Forbidden Never Felt This Good

~ 23

0023

~Luca~

"Luca, what's going on?"

The worry in her voice was immediate. I caught it, that slight edge, the way her body had gone still in that particular way people do when their mind jumps straight to the worst possible thing.

And in our world, the worst possible thing was never far-fetched enough to dismiss.

I turned to look at her properly.

"I'm taking you somewhere," I said. "You'll love it."

She opened her mouth.

"Don't." I said it calmly. "Don't argue. Just sit back. I promise, you will love it."

She gave me a look, the Aria Santoro look that she has given me a couple of times.

The one that said I am a grown woman and you do not get to tell me to sit back.

Under different circumstances I might have smiled at it. But she held it for only a moment before something shifted in her expression, something that looked almost like exhaustion winning over stubbornness, and she turned back to the window.

I didn’t like it but it will be a victory when she gets to see what it is.

Marco followed my directions without a word, navigating out of the city center and into quieter streets, the kind lined with modest buildings and old trees and the particular charm of a neighborhood that hasn't tried too hard to be anything other than what it is.

I watched Aria from the corner of my eye. She was trying to figure it out, I could see it in the way she tracked the street signs, the way her brow pulled together slightly every time we turned.

She had no idea.

Good.

The building came into view. A dog visible through the window, nose pressed flat against the glass in that shameless way dogs do.

And the moment Aria's eyes landed on it, especially the signboard. Everything she had been holding tightly all morning just loosened.

"No." She breathed it more than said it. She sat forward in her seat, hands pressed to the window like a child. "No, Luca…"

"Yes."

"How did you…" She turned to look at me, genuinely stunned, those tired eyes suddenly wide and alive. "How do you even know about this place?"

I lifted one shoulder. "Lucky guess."

She stared at me for a second longer than necessary, like she didn't quite believe me but couldn't prove otherwise. Then the car hadn't even fully stopped before she was reaching for the door handle.

I let her have that. The sprint out of the car, the way she nearly forgot to wait for me, I let her have all of it. I followed at a measured pace, nodding to Marco to stay with the vehicle, and watched her push through the front door like she was walking into somewhere sacred.

The owner was a woman in her mid-forties, broad-shouldered and warm-faced, the kind of person who has spent enough years around animals that she has taken on their patience.

She looked up when Aria came in and smiled the way people smile when they recognize someone who genuinely belongs in a space.

They spoke. Aria was already leaning over the front counter, asking questions, her hands animated, her voice lighter than it had been in days.

The woman laughed at something she said and disappeared to the back, returning with a green shelter overall, a pair of gloves, and rubber boots that Aria accepted without a single complaint about her outfit

Which, for a woman who had walked into that car looking like she was dressed for a boardroom, told me everything about what this place meant to her.

She tucked herself into the overall, swapped her shoes without hesitation, and pulled the gloves on while still talking.

Then she disappeared through the back door and the noise of animals swallowed her whole.

I stayed near the entrance. Watched through the open doorway.

This was something I had seen before, not in person, not like this, but in pieces. Watching from a careful distance.

The way she used to carve time out of her Harvard schedule for places like this. It was something she did purely because she loved it.

That was the version of her I had always found hardest to look away from.

And now here she was, moving between kennels, crouching down without hesitation, speaking softly to a dog who looked like it had been through something and wasn't sure yet whether to trust people again. I understood that dog more than I wanted to admit.

She stayed in there a long time. I didn't rush her. There was still time before the meeting.

When she finally came back out, she was pulling the gloves off and her cheeks were flushed and there was a smudge of something on the knee of the overall that she hadn't noticed and didn't care about, and she looked more like herself than she had all morning.

She stopped in front of me.

"Thank you." Her voice was quiet. Full. The kind of thank you that carries weight behind it, not just for today, not just for this, but for the fact that I had known. That I had seen her.

I nodded. I didn't trust myself with more than that.

Because the way she was looking at me right now, with all those walls temporarily down and every feeling sitting right there on the surface of her face, if I opened my mouth, I wasn't sure what would come out.

She saved me from myself by starting to talk.

"I used to volunteer at a place like this near campus," she said, falling into step beside me, moving toward a bench near the front window. "Tiny place. Smelled terrible, honestly. But there was this one cat, massive orange thing, mean as anything, hated every single person who came in." She laughed softly. "Except me. Sat on my lap every single time."

"Sounds about right," I said.

She looked at me sideways. "What is that supposed to mean?”

"Nothing. Go on."

She narrowed her eyes but the smile stayed. "The staff used to say I had a gift. I think I just had patience." She paused, looking down at the gloves in her hands. "Animals don't pretend. They either trust you or they don't. There's something really honest about that."

I looked at her.

She was still talking, about the orange cat, about a three-legged dog she had once fundraised for, about how she had briefly and seriously considered derailing her entire Harvard path to study veterinary medicine, and I was listening to every word, I was, but I was also just watching her. The way her eyes went soft when she talked about something she actually loved. The way the morning light came through the shelter window and did completely unfair things to her face.

She was the only thing in the room. She was the only thing, full stop.

Then, my phone rang.

The sound cut straight through everything, through her voice, through the warmth of the moment, through every good thing that had been building in the last hour. I looked down at the screen out of habit.

The name stopped me cold.

Joan.

My jaw tightened. Every muscle in my body went rigid in the space of a single heartbeat. Of all the moments. Of all the times she could have chosen to—

Fuck.