AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Luka held his arm out so she could see. “It’s fine.”
Alina stared at the mark. “Oh,” she mumbled. “You’re right.”
Luka crossed back to the bag of clothes, picked it up, and held it out to her again.
Alina took the things he’d bought into the bathroom to dress.
While she did, Luka packed up the paints and small easels he’d purchased for her. He should have bought her clothes at the time. She’d kept most of the art supplies neatly stored, and the ones in use were quick enough to add to it. Even the portrait-in-progress, of Giovanni, had dried. She must not have painted at all the night he hadn’t returned.
Luka wondered what she’d been doing. She had to have realized he wasn’t coming at some point. Had she just sat and waited?
His eyes focused on the drawings that covered one wall. The people from the diner were there. Enzo would probably paint over it as part of the cleanup. The thought made Luka sad, but he wondered if that was for the best.
Alina was done quickly enough and wore the new, white cloth tennis shoes that he’d purchased, ones without bloodstains. She still wore his shirt, but over jeans and underwear, he assumed.
Luka shifted the art supplies to a one-handed grip so that he could reach the other hand out to her.
For the first time, Alina didn’t take it. She stared at it, her fingers twitching at her side like she wanted to.
Luka let his gloved hand drop. It was safer to have his hand free. He might need to pull his knife.
Alina didn’t look at the walls or the bed or anything else as she followed him out. It bothered Luka that she didn’t say anything either. Her face was slack, her eyes empty.
Enzo waited for them on the porch. He didn’t appear happy, no longer smiling, but didn’t complain as he led the way to the Di Salvo estate.
Alina hid away in the spare room she was assigned. With the walls around her, it felt the same as the cabin once had. Or her room in her father’s estate while he was alive. She was just now realizing that the house she’d shared with Luka had also been similar, but it hadn’t felt that way. Maybe she’d felt freer because of her visits to the diner.
She tried to cut off that thought, but then felt worse for it. She took out a fresh canvas and some paints, and she began to paint Meg.
Luka had disappeared. Him not being around made her chest hurt as badly as it had when she’d woken up without him. She wondered how she could get that pain to fade a little. Time was the only answer that came to her, and that passed without any effort on her part.
After he’d brought her here, he’d paused in the bedroom, a hesitant look in his pale eyes as if he wanted to say something. Alina had thought about asking when he’d be back, but she swallowed the question. She hadn’t wanted him to make another promise he couldn’t keep.
She painted the day away instead. Enzo brought her a tray of food at one point, but Alina wasn’t hungry. It was hard to look at food once she realized she was painting the last expression she’d seen on Meg’s face before the bullet had taken it away.
But she kept painting it. She wasn’t done when exhaustion pulled on her eyelids. Enzo had also brought her some first aid supplies, and she used the ointment and replaced her bandage on her own.
She didn’t need Luka to take care of her.
She just wanted him.
The nightmare came quickly when she fell asleep. The pain of a man forcing himself inside her. Her tears ran toward her scalp, somehow soothing her. Suddenly she had a knife, and she was stabbing the man in her dream even though he was still connected to her.
Her eyes opened as she choked back an angry shout.
Luka’s fingers stilled where they brushed the edge of her hairline. Then they resumed the small, barely-there caress.
It was like the man was still inside her. She could feel him there. What he had done. She might have stabbed him repeatedly, and done the same to his son, but they owned a part of her.
She hated them for that.
Staring into pale, peridot eyes, she wished someone else owned that part of her life.
Her body moved toward him before she could stop it. Her lips pressed against his as softly as they had once before.
This time, Luka didn’t jerk away.
His hand stilled against her hair, and his other hand tightened around her wrist. His whole body stiffened, but he held himself still, letting her take from him.
