Chapter Fifteen
Nick
When Carlo Bianchi is scared, his toffee-colored eyes go a deeper, darker brown. It’s probably from his pupils expanding, but it’s still pretty. That’s the only thing I discover, though, as he starts panting out that he’s kept his mouth shut, who the hell would he tell anyway, and what the fuck am I trying to insinuate, yadda yadda yadda.
I let my eyes drift down his face to his lips and remember the last time I kissed them. Remember the way he kept licking them afterwards. His tongue is flicking out again now, and a few drops of sweat have broken out on his top lip.
He sure is sexy, Carlo Bianchi.
Something in me wants to kiss him again now, but I pull myself back, stand upright again. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he spits. “Youthreatenme, and then it’s just ‘Oh, okay, sorry, my bad’?”
“I didn’t say I was sorry.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “And I didn’t threaten you, either, Bianchi. Calm down.”
“I’m fucking calm,” he snaps.
I turn away so he can’t see my smile. “You want a drink?”
“I’m going back to the office after this,” he huffs.
I shrug and go over to the bourbon on my side-table. “Okay, then.”
As I pour one out for myself, he growls, “Pour me one, too.” So I do, and then I bring it to him. His face isn’t so pale anymore. “Is that letter why you wanted me down there at the precinct with you, why you sent Miranda away?”
I give one short nod. “I’ve been sitting on this a few days, but I figured you needed to know. If I’m in danger…well, you could be, too.”
He ponders that, those eyes going a little darker again as he does. I allow myself a quick daydream of holding out a hand in offer, taking him upstairs with me and laying him down in my bed, shoving my face between the asscheeks I’ve been dreaming about every night and getting my tongue up inside him as far as it’ll go.
But then he goes and ruins it all by bringing me back down to earth.
“What’s been the fallout from Gatti’s disappearance?”
I take another sip of my drink before I respond. “Heightened alert. The Giulianos aren’t willing to talk again until they find out what happened. But the Clemenzas seem pretty certain now that he just left of his own accord. Lou Clemenza’s all bark but no bite. He just wanted to throw his weight around that morning at the Hamptons. Since he got out of the joint he’s been trying to relive the glory days. The Alessis are on edge; feeling around town is, it happened on their property, so they’re the ones who have some explaining to do. Rossis? They couldn’t care less. As for us, we have more important things to worry about.”
“For now, maybe,” he says, swirling the bourbon around in his glass before he takes a large swallow. “But this could blow up in the Boss’s face.”
“You think I don’t know that? It’s why I wanted to talk. We can’t afford to let it get out. So maybe you didn’t say anything straight out, but I wondered if you let something slip some other way.” He stares at me, uncomprehending. “Like, maybe you talk in your sleep or something?”
“I haven’t slept with anyone since—since you. So, no. I’m not spilling secrets in my sleep.”
I nod. He gives me this speculative look that I’m not sure I like, as though I was only asking to find out if he’s been screwing around. I wasn’t asking for that reason.
Well. Notonlythat reason.
“And you?” Carlo asks, swirling the bourbon again. It’s a tell, I decide. He seems casual, but he’s not.
“No one since you,” I tell him.
“I’m sure the gentlemen of New York are mourning the loss.” He meets my irritation with a slow smirk. He’sflirting, damn him.
“We have a blackmailer to worry about, not to mention a dead body that could resurface any second. So maybe you can cut the bedroom eyes for five minutes, and we can figure out what we’re going to do about it?”
The smirk disappears. “Wait, what do you mean, a body that’s going to resurface?”
Damn it, I didn’t mean to say that. I snap my fingers in front of his face a few times. “Focus, Bianchi. We need to figure out who this fucker is, so I can kill him.”
“Wow. Okay. Once again, I am going to take that as acompletely metaphorical statement.”
