Hexed (Never After, #6)

by Emily McIntire

And despite Enzo looking like a proper gentleman, I know he’s the monster that goes bump in the night, just like me. Energy attracts energy, so when two people have a similar vibration, it’s easy to feel.

Wanting things you can’t have does nothing beneficial. It only muddles the mind and keeps people from achieving greatness.

The next morning, I’m at the Grotto, a well-known bed-and-breakfast two miles down the road from the Kingston estate.

I toss the phone on my bed and finish getting ready, completing my look with my favorite bloodred lipstick and an obsidian necklace. There’s nothing a good red lip and a protection stone can’t cure.

Saltwater fish tanks are interspersed throughout the decor, filled with polyps that sway from the soft wake of the swimming angelfish and eels.

“Watch your mouth,” he says slowly, his New York accent coming through strong, dropping the r and elongating the vowels. “You won’t disrespect yourself to me.”

I hate that I like the sound of his laugh.

“It was my favorite day of the year, though.” “Because it was your birthday?” “Because for that one day, my momma loved me out loud.”

If it will make you happy. I don’t know if anyone has ever said those words to me. It’s dangerous how much I like the way it feels.

“What are you doing?” she asks. I glance down at her while I move us toward the front of a restaurant on the water called the Sharkbait. “Feeding you.”

She smells like salt water and a hint of cherry, and I…think I like it?

She can pretend I don’t affect her, but the proof is right there on her pretty skin.

It’s…something, to have someone in my company who doesn’t seem afraid of me and isn’t trying to constantly kiss my ass. Exhilarating, even.

That fucking mouth.

There she goes with my name again, and fuck, it sounds good rolling off her tongue. I want to hear her say it again. Moan it. Scream it.

“You’re right. I liked her voice, but I got tired of hearing it, so I took her back to my office and fucked her until she couldn’t speak. How’s that for a gentleman?”

My vision skims across her face and down her body, and I picture what it would be like to have her bent over an office desk with that silvery-white hair wrapped around my fist like a leash. Christ.

“You are my best friend, Short Stack,” he murmurs. “You know that, right?” I smile and pull back, reaching up to pat his head. “And you’re a good little guppy.”

Now that I’ve been sitting here in this booth for the past hour with no Venesa in sight, feeling like I’m swimming underwater from all the goddamn fish around me, I’m remembering.

A mob wife isn’t supposed to speak out of turn. They keep their mouths closed and their eyes shut to anything other than what we decide to tell them. Aria is a perfect fit for that. It’s just starting to feel like she’s not the perfect fit for me, and that’s unacceptable.

“You’ll get used to E’s sweet nothings. It’s how he got his nickname, you know? He likes to kiss you a bit before he fucks ya.”

She’s changed since I saw her, those casual cutoff shorts that stuck to her ass like a second skin gone, but she’s in something just as devastating: a thin black silk dress that flows to her ankles.

I know she’s rattled because I’m down here, the same way I’m rattled whenever I see her.

Because fuck her if she thinks I’ll allow her to disappear with another man on her arm when she came here with me.

Enzo Marino is the worst kind of distraction.

Weak men always let their dicks do the thinking, and strong women know how to take advantage of that.

I swear to God, I really, really want to not be affected, but I’m also not dead, and I can’t help the way heat floods through my body at the sight of him.

“You ever sucked a cock?” Enzo continues. “Say another word about her and I’ll cut off yours and shove it down your throat. Give you some practice. You understand?”

Turns out Lover Boy looks pretty good when he’s a little unhinged.

Goddamn. She’s unhinged in a visceral way that makes her ruthlessness look like art, and I’m hypnotized by the sight of her.

I’ve always known I was depraved, but it’s not until this very moment I see how deep that depravity runs because watching Venesa cut off someone’s hand has me realizing that violence does, in fact, turn me on.

Watching her question him felt oddly carnal, like I was witnessing her purge the blackest parts of her soul. It was invigorating and something I’ve never experienced before—intimate in a toxic type of way, her darkness enabling my own and making it vibrate beneath my skin, desperate to come out and play.

I’m not sure where we’re headed, but after what just happened, I think I’d follow her anywhere.

Self-loathing mixes into the lust I’m feeling like a volatile cocktail; it’s an internal war where I’m both the savior and the villain.

I swear it feels like she’s lighting me on fire, and it’s fucking torture because I can’t give in to the feeling, I don’t want to give into it…but I can’t pull away either.

I wipe away the specks of blood that dot her face like splatters of paint on a canvas. That’s what she is to me: a work of art. I wish like hell she weren’t.

swim in the torture of almost touching, convincing myself that if I try, almost will be enough. I’ve never experienced an immediate attraction to anyone like this before, and I don’t know how to navigate it.

Off-limits. Off-limits. Off-limits.

There’s only one Frankie Bianchi I know of, and he’s a low-grade loan shark who calls himself “Shark Daddy.”

I’m nothing more than a marionette, dangling from strings he’s controlling.

A sex dream about your cousin’s fiancé. Great, Venesa. The worst part is, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. It’s been three days since Enzo was actually here, invading my space and wiping blood from my skin like I was something to be cherished, and dreams like this have happened every. Single. Night. Since.

Men like Enzo—dangerous, charismatic, intoxicating men—only drag you down, whip you around, and tear you apart until you’re nothing but crumpled pieces of paper being blown by the wind.

I’ve been here at some florist called A Rose by Any Other Name for the past hour, staring at thirteen different flowers that all look the same, smell the same, and make me want to kill myself the same. “Do you think white for this, E? Or, ooooh, maybe blue since Daddy wants to do a Lost City of Atlantis theme?”

It isn’t Aria’s fault I feel like I’m being slowly suffocated by how fucking sweet she always is to me. Or that, for some reason, it’s harder to pretend with her now that I’ve met her cousin.

Everything else falls away when I look at her. Everything

If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago, I’d say connections like this with people you’ve just met don’t really exist. They’re fairy tales.

And fuck, now I’m turned on. Is there anyone Venesa doesn’t affect?

Doesn’t anyone actually see her? Do they even care

It’s a tugging sensation right in the pit of my stomach, a hook reeling me into him like a fish on the line.

“I always see you.”