FIFTY-EIGHT.

I'm about two feet away from Alessandro, and he's looking at me like he wants to devour me for dessert.

My body shivers with the memory of his face plunged deep within my thighs, his velvety-like tongue licking the folds of my sex and his hot breath fanning my feverish skin.

The tip of his tongue darts out of his mouth, sweeping over the bow on his top lip, deliberately caressing it with his eyes slowly looking me up from my toes to my head.

Shit!

My step falters, and I stumble into his embrace as he catches me, settling me on his lap with one arm wrapped around my torso in a vice-like grip.

I hear him suck in a sharp, painful breath, and I look up at him with wide, apologetic eyes.

His wound…

“Ciao, Clary. It seems I have something you want yet again, old friend.”

Alessandro answers the phone in a nonchalant tone, his fingertips drawing lazy figure eights on my hip.

As I stand to give him some privacy and room to move about freely, he pulls me back down on his lap, meeting my ga