Page 3 of It Destroys Me

Astrid tucked her hair behind her ear before she sipped her wine. The length of her hair had blocked most of her neck a moment before, but now it was on display, elegant and smooth, a gold necklace around her throat. Her eyes flicked up to mine.

I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t want to stop staring. She was the most beautiful woman I’d seen in a very long time. The whores who’d warmed my bed in her absence had just been a means to an end. They’d been there to make me forget who I really wanted—and they’d done a shitty job.

Conversation didn’t replace our stares. The intensity between us grew the longer it continued. My longing burst from my chest the moment it was allowed. I could have had her the moment she’d set foot in my house, but my sour mood and apprehension had put up gates higher than the Eiffel Tower. But now, those gates had started to come down.

Her eyes would flick away when my stare became too much, but they would always come back.

“You think I should bring my parents something since they’re watching the kids?” Axel asked Scarlett across the table.

“Up to you,” she said. “But I’m sure Aldo made them something.”

I looked at Axel. “Your parents are watching the kids?”

“Yep,” Axel said. “Hope they do a better job with them than they did with me.”

“They did a great job with you, babe.” Scarlett grabbed a slice of bread from the basket in the center and dabbed a piece into a pool of olive oil on her plate.

“You think so?” Axel asked. “Because I talked about getting a blow job not ten minutes ago.”

She smirked as she ripped off another piece of bread. “A blow job from your wife.”

Axel leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “I love it when she calls me babe. It usually means she’s DTF.”

“What was that?” Scarlett asked.

“Nothing,” Axel said quickly. “Did I tell you that you look beautiful tonight?”

“No,” Scarlett said. “You said you wanted to stick your dick in every hole that I have.”

Astrid turned bright red and chuckled into her glass.

“Pretty much the same thing,” Axel said.

Scarlett gave him a playful smirk across the table.

I’d never gone on a double date with them before. The only time I’d had dinner with them out of the house was when Axel and I had ambushed her and Dante. And a couple times after they were married. But I’d never had a woman with me during those times.

“How do you and Theo know each other?” Astrid said. “Theo has never told me.”

Axel turned to look at me. “You never talk about me?”

“As little as possible.” I grabbed my scotch and took a drink.

“I don’t know this story either,” Scarlett said.

I looked at Axel. “You never talk about me?”

“I talk about you all the time,” Axel said. “It drives Scarlett crazy sometimes.”

“It does not drive me crazy,” Scarlett said. “I just prefer not to talk when I’m trying to go to sleep.”

“It’s the only time we have without the kids,” Axel said. “We fuck and then have pillow talk.”

“I’m pillow talk?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, you and Astrid have been a hot topic lately,” Axel said, as if Astrid wasn’t sitting right there.

I decided to interrupt this conversation before it took a turn for the worse. “Axel and I met in grade school.”