Page 6 of Raziel

“You know, I was thinking… maybe next time I could come with you,” she said. “Meet your friends. You always leave me behind like I’m some secret.”

“Priest doesn’t trust anyone,” I replied. “He doesn’t like outsiders at his events. Especially from different family factions.”

It was a lie.

I just didn’t want her there. I didn’t want her anywhere near Maya.

The thought alone made my stomach twist. Maya knew about Alessia—I’d told her enough times—but she brushed it off like it didn’t matter.

I suspected that was because as long as she never saw Alessia, never had to face the reality of my obligations, she could pretend she didn’t exist.

But reality is harder to ignore.

What happens when Maya sees her?

What happens when she looks her in the face and realizes the other woman is real?

That she isn’t just some excuse I made up to push her away—or worse, to tease her jealousy?

Would anything change?

Would she stop touching me the way she did?

Would she stop looking at me like I belonged to her?

The thought pissed me off more than it should have.

What if someone else got to feel the way her hips rolled?

Got to see her smile right before she said something that either pissed me off or turned me on?

I leaned my forehead against the tile, letting the scalding water burn my back. I barely felt it.

Fuck.

I shouldn’t have put my dick in her.

In six years, Maya was the only woman besides Alessia I’d slept with. Now I had to live with the memory—and the pathetic hope that it might happen again.

Even though it shouldn’t.

“You think he’ll be less worried when we’re married?” Alessia asked. Casual tone, but I knew she cared.

I didn’t answer.

She kept talking.

“The wife’s kind of full of herself, isn’t she? I saw her Instagram post. All that nouveau riche money went to her head.”

I shut my eyes. Drowned her out with water.

I washed fast.

By the time I stepped out, she was gone from the bathroom, but waiting in bed when I entered the room. She lay under the covers, bare-shouldered, watching me as I toweled off.

Her eyes followed every move.

It annoyed me.