give me space, Frankie.’
She swallowed. He sounded exhausted, but he was brutal. She was brave enough to take him on, though. Him and his dark, desperate mood.
She wedged herself between his open legs, hunkered down, rested her arms on the hard, solid length of his thighs. This beautiful man—every inch of him—deserved her care.
‘I don’t think space is what you need just now.’
She looked up past the black band of his underwear to the golden skin and dark twists of hair, the ripped abs and perfect pecs, the strong male shoulders and neck and the harsh, sensuous slash of his mouth.
She trailed her touch down hard, swollen biceps, followed the path of a proud vein all the way to where his fingers lay around the photograph. Finally she traced her fingertips over his, and held his eyes when they turned to hers.
‘What can be so bad? There’s nothing that isn’t better when it’s shared.’
Slowly, boldly, she closed her fingers around the photograph frame.
‘Can I see?’
His gaze darkened, his mouth slashed more grimly, but she didn’t stop.
Gingerly, she tugged it from his grip. ‘Is he your son?’
She had no idea where that came from. But suddenly the thought of an infant Rocco was overwhelming.
‘You’re opening up something that’s best left shut.’
His voice was a shell—a crater in a minefield of unexploded bombs.
She climbed up closer to him, balanced on his thighs. Lifted the photo frame into her hands completely, laid her head against his chest and scrutinised it.
And he let her.
She felt the fight in him ease slightly as he exhaled a long breath.
She sat there waiting. Waiting …
Finally he spoke.
‘He’s my brother. His name was Lodovico—Lodo. He was three years old when that photo was taken. And he was four years old when he died.’
She held her breath as he said the words.
‘I was his only family. Our papá had disappeared and Mamá had lost her mind. Nobody else wanted to know.’
His voice drilled out quietly, his chest moved rhythmically and the haunted black eyes of his poor baby brother gazed up.
‘I was with him when he died. I didn’t cause his death—I was only a child myself. I am not responsible.’ The words came out in a strange staccato rush. ‘But I feel it,’ he added harshly, and a curl of his agony wound round her own heart.
She swallowed, shifted her weight, slid to his side and under his arm. She held the photo in front of them, so they were both looking at it.
‘I can say those words over and over and they still mean nothing. I’ve said them so many times. Meaningless. Of course I am responsible.’
‘How did he die?’
It seemed baldly awful to say it aloud, but she knew she had hear it. She knew there was worse to come.
‘By gunfire. Shot dead. A bullet aimed at me. Because I was the one running errands for a rival gang. And when the stakes are high, and the police are being paid to look the other way, and mothers have gone mad and fathers can’t take the shame of not being able to provide … life is cheap.’
She sat up. He stared ahead. The credits were rolling on the television screen. His face was stone.
‘But you just said … you were a child, too. How can you be blamed?’
‘How can I not be blamed? If I hadn’t become little more than a petty criminal—if I had found another way for us to live—if I hadn’t got greedy and done more and more daring things … terrible things. If I hadn’t let go of his fingers when he needed me most …’
His eyes crashed shut and his face squeezed into a mask of agony.
Frankie tugged him to her, desperate for his warm, strong touch as the hurt of his words and in his face gnawed at her resolve.
‘What age were you—six? Seven? How could you have prevented any of those things happening?’
She stared up at him but he merely turned away, as if he’d heard it all before.
She placed her hands on his cheeks and positioned herself round to face him, held him steady in her grip. ‘Rocco. You were a child. And you’re still tearing yourself up over this?’
His face was a ridge of rock and anger.
She kissed him. She kissed the jutting cheekbone that he turned to her, the wedge of angry jaw, the harshly held crevice of his lips. She felt her tears slide between them and put her lips where they washed down.
‘Rocco, baby … you were not to blame.’
His eyes were still closed to her but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stand to see her warrior in such pain. With tiny, soft presses she slowly covered his face with her lips, whispering her heart to him.
He kept himself impassive, cold and distant. He didn’t push her away, but she could feel that he wanted to. As with every other time, she let her body guide her, not her head. He needed her. She needed to let him see how much. As instinctively as a flower faced the light, or curled its petals at night, she laid her body around him and soothed him.
And slowly he began to respond to her heat and light. He sighed against her whisper-soft kisses, melted into her cradling arms. He sat back against the couch and she climbed over him, slipped her legs around him to strengthen him, to imbue him with everything she could. The energy and emotion they had shared welled up inside her, and she knew she would gladly gift it all to him to ease his awful pain.
‘Frankie …’ he breathed into her neck as she lay over him.
His arms that had been lying limply at his sides, not quite rejecting her, now closed around her and held her tightly against him. She found herself rocking slightly, in that age-old movement of reassurance and care.
‘You would never do anything to harm an innocent child. Never.’
His arms slid closer around her, holding her body and her head clasped against him. He had so much power and strength and yet he was so vulnerable, lying there in her arms.
‘I would do anything to turn the clock back. I could have done so much more to protect him.’
‘And who was protecting you?’
He sighed against her. ‘I didn’t need protecting. I needed to be reined in. Always have.’
She pulled back and stared at him, cupped her hands around his beautiful,
