Our eyes meet.

I touch the cum on my belly. I bring my fingers to my lips and taste it, to see if it’s just like I remember.

Dante watches me, eyes glittering. He lunges forward and kisses me. He presses me back down on the mattress with his bulk, kissing me long and deep with his hands thrust in my hair. He doesn’t care how sweaty and messy we are. Neither do I.

Our bodies are wrung out and exhausted, but we’re not done with each other. I don’t know if we’ll ever be satisfied. We were too long apart.

Dante pulls back just enough to look in my eyes.

“I never stopped loving you,” he tells me. “I never could.”

I’m about to reply to him, saying the exact same thing.

But then I remember something. One awful fact that Dante doesn’t yet know.

He doesn’t know we have a son. He doesn’t know I kept Henry a secret from him.

He says he could never stop loving me . . . but he doesn’t know the reasons he might do exactly that.

I should tell him. I should tell him right now, I know that . . .

But I’ve waited so long to be in his arms again. Surely I can enjoy it for one night, before risking it all being ripped away from me again . . .

So I don’t tell Dante that one last secret. I just pull him close and I kiss him again and again . . .

32

Dante

I wake up next to the love of my life. The sun is shining in through a gap in the curtains, illuminating her glowing skin. Very gently, so I don’t wake her, I inhale the scent of her hair, which still smells warm and sweet, like sandalwood. She hasn’t changed. Not in any of the ways that matter.

Even though I’m trying not to wake her, her eyes flutter and she nuzzles deeper into my arms, pressing her face against my chest. The feeling of her naked flesh against mine is too much to resist. My cock is already swelling between my legs, pressing against her belly. We only have to rearrange ourselves a little so it slides inside of her.

I fuck her slowly and gently, knowing she might be sore from the night before.

I’ve never experienced sex like that. Raw, primal, animalistic, cathartic. I needed it. I needed it exactly like that. I had to take possession of Simone again. I had to make her mine in every possible way. I had to dominate her to know that she really belonged to me again, and me alone.

Maybe it’s fucked up. But I know she understood it. She wanted it as badly as I did.

We both needed it. We needed to reconnect in a way that no one else could understand or endure. Simone and I are soulmates. Soulmates don’t fuck like normal people. We unleash our darkest and wildest desires, without shame or judgment. We can fuck with violence or tenderness, aggression or care, and it’s never misunderstood. It only brings us closer.

I’ve never felt closer to her than I do at this moment. She’s the other part of me. I’ve been wandering around for nine years with only half my soul. I never thought I’d be whole again.

I kiss her, loving the way she tastes even right now, both of us still messy and sleepy. We haven’t showered, but it doesn’t matter. I love the smell of her sweat and her skin.

I fuck her slowly, my body pressed tight against hers. I can feel her clit rubbing against my lower belly, right above my cock. I spread her thighs and fuck her even deeper and tighter, until she starts to cum. She clings to me, her pussy pulsing and squeezing around my cock.

I don’t have to hold back this time. I can cum whenever I want. So I let go, too, blowing right inside that warm, wet pussy that squeezes me tighter than any glove. Tighter even than a hand wrapped around my shaft. I deposit my load deep inside of her, and then I keep thrusting a few more times, because I love the feel of that extra wetness inside of her.

I don’t pull out. I want to stay connected to her like this for as long as possible.

We lay there in the sunshine and doze a while.

Then, finally, Simone gets up to pee.

I turn the shower on, so we can clean ourselves up.

As soon as Simone steps inside the shower, I start soaping her down, inch by inch. I wash her hair, massaging her scalp with my fingers. She leans against me, still limp from the night before.

“We never actually talked about what Kenwood said,” I say.

“Right . . .” Simone lets out a long sigh, I think from how good the scalp massage feels, not anything to do with Kenwood. “He said he didn’t hire anyone to kill my father.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know . . . He didn’t sound like he was lying.”

“Liars never do.”

“Well . . .” Simone shifts uncomfortably. “He said he made a deal with my father. He said Tata destroyed evidence in return for Kenwood giving him a tip-off on a different sex ring.”

“Hm.” I think that over. “It’s possible. But that doesn’t mean Kenwood has no grudge against your father.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Simone says miserably.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just . . . my father is always so black and white. So rigid in his morals. The idea that he’d make a deal with a man like that . . .”

“Everyone does,” I tell her.

“You said that a long time ago. But I didn’t believe you then.”

“Look,” I say, “everyone wishes they could get things done without compromises or ugliness. But sometimes you have to work with enemies as well as with friends.”

Simone is quiet for a minute, while I rinse the soap out of her hair. Finally she says, “Let’s assume Kenwood was telling the truth. If he didn’t hire the sniper, then who did?”

“I have no fucking clue,” I say. “I stole one of Kenwood’s hard drives, though. Maybe that has something on it.”

After we’ve finished cleaning off, Simone orders breakfast up to the room, and I run downstairs to the hotel gift shop. Simone’s dress is still torn, so she doesn’t have anything to wear.

I buy her one of those “I Heart Chicago” t-shirts, plus a pair of sweat shorts and some flip-flops.

When I get back up to the room, Simone is already pouring our coffee, making mine with cream and no sugar, just the way I like. She changes out of her robe into the clothes. The shorts and the oversized t-shirt make her look almost like a teenager again, especially with her face clean of makeup, and her damp hair twisted up in a bun, with little curls escaping all around. She sits like a teenager in her chair, with one knee tucked up by her chest and the other bare foot dangling down.

It makes my heart squeeze in my chest, seeing her just the way she used to look.

I can’t believe how happy I feel, sitting here with her, eating our toast together in the sunshine. It scares me. I’m afraid to get comfortable, to believe in this. I can’t help thinking that something is going to happen to rip it all away again.

“I want you to stay,” I say to Simone.

Her amber-colored eyes flit up to look at me, and I see the flare of excitement in them. But it only lasts a second, and then she’s biting her lip, looking troubled.

“I . . . I have some jobs booked,” she says.

“So what. Come back after.”

“I want to,” she says.

“What’s the problem? Is it your family—”