Deal • REWRITE • BOOK 1

17; Walking The Wire

"If the waitress and her friend keep staring at you, I'm going to throw knives in both their eyes,"

L U C I E N

"Lucien, you broke Alex's nose."

I turned at the sound of Aria's voice as I wiped my brother's blood off my knuckles in the sink of my bathroom, the clear water now tainted the colour red as it diffused into the liquid and swirled down the drain steadily.

"Maybe next time he shouldn't act like an ásshole then," I said to her, the tenseness in my muscles involuntarily slipping away when I watched her lean against the right side of the threshold and cross her arms over her chest.

She was standing tall in grey outfit that consisted of what looked like a top and shorts attached, the piece of clothing's name lost on me but nonetheless pleasing when I hummed at the sight of her legs satisfyingly.

"Stop ogling my legs," she waved her hands in front of where I was staring to stop the thoughts of them wrapped around my waist, my eyes settling on her own which were narrowed when I stared at her bluntly and felt a bloom of tightness in my chest. "Stop ogling me."

"Can't blame me when you look the way you do," I complimented her easily whilst turning to tap off once I'd washed away all the blood, heat trapped in my eyes when I licked my lips and then unrolled my folded sleeves before I clipped in my cufflinks and cleared my throat. The sight of Aria was enough to get my own blood pumping, the term turning into a reality when I breathed in a breath through my nose and then turned to her when she picked up my suit jacket off the hook behind the door.

Manicured red nails gleamed in the light of my bathroom as she handed me the grey jacket, her heeled feet clicking against the tiled flooring as she stood in front of me and looked up with inquisitive eyes, the light cuts on her face from before now faded and hardly seen.

"Speak your mind, Aria," I said, narrowing my gaze at her before mocking her actions which made her bite the inside of her lip as she tried to supress the smile I could blatantly see curving at her lips slowly.

"You have blood right..." she trailed off quietly, letting me take my suit jacket from her hand as she licked the pad of her thumb and then rubbed it just below my lower lip. "Here," she finished, looking at where she was rubbing with more precision than needed before up at my eyes as I pulled at my sleeves.

"All done?" I asked her, running my tongue along my teeth as she nodded at the same time Tofu padded his way into my room and behind Aria, his little white body picked up by her before she tilted her head at me and then smiled with bright eyes. When she did my chest tightened suddenly, the feelings that I felt for her only seeming to have emphasised and tripled in strength the moment she'd taken me to my father's living space in Sicily two days ago.

The memory left me feeling like I was on fire every time I looked at her, but it seemed that lately I didn't mind the burn...especially when it was accompanied with the sight of familiar brown eyes and red lips.

"All done," Aria said to me in a exhaled breath, the dynamic between us seeming to have shifted into something completely different just as Tofu looked up to me and then tried to move out of Aria's hands.

She let him do so easily as I fought the need to cringe when white hairs caught against the fabric of my grey suit, Tofu's infatuation with me still going strong when I reluctantly supported him with the palms of my hands and held him to my chest that he was already pressing his head to.

I sighed.

It had been a total of two days since we'd landed in New York from Sicily, the last forty eight hours being a blur of getting used to the time difference whilst I dealt with business at the same time Jinx accompanied Aria whilst she apartment hunted.