Page 55 of Wicked Roses
I do the only thing I can think of at a time like this. In a moment where I’m wanting to feel better, to feelgood.
My gaze shifts to his lips and the softest moan hums in my throat as I’m flooded with memories of what they feel like.
His lips on my lips. His lips on every inch of my body.
I’ve never needed anything more.
The opportunity to forget the bad touches and focus on the good. Salvatore alone has the power to erase the ones I didn’t want. He can set my world right again.
I lean up into him and brush my lips against his. His reaction is immediate—his strong hands clamp shut on my waist as if to peel me off, but then he doesn’t. He draws me further into him until our bodies fit together. My arms wind around his neck and I seek the heat of his mouth.
Salvatore meets me the rest of the way. He dips down and seals his lips over mine in a kiss that sends a wave of mindless lust rolling through me. It pools in my belly, making me feel hot and dizzy. The floor becomes precariously unsteady as we sway and treat ourselves to a taste of the other.
“Phi, what are you doing?” His voice is warm smoke in the dark, layered with the unmistakable rough edges of his arousal.
“What’s the matter? Let’s just... stop thinking. Remember how you used to fuck me?”
We come together in another deep kiss that causes a ripple effect through my body. I’m needy and desperate for more. For Salvatore to give me what he knows I need. It doesn’t have to mean anything beyond this moment. Things will get too complicated and messy if we involve our feelings. I’ll get hurt again.
This moment can exist on its own. Separate from anything else that’s happened between us.
I sense the spark fading on his end and fist a hand into the front of his T-shirt to convince him to stay. He growls before tearing himself away, like a beast that’s frustrated yet incapable of words.
“You’re upset,” he grits out.
“I told you I’m fine—”
“You’re not thinking straight,” he says. He turns his back on me and heads for the door. “Get some sleep, Phi.”
“Salvatore... Salvatore!” I call to his retreating form.
He leaves me alone in the room. Discontent bubbles up inside me until I can’t stand the feeling. As if I didn’t feel humiliated enough with Salvatore waking me up from my nightmare.
I drop my face into my hands and rattle out a breath. I can’t live like this.
* * *
A grisly murder scene isn’t how I’m supposed to start off Halloween morning.
I flash my badge at the uniformed cop standing outside Octavia’s brownstone. He waves me through the wall of bystanders and press snapping photos and recording footage. Octavia’s apartment door is already open with detectives and other members of law enforcement milling in and out. I don’t enter the crime scene with half as much swagger as I normally would.
Instead I cross the threshold and linger in the background by the door, digesting everything in front of me.
Octavia met a gruesome end. Blood splatters the walls and carpet. Several pieces of furniture are either broken or turned over. By the entrance to the hallway lays a half dressed, decapitated Octavia, her body bruised and twisted at impossible angles.
A medical examiner crouches beside her, carefully studying the body with latex gloves and a toolkit. Nearby, Detective Galecki speaks to another officer with his usual aggressive energy, his wide brow furrowed and expression dark.
My throat thickens with a lump that feels a lot like cotton. I ignore the musty stench of Octavia’s dead body and breathe through my mouth as I move forward.
We’d promised her—I’d told her she would be safe and protected from Frausto.
“Detective, care to tell me how our biggest witness has wound up without her head?”
“You’re infamously sharp, ADA. Take a wild guess.”
“You said she had around-the-clock protection! You promised the Northam PD would be surveilling her 24/7. What the hell happened? How could this go so wrong?”
“Did you forget the part where she declined to be moved to a safehouse?” he interrupts, his hands on his waist. He takes another grim peek at her and then heaves out a rough breath. “She said she didn’t want to leave her home. Somebody must’ve gained access to her building some other way. I’ve got a couple uniforms checking it out now. Top to bottom.”