Blood & Marriage (Dark Mafia Romance) Read Free

have been consequences for me if Father found out
I kissed a man I had just met.
    I tapped the wall at the shallow end of the pool and stopped
for air. I didn’t even realize how hard I’ve been working out until my muscles
started trembling slightly. I took deep breaths of warm air, glad that I didn’t
have to drive anywhere for a swim. The pool was in the basement of our villa,
and I studied the space above me, hit by the realization that not only was I
getting married soon, but I would also be leaving behind the place I called
home and all that came with it.
    I looked beneath my feet, to the octopus mosaic illuminated
by blue side lights. I’d been the one to choose the pattern when I was only
five. When my mother was still alive, and my parents’ marriage a happy one.
    I glanced up, startled by a movement to the side. For a
split second I was certain I’d spotted Mona resting on one of the sunbeds, but
when I realized who it really was, I froze.
    “You can’t smoke here,” I choked out in the end, watching
Santo make his way toward the edge of the pool in slow steps. I still
remembered the faint taste of tobacco on his tongue, under the mint. Why would
he come here, in his clothes at that? In the corner of my eye I saw he’d
changed into jeans and a black T-shirt, but I was certain he didn’t come to
swim.
    “Don’t worry, the ventilation’s on,” he said, strolling
along the edge toward me.
    I took a deep breath and kicked myself away from the rim of
the pool, fighting the ache in my limbs as I swam across its length for a
moment’s peace. The front crawl allowed me to keep my face underwater for the
most part, but my lungs constricted when I turned my head to catch some air and
saw him following me.
    I couldn't help feeling annoyed that I was wearing my sports
swimsuit, a blue one-piece that flattened my breasts. They weren't big anyway,
and I wouldn't have minded some padding right now. Or for that matter, I
wouldn't mind having on the black D&G swimsuit I’d bought the other day.
That one was all straps and eyelets. Not for Santo's viewing pleasure of
course, but to drive the message home that he wouldn’t have me.
    “Is there something you nee—” I wanted to ask in annoyance
when he put out the cigarette, but breath caught in my lungs when Santo
casually reached to the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it off in one graceful
move. The sight it revealed made me still in the water, afraid that I might
just reach out to that ripped stomach, were it any closer.
    I was ashamed to admit it, but his body was a work of art.
He couldn’t have been older than twenty five, and the muscles in his body
revealed why there was so much confidence in the way he moved. Wide shoulders
narrowing down into a slim waist, and along the way, a pattern of small scars
scattered, as if the artist who’d created him had decided he needed to mar the
perfection so that it wouldn’t seem unrealistic.
    I forced myself to look up as soon as my eyes attempted to
follow the trail of hair under his navel, but instead of at his face, as I’d
planned, they stopped at the base of his neck where a thick, red horizontal
scar cut from one side of his throat to the other.
    “I came for a swim,” he said, opening his belt as if to
distract me. It wouldn’t help. I knew he was here to steal more of what wasn’t
his to take.
    I opened my mouth, but it took me several seconds to produce
a sound as I made my way to the ladder in the corner. “Make yourself
comfortable,” I told him, hoping he would leave me in peace while I grabbed my
towel and ran.
    Pulling myself out of the water, I have never felt so
ungraceful, with the heat of his gaze burning my back through the rivulets of
water cascading down my body. I wasn’t ready for this. I’d even removed all my
makeup before coming here, and the little wet bundle of hair on top of my head
was unflattering. He shouldn’t have been allowed to see me without my armor.
    “You do know I was