He’s right. I know he is right. But we’re not here to talk about me. We’re here for him, so I tell him that and he nods.
“You’re right,” he answers. “You’re here because you want to save the un-savable.”
I shake my head.
“Don’t say that,” I almost plead, surprising myself with my emotion. “You’re not un-savable.”
He chuckles mirthlessly. “Okay.”
“Please. Tell me what you remember of your episodes. How have they gotten worse? What do you remember of each one? What exactly makes you think that you are violent, that you could be behind the murders in town?”
Luca speaks and his voice is husky in the night, like velvet. As he tells me what he remembers, I ache to reach over and draw him into my arms and hold him there, protecting him from everything the world might do to him.
“There was blood on my hands.”
He finishes up with these words and the hair stands up on the back of my neck.
“Blood on your hands,” I repeat slowly, my heart frozen in my chest. I feel suddenly numb.
He nods.
“I washed it away and I have no idea how it got there but it was the morning after the second girl, Sophia Romano, was killed. Then again after the third.”
I swallow.
I had really wanted to believe that he is wrong, that he isn’t a violent killer. But how can blood on his hands be explained?
I shake my head silently as I realize that it can’t.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I don’t want to be this way,” Luca tells me. I can hear the sincerity in his voice. It is aching and raw and I can do nothing but believe him. The truth is in his eyes. He is not lying.
“I know,” I tell him. “There has to be a medical answer. There is something… a chemical imbalance maybe. We’ll find it and fix it. I promise.”
He grins, his smile both a little wicked and a little sad. “Don’t forget what I said about promises.”
“I won’t,” I whisper. Luca hasn’t taken his eyes from mine and we seem to be attached by an invisible tether. The energy between us right now is palpable, I can practically reach out with shaking hands and touch it.
“Evangeline,” he says softly, his dark eyes glued to mine. “I’m so sorry about the other night. I wish I could remember. I wish I could take it back.”
“I don’t,” I tell him honestly. “I really don’t.”
He gazes out the window for a scant moment more, seemingly deep in thought, before he crosses the room to me. He kneels in front of me and looks into my eyes. In this moment, he is as vulnerable as I’ve ever seen him, as I’ve ever seen anyone. He’s completely open to me, hiding nothing.
I want so desperately to kiss him.
“I can’t,” I tell his dark eyes, praying that I don’t fall into them. “I want to kiss you right now. But I can’t. You’re my patient. There are ethics…”
Luca shakes his head, his hands on my knees and his gaze upon mine. “You aren’t my doctor, Evangeline. You’re my friend. I’m simply talking to a friend who wants to help me tonight. You’re not licensed to practice medicine in Malta, remember? So where does that leave your ethics?”
He smiles wolfishly and waits without moving. He’s offering himself to me. I know that. And it is against his better judgment. He has told me that, as well. Yet here he is, on his knees in front of me.
I suck in a breath and inhale the air that is so charged with everything that Luca is.
Whatever that is.
It is dangerous on many levels. I know that.
I reach out unsure fingers and trace the top of his shoulders, moving over the contours. They are so broad, yet so slender at once. He’s perfectly built. Strong, lithe and powerful. I drop my head. I know that I don’t want to resist him anymore. For the first time in my life, I’m going to do something that my heart wants to do, not what my head tells me to do.
I grip him tighter with my fingers and pull him to me. He folds in between my knees, pressing me to his chest. I can hear his heart thumping rhythmically against mine as my fingers linger on his warm back.
He dips his head and presses his forehead to mine, staring into my eyes. His are a smoldering and stormy black.
“I’m afraid to get close to you,” he tells me. “I’m afraid for you.”
“I’m not,” I whisper. “I’m not afraid of you. Kiss me, Luca.”
Even I can hear the thick desire in my voice and Luca hears it too.
He groans and covers my mouth with his own, muffling the sound with my lips. He is pressed so close that he seems to absorb me. Every plane of his body is against every plane of mine. I don’t know where he stops and where I start, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is him and me and this.
I can’t breathe as his fingers run along my arms, down over my back and further to my h*ps and then he pulls me up, into him. He grips me tightly, his hands cupping my behind before lifts me, laying me on the thick rug on the stone floor. He hovers above me, brushing the hair from my eyes before he is once again in my mouth, my tongue mingling with his. We both taste of Scotch, but his taste is exquisite. So hot and primal and Luca.
I don’t care what the future brings. As long as there is this.
So I tell him that and he groans again, into the side of my neck. He kisses me there, brushing his lips along my skin, inhaling me as though I am the most fragrant thing that has ever existed. His breath is warm on my neck.
I arch into him and he melts into me. He is hard. Every bit of him is hard. I can feel it, can feel him. The tip of his erection pushes against the juncture of my thighs, against my damp panties. He pulls off my skirt, then my panties and I am exposed to him as his hand slides against the softness of my thigh. The cool air brushes against my hot flesh and I almost shiver. I can feel the rigidity of his penis pressing against me, but he withdraws it and I want to whimper.
But it is replaced by his fingers. Long and strong, he plays me as deftly as he played the ivory keys of the piano. An ache spreads through me, radiating from the lowest depths of my belly. I suck in my breath and push against his hand, my h*ps moving in an age old rhythm that comes as naturally to me as breathing.