Kiss de La Notte - Book III (Mafia Romance)

Chapter Thirty: Sweat It Out

CIAO, MY KISSES!!!! 

IT'S FINALS WEEK AND I'M SICK AS A DOG AND WAITING ON A COVID TEST AND KEPT FORGETTING ABOUT UPLOADING THIS CHAPTER FOR LIKE 3 HOURS BUT HERE WE ARE LMAOOOOO.

TBH THIS SONG CHOICE IS ALL I CAN THINK OF RN SO JUST ACCEPT IT AND DANCE THX (USED TO SPAM LISTEN TO THIS SONG ON MY IPOD AND I WAS LIKE 14 BYE)

Don't forget to VOTE, COMMENT, and follow the Vendetta series Facebook group! (Link in my Wattpad profile bio!!)

I woke up the next morning to my muffled phone alarm and realized two things. One: my purse was right next to me, and two: I was in Lucius' La Notte's bed again.

Reaching into the bag, I turned off my daily eight AM alarm for college that I really shouldn't have set for the weekend and groggily sat up. I rubbed the heels of my palms into my swollen eyelids and prodded my tender cheek, before looking over at his empty side of the bed.

I ended up taking a shower in his bathroom, which had bare minimum supplies, but at least it was clean, and he had normal shampoo and conditioner instead of that 2-1 bottle men leaned on. The shampoo smelled like him and sharing his scent felt oddly intimate and assuring that I was safe.

Every time I rewound what happened the night before, the traumatizing interaction with Marcos seemed to somehow take the backburner. It was the way Lucius had responded to the incident that lingered at the forefront. His is fury, the way he had cradled me in his arms, how he'd caressed my back until I fell asleep and how I could still feel the ghost of his touch kneading the muscle. He'd shown me a side of himself that surprised me, that tempted away the wary part of me on guard all the time.

As I washed the soap off my body, I thought about how Lucius. How soothing his touch could be, when I knew exactly what those hands were capable of. Capable of torture. Capable of killing. Capable of pleasuring.

I turned the water off, willing those thoughts to go away.

After the shower, I carefully avoided glancing in the bathroom mirror to brush my teeth with a packaged travel toothbrush under the sink. I searched through his closet and some drawers to gather something to wear temporarily. He hadn't left out my change of clothes from college and there was no way I was wearing that red dress when I went home. His house was not only bare of pretty much everything, but it didn't have much of a heater situation and it was still snowing outside. I found a long-sleeve gray t-shirt, clean boxers, and socks, but he didn't have any sweatpants that I could find.

Right as I finished getting dressed, Lucius happened to open the bedroom door real quiet-like. He saw me and entered the room a more normal way and closed the door behind him. My mouth went a little dry at how sweaty he was underneath his grey sweats and sweatshirt. His dark brown hair was almost black around the crown of his head, like he'd been working out.

"You're up," Lucius said, wiping his face with the collar of the shirt underneath his sweatshirt. "Thought you might still be snoring––I mean, sleeping."

I felt my face get hot. "Fuck off."

Lucius simpered, his grin making him look ridiculously sexier. When that smile darkened a little, I could tell he was staring at the bruise I could feel on my cheek. He looked away from me and seemed to reset. "Remind me to add snowblower to my long shopping list for this house. I'm sweating my balls off just from doing the driveway."

The visual of him sweating underneath those clothes definitely shouldn't have sounded so intriguing. "All that muscle and no cardio endurance?" I joked.