Page 100 of Ravage God

I watched for the nightmare, which thankfully didn’t happen. I watched just in case she woke up in the middle of the night and needed me.

Sunlight crept across her face, and I reached over, moving a strand of dark hair back. The dried blood caked under my fingernails drew my attention. It didn’t fucking matter how much I had scrubbed or how hard, it remained there, like a reminder that my dirty hand was undeserving of touching an angel.

I pulled my hand away just as her eyes fluttered open. Those light-blue eyes of hers that had always fascinated me moved over to my face, the peace from her sleep still very much present. Then confusion took its place, before finally, the horror, as her memories came crashing down on her.

“Elio,” she breathed out, moving in closer to me.

I didn’t move. I wondered if she was touching me like this because she didn’t fully remember what I had done in front of her, didn’t remember the three men I killed, or if she just needed comfort and was ignoring that fact altogether.

There was a slight hitch to her breathing that told me nothing.

“Won’t you hold me?” she asked, sounding so small, so vulnerable. I wanted to burn down the fucking world just to make her smile again.

“I didn’t think you would want my arms around you so soon after what happened.”

She pulled back, a small frown on her face. “What happened?”

“Baby, don’t you remember what happened last night?”

She nodded. “Yeah. You protected me. Like you said you would.” Her hand moved over my shoulder, gently touching the wound back there. “And you got hurt in the process.”

“This is nothing. I would take a thousand of these to ensure your safety.”

And it wasn’t a figure of speech.

I meant it.

I would do anything for this girl.

Perhaps Matteo was right.

I had fallen.

And I didn’t fucking care.

If I was going to fall, if I was going to make myself weak for anyone, it would be her.

She smiled a little at that. “Why wouldn’t I want your arms around me?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t want you to be afraid of me, but I didn’t see how that wouldn’t be the case, considering what you saw.”

She was quiet for a moment, her eyes straying down to my bare chest. I didn’t bother with a shirt last night. “You were a little scary.”

I nodded, already accepting it as that.

“But I always knew you could be. Just like Valentino can be sometimes. It doesn’t make you a bad man.”

I shook my head. “Baby, I am the bad man here.”

“No,” she said, looking up at me fiercely. “Sometimes, good men do bad things. I’m not trying to justify what you’ve done. Iknow the morality argument for it. I know, okay? But you’re not a bad man. At least, not to me, and that should be good enough.”

I cupped her cheek and pulled her face in close to mine, until there were only a few inches of space between us.

“It is.”

She smiled a little. “Good.”

God, what I wouldn’t do for her smile.