Page 29 of His Deadly Devotion
“Do you want to talk about my brother, or do you want to talk about getting naked and fucking me into oblivion?” Aurora sits and attempts to pull the shirt over her head. She ends up getting all tangled in the fabric instead.
“Stop.” As much as I hate it, I tug her shirt back down, covering her breasts. It really is a tragedy to cover those things. “Why’d Lorenzo get pissed?” I try again.
“He’s just in a bad mood because he’s on his father-in-law’s shit list. Zaramightbe drunk too. She was hiding because I think she’s got a thing for Ares, and that’s not going down well with her dad. She also got arrested last night for street racing. Against Ares, I think.” Aurora’s rambling. I have no fucking idea who these people are that she’s talking about.
“Who’s Ares?” I ask.
“Ares De Bellis, you know him? No, why would you know him? Then again, you did know the Mancini brothers. Mmm, maybe you know Ares too,” she says.
I know the De Bellis name. I also know their whiskey label. It’s not that great if you asked me. No one does whiskey like the Irish. What I want to know is how Aurora knows them? “I don’t know Ares, babe. How do you know him?”
“Well, my cousin Zoe—she’s Mabilia’s older sister. My aunt and uncle adopted her when she was sixteen. They saved her. Anyway, long story. She came to Melbourne, married Marcel, who is Ares’s uncle. But my family knows all the De Bellis brothers and their offspring,” Aurora says in one long breath.
I lost interest when she said cousin. There’s too fucking many of them. I mean, I have a lot of cousins back in Ireland. But, fuck me, the Valentinos take reproducing to the extreme.
“Oh! Do you still have that burner phone?” Aurora says all of a sudden.
“Yeah, why?”
“I need to call Zoe.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, babe. No one is supposed to know you’re here,” I remind her as I climb off the bed. “I’m getting you some water.”
“Why?”
I laugh. “Because you need it.”
“What I need is you, inside me, Connor.” She pouts.
“And you can have that as soon as you’re sober.” I shake my head. I’m not fucking her while she’s intoxicated. “Don’t move,” I tell Aurora as I step out of the room and shut the door.
When I walk into the kitchen, her brother is there. Alone. Which isn’t awkward at all. I open the fridge and pull out a bottle of water.
“She okay?” Lorenzo asks.
“Right now, sure. Ask again once the hangover she’s about to be sporting kicks in,” I tell him.
Lorenzo chuckles. “She won’t get a hangover. We’re Italian. We’re born with red wine in our veins.”
“Sure.” I roll my eyes. I’m about to walk out when I decide to add, “She’s asking to call her cousin Zoe.”
“Of course she is. I’m surprised she hasn’t already tried to leave the house and go see everyone.” Lorenzo shakes his head. “No one is supposed to know you’re here.”
“That’s what I told her, but Aurora can be… determined when she has something in her head. She’s going to find a way to do it.”
“I’m well aware of my sister’s determination,” he says. “I’ll handle it.”
“Right. Good chat.”
“O’Malley, my dropping her off in your room doesn’t mean I like you. As soon as she gives the okay, I will kill you,” Lorenzo grunts.
I smile at him. “If Aurora ever has a reason to kill me, she’s not going to need you to do it for her.” I’m proud as fuck at how capable my girlfriend is at looking out for herself. She’s not meek—that’s for damn sure.
When I make it back to the bedroom, she’s not on the bed where I left her. “Aurora?” I call out, and then I hear it. The unmistakable sound of someone throwing up.
I find her in the bathroom, bent over the toilet, a shit-ton of red liquid coming back up.
“Fuck, babe.” I sit down next to her, scooping her hair up into one of my fists.