Unraveled (Guzzi Duet Book 1)(41)

His fingers tightened around her throat, taking away air and making her fly. She knew what was coming. She fucking vibrated for it, anticipated it, wanting his words to make it sweeter, and better.

“Just fucking come and give it to me, then,” he demanded. “Show me what’s mine, Cara. Show me.”

Shit.

She could do that.

All he had to do was say so.





Cara stepped out of the shower to find Gian leaning in the doorway. “I know, I’m late.”

He held his hands up, grinning in that way of his. “I’m saying nothing about that again. I warned you earlier, you wanted to listen to me read, love.”

“Well, it sounded good.”

“And then fuck after,” he added.

Cara shot him a look. “I didn’t hear you refusing.”

“Why would I?”

She didn’t dignify that with a response, instead drying off with a towel and making quick work of rubbing it through her wet hair. She was going to have to rush to get to school and hand in her paper on time, but she couldn’t find it in herself to give a shit.

Gian had jumped in the shower with her long enough to clean himself up before he jumped right back out. Cara was both jealous and irritated to see him standing there with his suit on and his hair dry.

It wasn’t fair that all he had to do was basically roll over and be ready for the day.

“What do you want, if you’re not standing there to remind me that I’m late again?” Cara asked.

She headed past Gian in the doorway, going toward her bedroom for clothes. It was what he said next that stopped Cara in her tracks.

“Your brother called.”

Cara turned slowly on her heel. “I’m sorry?”

“Tommas—that’s your brother, right?”

“Yes.”

“He called when you were in the shower. He wanted me to ask you to call your mother.”

Nope.

Cara turned back around and went straight into her room without a word. She dug through her closet, while Gian came to stand in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her in that silent way of his.

“Could you give me a ride to the university?”

“You don’t even have to ask,” he replied.

“Great. Saves me time.”

“I take it you’re not going to talk about your brother, huh?”

Cara shrugged. “Tommas is fine. Not my mother, though.”

Gian nodded as she passed him in the door. “Fair enough.”

“And I’m not calling the bitch, either.”

“Ouch,” he muttered behind her.

Cara kept walking, picking up her bag and the other things she needed on the way. Her hair would have to dry like it was, but it wouldn’t be the first time. “It sounds cold because I mean for it to. I have nothing to say to that woman that will be nice, and everybody knows it. Just because Tommas can muster up an ounce of care for the woman means fuck all to me in the end. I’ve looked for something, Gian.”

“And?”

She turned to look at him, unaffected as she said, “It’s not there. Nothing is there. Maybe when Lea was alive, or even shortly after she died, when I was so alone here by myself—maybe then I might have found something. But, now? Now, when I’m almost fully okay and I don’t need somebody holding me up, it’s gone again. I’m not calling my mother. I have nothing to say to Serena Rossi. She can keep drinking away the shit she did to us kids until she drinks herself into a grave. And even then, I don’t care.”

Gian’s face remained passive and calm throughout her tirade. “I’m sorry, mon ange.”

“You don’t have to apologize. If anything, you’re one of the things that woke me the hell up again. I was missing something for a long time after my twin died, and now I don’t feel so lost or empty. But you know what does makes me feel that way?”

“What?”

“My mother. Even thinking about her makes me revert back into that shell of a child that played a little quieter than normal, as to not enrage the drunks sleeping upstairs, or waited for her brother to get home so she could eat. That lost, lonely child. So fuck her and fuck Tommas for asking me to care, too.”

Gian cleared his throat. “All right. You going to be okay today or—”

Cara opened her apartment door with force. “I’ll be fine.”

“Really? Because you used more fucks in this conversation than the entire time we’ve been messing around, Cara.”

She locked her apartment up once Gian was out in the hallway with her.

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated. “I always am.”

“Or do you have to be?” he asked as she started down the hallway.

Cara tensed, but kept walking. “Does it matter?”

Gian caught up with her quickly enough, his arm curving her waist as he pulled her in tight and kissed the top of her head. It was that simple action—his unspoken concern and care—that slowed Cara’s rage.

“It matters to me,” he murmured against the top of her head.

Cara sighed. “I’m good.”

Gian made a discontented sound under his breath.

“I am,” she promised. “Sometimes it spills out, though.”