19

Portia
“I’m sorry,” I blubber. “I’m so sorry that happened.”
“That didn’t just happen,” he spits. “Don’t you get it? They did it. They made it happen. Your brothers. Your fiance.” He shakes his head then, abruptly releasing his hold on my hair and stepping backward so I fall forward onto my hands.
He turns away, walking to the sink.
I watch from my place on the floor as he turns on the tap and washes his face, mutters a curse into the towel he uses to dry himself.
Cerberus whines from the corner.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I’m sorry I said those things to you when I knew you hadn’t touched me. I’m sorry that my brothers hurt your family like they did. I’m so sorry that it was my family who did that to yours. I’m sorry..” I trail off, sitting back on my heels, thinking, blubbering now because I am sorry.
I’m sorry for all of it.
I rub my face, look up to find him watching me.
“I understand if you need to hurt me. Punish me for what happened. I do. And if you’ll let my cousin go – ”
“We’re back to your cousin again. You’ll do anything for your cousin.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Thing is that my family’s gone. Nothing will ever bring them back. Not hurting you or him or crossing off every god damned name inked into my skin. Nothing,”
“I don’t know what you want. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.” I wipe my eyes but the tears keep falling.
He comes at me fast and I scramble back but hit the wall. He takes me by my arms and hauls me to stand. He takes my wrists when I push against his chest, raising them over my head, pinning them there.
That’s when I notice the red on his collar, the dried blood on his neck. That’s when I realize what he’s been doing.
When I look up at his eyes again, I find them on my mouth. “You’ll cross off another name tonight, won’t you?” I ask, my voice small.
His gaze slides to mine, then down to my mouth again. I lick my lips.
“Burnt sugar,” he says instead of answering me.
“What?” Thick lashes cast shadows over his eyes, shielding them from me.
“Your eyes. They remind me of it.”
I just stare up at him, unsure what to do, what I’m supposed to say or do or even think. He’s not making any sense. He touches my cheek with his free hand, brushes fingers lightly, softly over my cheekbone, down to my jawline, over my throat and down. Down to close one hand over my breast.
I gasp.
He swallows as his hand weighs my breast.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asks more quietly but no more gently. I stare at him.
“Not for Nathan but for yourself. Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes.”
He leans in close, inhales deeply. “Good. Because you should be,” he says, his lips brushing my cheek, the corner of my mouth when he does.
“Because you don’t know what I want to do to you.” He slides his hand over my belly and down.
“Callahan,” I say, his name a gasp as his hand travels farther south.
“Do you know?” he asks again and when he cups my sex over the dress, I rise higher on tiptoe. I wasn’t even aware I was on tiptoe.
“There’s an emptiness inside me. A hunger,” he starts, and I whimper, my hands fisted, wrists caught in one of his hands. His eyes appear almost black now. “And I want. God. How I want.” Both of his hands tighten for one moment before he abruptly, unexpectedly releases me.
He steps back.
It’s so sudden that I stumble forward.
He stares at me, all dark eyes and damage and barely controlled beast. “Sit down, Portia,” he growls.
I keep my eyes on him as I reach for the back of my chair and lower myself into it trying to figure out what just happened. What is happening.
He gets the whiskey. He must keep bottles everywhere. He carries it to the table along with two water glasses. Too plain for whiskey, I think.
My father would never have done that. For him, whiskey was a ceremony.
Without asking, he pours two fingers into each glass, pushing one toward me before swallowing the contents of his and refilling it. I don’t touch mine.
He then takes his spoon and reaches into the Creme Caramel sitting beautifully at the center of the table, the deep golden caramel dripping down the sides of the custard.
He doesn’t cut off a piece and put it on his plate. This whole thing, us sitting here eating dessert after what just happened, it’s insane. It makes no sense. But he dips his spoon in, slicing into the custard. As caramel drips off the spoon and onto the table, he brings it to his mouth and closes his eyes. I watch him. Watch him eat like he’s just placed Holy Communion on his tongue.
Like it’s sacred.
When he opens his eyes again, he looks at me, but I can’t read him. He eats another, bigger bite, then another. He gorges himself on it, drops of caramel dotting his chin.
“Eat,” he says in that grunting tone.
I lift my spoon and with a trembling hand I take the tiniest spoonful. My throat has closed up. I won’t be able to swallow it but I’m too afraid not to try.
“My mom used to make this and let us have it for breakfast,” he says. I swear if someone walked in her they’d think this was the most normal situation. Think he wasn’t unhinged like I know he is.
He wipes the caramel off his chin, pours more of the whiskey into his glass and drinks it like water. Leaning back in his seat, he sets the cup down loudly.
“Eat,” he barks.
I take another small bite, but he takes his head and sits up. He scoops a spoonful of it using his spoon and brings it to my mouth.
“Eat it.”
I open because I don’t know what else to do. Before I’ve even finished that bite, he makes me eat another and another until I feel like I’ll choke. When he finally stops, I wipe the back of my hand over sticky lips. I watch him stand as I force down the last of it.
I stand too if only to put space between us.
He backs me against the wall again and splays one big hand across my belly. Before I can think or open my mouth to ask what he’s thinking, what he’s doing, he kisses me. With sticky caramel lips, he kisses me.
Our eyes are open at first but then his close. When he draws back, he looks like he did when he ate his first bite of the too-sweet dessert.
Like this is sacred.
He opens his eyes, kissing me again, sucking upper and lower lip into his mouth in turn. His mouth is warm, his taste sugary with a shock of whiskey. I feel him against my belly, feel his hardness. His hand slides up and closes over my throat. He’s not hurting though. Not squeezing.
The kiss deepens, sensual and erotic, and I taste his tongue now. And something inside me wants this. Wants him. I don’t know what it is or why. There’s a part of me that’s like the part he just showed me. Deeply damaged. Broken. So broken it can’t ever be fixed. Can’t ever be whole.
And when he draws back my heart flutters, missing a beat. I find myself leaning toward him, feeling the loss of him.
We look at each other for a long moment. I hear how quiet the house is. How completely silent. Even the sea outside, the walls are so thick in here, you can’t hear it.
His eyes fall on his hand at my throat. He caresses it and I wonder if he’s thinking about snapping it.
Wondering if this would just be easier if he did snap my neck. I’m sure he can do it in an instant.
But then he drops his forehead to mine, and I realize his breathing is as short and choppy as mine. He mutters something I can’t understand, then straightens, draws his hand back down to my stomach.
I look at it too, see how big it is.
How it spans the whole of my belly. “Did you know that part?” he asks, voice quiet. “Know what he’d done to my mother?”
I don’t want to answer.
“Did you?”
I swallow. “I overheard my brothers after. I don’t think they knew he’d do that, but they… they didn’t stop him.”
He looks at me. “Do you know what he said to her when he finished? Just before he slit her throat? Did they say?” he asks, eyes so earnest that it’s almost sad to see him like this.
I swallow, shake my head no. I wish I knew, though. I wish I could tell him.
“I need to know what he said, Portia. What Fernando said.”
“What difference does it make?”
He takes a step back, eyes shielded again. “I need to know.”
With a deep breath in he runs a hand through his hair then looks at me again. “Go to bed, Portia,” he says quietly, like all the energy has bled from him. Like he has nothing left.
“How did you survive? How did your brother? They thought they killed you all.” They celebrated it. I won’t tell him that part though.
“Antonio was off the island. A last-minute change of plans. Me? They mistook me for a soldier. Executed my best friend in my place. I was in the room though. Bleeding out from the bullet wounds. Antonio found me the next morning. My uncle and Diamente hid us.”
I nod.
“Now go to bed.”
“What about you? Aren’t you coming with me?”
His eyes are distant, unfocused at least for a moment. “You want me to bed you?”
I feel my stomach do a flip but shake my head because that’s the only right answer.
“Didn’t think so. Go upstairs now then. The door across from mine with the lock on the outside, you’ll, sleep there tonight.”
I look at him, confused. “Why haven’t you put me in a cell with my cousin?”
I should. I would if I were smart.
He moves to the kitchen door, opens it. But when I stand there, he returns to me, comes so close I feel his chest against my chest and my back presses to the wall. He puts his arm up on the wall between me and the door. He’s so close I can feel his breath on me, feel his heat on me.
“You need to go. Now. If you stay, I’ll do more than kiss you.”
I swallow.
“You have exactly three seconds to decide, Portia.”
He gestures to the door with a nod of his head and I don’t wait. I slip underneath his arm and scurry upstairs.