Page 57 of My Dark Ever After

“Go knock on their door,” I told him.

“I don’t want to be within sixty feet of my brother in bed naked with Martina,” he grumbled as he moved out of the kitchen to do as I asked.

I was still grinning when the front door crashed open and Guinevere darted inside, Ludo hot on her heels. She cried out in an approximation of a warrior as she spun sharply, leg raised to deliver a kick to Ludo’s uninjured side. Only, he was ready for it, and because of her short stature, it was all too easy for him to clasp her foot and hold it hostage in the air.

My chuckle made them both pause, gazes snapping to mine.

“Buongiorno, ragazzi,” I greeted them, crossing my arms as I leaned back against the counter.

“Oh,” Guinevere said before blowing an errant lock of hair out of her face from where it had escaped her ponytail. “Good morning, Raffa.”

“Boss,” Ludo grunted, still holding Guinevere’s foot.

“Let Vera go, Ludo. Ren, Martina, and I are heading out in twenty minutes, so you’ll need to be working from here today.”

He dropped her foot without a care, sliding out of her vicinity when she reached for him to balance herself. His faint snigger trailed after him as he climbed the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Guinevere asked, walking on her toes into the kitchen to pull a pitcher of water with lemon out of the fridge and pour herself a glass.

I watched, a little distracted, as she tipped her head back to gulp down the entire contents, her throat working the way it did when she swallowed around my cock.

“Firenze,” I said, clearing my throat with a rasp. “I have work in the city.”

She tilted her head, dashing the back of her hand over her wet mouth.

Cazzo, why was even that attractive?

“What kind of work?” she asked innocently enough, but there was calculation in thoseocchi di cerbiatta.

“The kind you do not want to hear about.”

She had made that clear enough last night.

Her small white teeth clamped into her plush bottom lip. “Will you come back?”

“No,” I said simply, because she knew why.

There was no way I could be in her orbit and not be drawn by the gravitational force of our shared attraction into kissing her, fucking her, loving her even more than I already did.

And I loved her enough that I felt it in my lungs with every breath I took.

“I’m coming with you,” she announced, throwing her shoulders back pugnaciously. “To Florence. I haven’t been back yet, and I would like to visit.”

I arched a brow. “I have work in the city. I will not be able to join you. With someone after me, and by extension you, I do not relish the idea of sending you off into the city alone.”

“I’ll wait while you do your business,” she offered hastily, and I had to wonder at her angle here.

Did she want to go into the city that badly, or was she reluctant to see me go?

“We leave in twenty minutes,” I said, against my better judgment. “Will you be ready?”

In answer, she ran to me, raised to her toes to press a kiss to the hinge of my jaw, and whispered, “Thank you,” before she darted up the stairs.

I pressed my fingers to the place her lips had touched and shook my head.

It was almost impossible to keep my hands off Guinevere on the train to Florence. She was dressed in uncharacteristic black, a tight pair of trousers that tucked into black Ferragamo riding boots she’d borrowed from Delfina and a silk shirt that closed in a series of red ribbons from between her breasts to the bottom of her belly. I wanted to rip those bows open with one flick of my fingers, lay her out on the table in the first-class train car, and feast on her again until this rapacious hunger in my gut slackened.

We were only taking the train because of Guinevere, who had told Renzo and Carmine train travel was one of her favorite things.