From Sand and Ash(70)

“Shh. Shh, Eva,” Angelo soothed, smoothing her hair. “Aldo’s documents have saved many people. You have saved many people, Eva. You realize that, don’t you?”

Eva just shook her head, not ready for accolades just yet. She had walked away and Aldo had saved her, not the other way around.

“It was random. Just . . . random. I was almost to him, maybe ten feet away, when the voice called out behind me. Aldo told me to keep walking, and I did. I walked on, and Aldo walked to his death.”

Angelo was silent then, and she could feel his horror—it echoed her own—but his hand was heavy and comforting, a continual caress, as he smoothed her hair over and over again. They stayed that way for a long time, Eva cocooned in threadbare blankets and Angelo’s embrace. She started feeling sleepy, the return of warmth and the loss of adrenaline leaving her loose and drained. But she didn’t want to sleep. She was afraid if she slept Angelo would leave, and she would dream about terrible things and have to endure them alone.

The thought made her heart kick up and her breath shorten all over again.

“Eva?” Angelo’s voice lifted in concern, feeling the return of her tension.

She rolled into him, pressing her lips against his neck, just above the white collar that gleamed like a halo in the darkness. He didn’t react at first, as if she’d taken him by surprise. She opened her lips and tasted the scratchy skin of his throat, and felt him swallow back a curse or a groan. She couldn’t be sure.

She lifted her face and found the edge of his jaw, pressing insistent kisses along the squared-off plane, hungry for his mouth and for the mind-numbing pleasure she knew would follow. She needed him to kiss her and make her forget everything but him for just a little while. She found his lips, and he responded instantly, feverishly, only to tear himself away a second later.

“Eva. No,” he said softly and sat up, releasing her. She tried to follow him, but she was pinned by the blankets he’d wrapped her in, and she squirmed desperately, suddenly frantic to be free of them. She was panting, panicking, suffocating. She bucked, releasing her arms and loosening the blankets around her body. She pushed them down around her waist, then kicked her legs free so that she was stretched out, uncovered and uncowering.

She lay winded and relieved, her eyes on the low stone ceiling, the cold air welcome on her skin. Then she looked down at herself, staring at her body through new eyes, seeing herself as Angelo would see her. Above the plain white panties, her stomach was flat . . . too flat, the deprivations of war taking the softly rounded curve from her belly and her hips, making her more girlish than womanly. But the shadows were alluring, forgiving even, and her breasts were still full and high, the tips a dusky red against her pale skin.

Eva looked from her body to Angelo’s face. He was staring down at her unclothed form, his eyes desperate, his jaw clenched, as if fighting against the very demons that had swarmed the dark street and taken Aldo’s life. Then he lifted his gaze, and his eyes locked on hers. The raw devotion in his face sent a surge of something hot and powerful slicing through her chest. She had been powerless for so long.

She reached for Angelo’s hand and pulled it to her mouth, kissing his palm before dragging his fingers over her lips, her chin, down the length of her neck, and across her chest. She thought she heard him say her name, but there was a roaring in her ears, and she didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She pressed his hand against her left breast, the base of his palm resting against her thundering heart, his fingers brushing sensitive flesh. She shuddered and closed her eyes. It felt so safe and warm. So heavy and delicious. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t curve his hand against her or make the caress his own.

She didn’t care.

She was filled with reckless desire, and she slid his flattened palm sideways to include her other breast, the peaks pebbling in response. His hand trembled against her skin, and her belly vibrated like a violin string as the bow was slowly pulled across it. Her body hummed with a building crescendo, and Eva dragged Angelo’s hand down over her ribs, across her abdomen, past the hollow between her hip bones. Then she pushed his palm lower, gasping at the contact.

She could feel her pulse there—an aching, insistent thrumming—as if her heart had followed Angelo’s hand. Maybe it was her brush with death, watching a life end so violently right before her eyes. Maybe it was just the incessant threat that lurked at the edge of every single moment. But her body burned with desperate life, with frantic need, and the simple weight of Angelo’s hand pressed at her center was enough to have her clinging to his wrist, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as her body tightened and then teetered, tumbling over and over, quaking and pulsing against his warm palm.

And still Angelo was silent and unmoving, an unwilling participant, and as Eva’s head cleared and her body cooled, she became instantly hyperaware, her sense and inhibitions returning with her release.

Bliss became intense mortification.

She let go of Angelo’s wrist at once and curled away from him, his fingers trailing heavily across her hip as she rolled and withdrew. She pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle the sobs, but now she cried from shame, humiliated by what she’d done, by what he’d seen, by what she’d made him do. And still her body sang softly, betraying her.

She felt him shift and her blankets were drawn up loosely around her shoulders, covering her nakedness and her shame. His hand rose to her face, and he wiped her tears away, brushing them back into her hair.