Page 52 of Vows of Blood

My resolve crumbles.

"I loved you,” I yell, the admission tearing out of me angrily before I can stop it. "I wanted to be with you. I would have given up everything for you. Everything."

Beneath Luca’s anger, I see doubt. Confusion. And suspicion. He’s remembering that night, some tiny detail, and as he studies me, always able to tell if I was telling him even a tiny lie, he takes a slow inhale.

"You're not lying," he says quietly, finally accepting that what he thought was true for all these years wasn’t. “Fuck, you’re really not lying.” He eases closer, dipping his head, lips just inches from mine, and lingers there.

“Don’t. Don’t you dare,” I sob.

When his eyes meet mine again, they're darker, dangerous, as he backs me against the wall, his massive body pinning me in place before whispering, “You came.”

Hot breath dusts my cheek, and he pauses, his thumb tracing the curve of my jaw, just long enough for me to turn my head if I really wanted to.

I don’t.

Then his mouth is on mine.

It's not gentle. Not tentative. He kisses me like he's trying to reclaim what’s his. One hand fists in my hair, the other slides around my waist, then he hauls me against him, and with one thrust of his hips, presses me back against the wall.

“Who do you think you are?” I shove at his shoulders, furious that he thinks he can just take what he wants after all this time, but then his teeth catch my bottom lip, and a sound escapes me that has nothing to do with anger.

I hate him. I hate him for leaving, for not fighting harder, for still making me feel like this.

Clawing at his neck, I scratch his skin, but then, my fingers are curling into the soft hair at the back of his neck instead of pushing him away. And when he deepens the kiss, I let him. It feels so good. Our bodies know each other. Remember just how good we can be together.

Something hard presses against my stomach as he rocks his hips against me, and I whimper into his mouth, wetness already flooding between my thighs as I cling to him.

He breaks away first, eyes squeezed shut, his forehead pressed against mine. I can feel his heart pounding against my palms where they're pressed flat to his chest.

"Sienna…"

Before he can ask the question I know is coming, confirming what he knows deep down, I blurt it out. "Your father."

Luca keeps his eyes closed, his face twisting in pain and anger.

"He came to my door before I left to meet you. Told me if I went through with it, he'd kill me. Make it look like an accident. You'd blame yourself and never get over it."

Luca frowns. “So you didn’t come?”

I shake my head, keeping a firm grip on his shirt, needing him to understand this one thing.

"I did. I went anyway." I lift my chin, willing myself not to wilt as he glowers at me. "But when I got to the lake house, when I was just about to give up and leave, he came out… said if I didn’t leave you alone, he’d kill you instead. That he’d rather do that than have a son who’d abandon his family for a bitch like me."

He releases me, hands falling to his sides, staring numbly as his father’s vicious words sink in. Luca doesn’t question whether they’re true. He knows what his father is.

"Fuck! He said—" Luca stops, pressing his palms against his face hard. "I'm sorry." The words are barely audible. "I didn't know."

He stalks out of the kitchen, hands on his head, leaving me alone with his kiss still burning on my lips, and not knowing whether I’ve made things better or worse.

15

LUCA

Ten years ago

Sienna throws her head back and laughs as I catch her fingertips and tug her back into the bed.

“I have to go home, Luca. Class starts in twenty minutes, and I’m still in yesterday’s clothes.” She makes another half-hearted attempt to climb out of bed, but I pull her back, rolling us so she’s pinned beneath me. Her tank top rises up, exposing a perfect slash of her tanned, toned stomach.