough without ice cream melting all over you,” Dante says.
“I had a bath,” Aida says.
“When?”
“This week.”
“Liar.”
“I went swimming. That counts.”
“If there wasn’t any soap involved, it doesn’t count.”
It’s fascinating seeing this eighty-pound girl interact with Dante without a shred of fear. Actually, it’s clear that she adores him. She tells me how he took her to Six Flags and rode The Looping Demon four times.
“Weren’t you scared?” I ask her.
“I was more scared,” Dante says. “I don’t think those little cars were engineered with me in mind.”
“I did throw up,” Aida says cheerfully. “But not on anything important.”
I meet Dante’s brothers, too—Sebastian and Nero. Sebastian is only a little older than Aida, but already taller than me. He looks like a puppy with his big brown eyes, and his feet too large for his body. He’s shy and mostly leaves it to his brothers to answer any questions I ask him.
Nero’s a different creature entirely. He’s sixteen years old, and frankly the most terrifying of the bunch. He’s beautiful in a way that would be shocking on a grown man, let alone a teenager. But he’s fierce and moody, and deeply suspicious of me.
“Dante talks about you all the time,” I tell him.
“Really?” he says rudely. “Because I haven’t seen him in a month.”
“Take it easy,” Dante tells him gruffly.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I have been monopolizing you.”
“You live in that mansion on Burling Street?” Nero says.
“Yes.”
“Fancy. Does Dante wear a tux to visit you?”
His cool gray eyes are narrowed at me. I’m sure he knows that Dante hasn’t visited me there, ever.
Meanwhile, I’ve been to his house several times. I love it. It’s stuffed full of history and memories. Every scuff on the woodwork is from one of the Gallo siblings or an uncle or aunt that came before. It’s warm and personal, and just as lovely as the Burling Street mansion, in its own way.
Dante took me up to the roof where the fox grapes hung down heavy and fragrant from the pergola. He picked a few for me, and I ate them, sun-warmed and bursting with juice.