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“You did? Why?”
“Because his response was strange to his penance. I was angry at first. So angry with what he said. With your absolution.” I blink at him. “I’ve been friends with a lot of victims of domestic violence over the years, and I knew how his niece had to be feeling.”
His voice throbs with emotion: “I will not let her be abused again just because no one will listen to her?—”
“The police have to help.”
“With what? Something he could deny? Something she hasn’t even confessed to me?” His scowl makes a reappearance.“Why would she speak with the police when she won’t talk about it in confession? Not once has she mentioned his actions to me.”
I gnaw on my bottom lip, hating that he’s right.
But I’m also torn because I felt the bloodcurdling rage earlier. The loathing for a man who could be self-piteous when he was the abuser consumed me as much as it did Savio.
“I don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it,” he breathes, hand trailing over the curve of my head onto my chin, across my throat, and along my shoulder, down my arm to my pulse point.
When he bares my palm to his gaze, noting his blood there, his fingers trail over the divots and curves.
It’s absentminded.
Like his thoughts are elsewhere and his fingertips represent him wandering through his mind, meandering between his thoughts.
I’m not about to complain, not when his touch is a thousand times more magnetic than I’d ever imagined.
All of a sudden, the body that had never responded to the cute guys in high school, college, or at the frickin’ gym, is flaring to life as if a police siren has just started flashing.
Every part of me—body, mind, soul, and heart—flutters in response to his attention. I feel like a flower, a bud that has been tightly furled in the dark, slowly opening and blossoming now that the sun is kissing its petals.
Only, Savio isn’t the sun.
If anything,heis the dark.
The moon?
Maybe.
Even that projects a faint kiss of light, and some flowers bloom only at night…
I focus on his scarred knuckles as he traces patterns on mine and whisper, “Even Adam had Eve.”
He stills. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t look at me, so I tip his chin up to ensure that he’s staring straight at me. “You know what it means.”
“I don’t knowyou. So how can I know what you’re thinking?”
“You do.” Where it matters. “You know me.”
He shakes his head. “This is crazy. You’re?—”
“No. Iwascrazy,” I admit. At least, in the eyes of the world. “But not anymore.”
He’d been crouching in front of me, however, my words have him flooding the space with energy. He surges upward and backs away from me.
“You can run from me, but you can’t hide,” I intone softly, glancing at the blood on my fingers. Then, I make my own vow to him: “I’ll do what I must to keep you safe. Even if it’s from yourself.”
CHAPTER 17
Savio