“Hallelujah!” I almost cried. “Oh, hallelujah!” I sang, as I stripped and stepped into the harsh spray, clean water washing away brown dirt, sweat, and blood from blisters on my feet. Despite the warmth of the water, I shivered, a grim reminder that I had become feverish.
After every ounce of hot water had run cold, I toweled off and applied the antiseptic cream to my wound, then used the white gauze bandage to wrap around my leg. I winced, the area feeling swollen and sore. Then I dressed, wishing I could forgo the bra and underwear for the freedom of going commando. The cotton pair I found in my suitcase was the next best thing. I’d use the thongs for teeth floss before they went on my bottom.
In the bedroom, I forced myself to drink half a cup of tepid water and eat a banana. I’d make myself drink more in a little while. I was dehydrated and knew it. A cough brought me upright in the bed, painfully rattling lungs and bone. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I wheezed out, plopping down on the bed again. The smell of the pillow was unfamiliar but clean, as were the thin sheets and blanket. These simple pleasures gave me an escape, though, no matter how cowardly it was.
I took it.
* * *
Some indistinguishable time later, I woke with tears streaming down my face and Brando’s name on my lips. The uncertainty that I had been dodging in consciousness had found me in sleep. If I moved, I felt I could still touch him and feel his warmth.
“Brando?” I croaked. Wishing, hoping, praying.
The answering groan forced my eyes to snap open, my body to go rigid, and consciousness to flood into my system like a river raging through a dry piece of dirt land.
The body moved closer to mine in the pitch darkness, making comforting noises, noises that started to turn into pleasurable moans. Large, wide hands, which matched muscular forearms and upper arms, attempted to offer comfort. Instead of comfort, I found them as restricting as twisting pythons.
“Get out ofmybed,” I hissed with as much control in my voice as I could muster.
“I can be him, if you will only give me a chance,belladonna,” Enzo breathed on my neck, attempting to kiss me there.
“No!” I shoved at him, hard. This reaction took him off guard. He fell to the floor with a whoppingthunk!as I collected my bearings and came to my feet, hands in an outstretched gesture that meant—don’t come any closer.
I swayed where I stood, narrowing my eyes, attempting to see him in the darkness when he rose. Being close to the table beside the bed, I leaned over a tad, one hand still outstretched, and turned the knob on the lamp. Light illuminated the room, and a wild-haired Enzo came to life, totally naked.
He lifted his hands in alet’s make a dealgesture. “I will stop them from killing him, if you give me yourself.”
“Don’t come any closer!” I used my hands as weapons. “I’ll makenodeals with you!”
He shrugged. “This is your decision.”
The dare made it to his eyes then. What had started out as testing the waters had become a challenge to swim the channel. We were sizing each other up. I had played this game with Brando on numerous occasions. The end never declared me the winner. Granted, I wanted Brando to win, but I still didn’t think I would’ve. He was faster and much, much stronger. Enzo seemed about those same lines. Brando was an imposing figure. So was Enzo. Somehow they invaded your space without being directly in it.
Think, Scarlett! You have a bum knee, you’re feverish, and you might just vomit. What can you do?
My heart was hammering like thunder, and even if Enzo had spoken, I couldn’t hear over the roar of blood.Think. Think. Think!Forcing myself to relax, my hands dropped, my shoulders fell, and the breath I’d been holding came out of me like air from a popped balloon.
The change in posture surprised him. His face relaxed, though his body was still coiled tight, in case this behavior was to fake him out. Taking a step or two, I turned my back, and then plopped on the bed. I stared at the ceiling.
He was on me in nothing short of five seconds. Without attracting attention, I glanced at the glass lamp on the side table. Its wire was a hand’s grab away. A chance, but a chance I was willing to take.
His mouth on my skin made something snap inside of my head, and I fought against him without conscious thought. “Get off of me!”
He held firm, continuing as though I wasn’t fighting, using every ounce of my energy to dislodge him. He was heavy, his weight on top of me.
All of a sudden, he stopped, but didn’t remove his weight. It wasn’t my futile fighting that stopped him. It was a noise from the door. A small crack showed light from outside, and a tall, whip-thin man standing in front of it.
“Livio!” Enzo snapped. “Chiudi la porta!”
Our eyes connected and Livio looked down at the floor for a second. “I heard…” His voice came out quiet, almost shy. “I needed to check.”
Enzo ordered him to shut the door again, and he did, leaving us to it.
A successful knee to the balls maneuver needed one important thing—the element of surprise. Even if a manonlysuspected the knee coming, his legs would close up like an oyster protecting the pearl. Livio’s momentary interruption was the second I needed. When my knee connected with two huge balls, Enzo made a groaning noise, as if he had spilled himself, and then a high-pitched whining came from his nose as he went rigid, as solid as a ton of bricks on top of me. And because he seemed like the type of man to go berserk once he came to, I smashed the lamp against his hard head, keeping a piece of the rugged glass as a weapon.
Sliding out from underneath him, leaving him bare-assed and facedown in the bed, I quickly cleaned up the glass. Hopefully no one would notice its disappearance for a while, or ever.
As I dumped the last shards into the small wastebasket in the bathroom, under the dress that had been given to me, red lights pulsed outside, catching my attention. An ambulance? I checked back on the bedroom. Livio stood over Enzo, glancing around the room. The small light from the hallway crept in, softly illuminating everything.
