There’s always a split second, right before something unholy appears. When your body knows before your mind registers. Your breath betrays you, and your skin tightens over the bones before your heart drops like a coin into the fountain of wishes.
I feel him before I hear him.
A pulse at the back of my neck. A whisper in the air. A star went into collision.
Massimo Bianchi.
His name tastes like smoke and sin on my tongue. His shadow touches skin before his body does. And my thighs clench as instinct wars with memory.
He’s standing just behind me, isn’t he?
Because Papochka’s face goes tight. That vein on his temple throbs like it’s holding back every bad thing he wants to do.
The way his jaw ticks? That’s not diplomacy. That’s fury with a leash.
But Massimo is immune to tension.
He
