A furious, ridiculous little thrill darts through me, even as I remind myself I mattered for a whole different reason. As the source of igniting his retribution on my family for the wrongs done to his. I smother both emotions with a snarky look. “Well, just so you know, I didn’t waste all my time pining for you.”
“Maybe notallof the time,” he returns, unruffled. “But I liked the part where you did.”
Vecchio barks a laugh. “Basta,enough flirting with the old man present. We drink to your arrival, and we dine tonight. But right now, I am tired.” He finishes his wine and rises in a creak of joints and a ripple of expensive linen. “Lulu, after they are settled, you take them. Show them the vines. Try not to cause trouble, hmm? The wife looks like she is clever with knives.”
“Si,amore,” she sings.
We’re whisked through cool stone corridors that smell faintly of patchouli oil and old books, then up a shallow flight of travertine steps to our suite.
It’s less a room and more a small kingdom with a vaulted ceiling painted with faded vines and swallows and French doors opening onto a private loggia where wisteria knots itself around iron; a sitting room layered in Persian rugs and linen sofas.
Through inner doors is a bedroom anchored by a carved four-poster dressed in crisp, lavender-scented sheets. There’s a bowl of apricots on a marble pedestal, a silver tray with almond biscotti, and a vase of pale peonies that look like clouds that decided to vacation in Tuscany.
The bathroom could seduce a monk—Calacatta marble everywhere, a rainfall shower the size of a dressing room and a standalone tub posed beneath a window framing cypress, a tray of amber-glass bottles labeled in looping Italian: fig, rosemary, wild honey.
Vasso’s phone buzzes as the butler and staff head out and when he excuses himself to take the call, I undress and head to the bathroom.
I let the cool water drum over me until the last of Rhode Island shakes off, and when I step out, steam ghosts the mirrors and my skin smells like a garden at noon.
For a moment I stare at myself, noting the faint traces of Vasso’s possession and hoarding them like little treasures. My fingers find and trace a few on my neck…my arms and thighs.
“Dammit, you showered without me,” he drawls behind me and my head jerks up to meet his heated but amused eyes. “That’ll teach me to place business over pleasure, huh?”
“Hmm,” I say noncommittally because I can’t drag my overactive brain from imagining us in the shower, reenacting every last one of the lurid thoughts reeling through said brain.
Through the mirror, I watch his fingers reach for his buttons, slowly undoing each one in a slow, wicked tease that has my breath shortening. “Sure I can’t tempt you back in? I’ll make it good, I promise.”
I know he will. And therein lies the problem. Each episode with Vasso gets better and better. And what is that if not the slippery slope to Vasso Dillinger Addiction?
“Nope,” I force out, making the ‘p’ pop.
He remains in the door when I attempt to leave, forcing me to squeeze past him…and noting his very aroused, very hard evidence of what I’m missing.
I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed when he finally steps away and enters the bathroom.
I try not to imagine his hot, towering body with water cascading over rippling muscles but I’m all fingers and toes when he emerges, towel slung low over his waist.
For another wild moment I stare at the delicious outline of the muscles lovingly framing his pelvis, leading to where he’s most virile and?—
Stop staring like a hormonal teenager!
We dress at an unhurried pace that’s somehow not unhurried at all. I slip into a cream silk slip and a soft linen sundress the color of sea glass, fastening the thinnest gold chain at my throat before sliding on stylish but comfortable wedge sandals.
When I look up, Vasso’s leaning in the bedroom doorway, shamelessly watching. And there’s nothing polite about the look in his eyes. He’s appreciative but blatantly, heated and hungry, as if my act of dressing is a show produced for his private viewing.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say, reaching for my earrings and dropping one twice because my hands have chosen today to be treasonous.
“And deprive myself of watching these sexy little rituals that put you together so impressively?” His mouth curves, eyes dark and amused. “No, sweetheart.” Under his breath, almost to himself, “I think I’ve missed enough.”
I still, earring poised. The words slide under my ribs and find a place to live.
When I glance at him, not a single molecule has changed. He’s still just standing there in suave, casual armor of sun-washed chinos, a pale blue linen shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to forearms that do unspeakable things to my composure; a leather belt, a thin steel watch, loafers that whisper money in Italian.
Handsome is the wrong word. He looks inevitable and unstoppable.
But the air is suddenly charged, weighted with past, present, and future.
A knock rattles the door and I jump like I’ve been caught stealing fruit. Dammit, I hate being tardy.
