“I mean, yeah, I’ve got a notion,” I gasp out, making him chuckle again. “But Luca—how did he know we’d be there tonight?”
“He knew because someone got word to him that we were in Venice, and he followed the money trail we left behind us. Splashing all that cash around like we have been, it gets attention. So now we can be sure—there’s a mole somewhere. But it’s not Vitali.” He leans over me, his hand planted on the wooden door next to my head, smiling down at me. He even leans in to rub his nose against mine.
“How do youknowthat?” I ask doggedly.
“Because if the IFF knew where we were staying, which Vitali does, they’d hit us there.”
“Really?”
He shrugs. “I would. Safer. No, he was just trying to get a lock on us tonight. Didn’t you notice he wasn’t carrying?”
“No?”
“When he opened his jacket to take out the cigarettes. Come on, baby bird, you need to notice these things more than you do.”
I think about that for a second, and then slide a hand inside his jacket. “You’re not carrying either, baby. You don’t think it would have been a littlerecklessto try approaching La Contessa, with all her bodyguards, while you were unarmed?”
“I think it would have been reckless to try itarmed,” he says, running a thumb over my lower lip. “Reckless and obvious. Those bodyguards would pick it a mile off. And anyway, I was hoping La Contessa would see that I meant her no harm if I approached the front gates, so to speak, rather than cornering her. You don’t strap on a bomb before you go to peace talks.”
While he’s been talking, his hands have been exploring, carding through my hair, sliding around the back of my neck, the other moving further down, inside my jacket, pressing against my chest. He must be able to feel my heart, strong and fast.
He leans in very close to brush his lips over mine, and I think about that Roman alley, not so dissimilar to this deserted Venetian street, and my body starts to respond hopefully. His palm, stroking down my body, cups my hard-on and gives a light squeeze. “Oh, angel,” he breathes. “You really are perfect for me.”
“And you for me,” I tell him, pressing into his hand, lifting up my mouth for more kisses.
He indulges me, but only for a moment. “We don’t have time for this,” he sighs regretfully. “Not here and now. We should get back to safety.”
I quietly grumble my frustration, but hey, I’m in no hurry to die, either. Not these days. “Back to the palazzo?” I suggest. “And we can continue this there?”
“The perfect ending to a perfect evening,” he agrees.
I tuckthatlittle tidbit away until we’re safely back in the palazzo with all the alarms set. I’ve been up to our rooms to shower and then I dress in the old gold satin and brocade pajamas I bought here in Venice. The palazzo feels like the right place for them, and when I pull on the matching robe, I can’t help but admire myself in the mirror.
Ishouldbe the most tempting morsel in this whole watery town. But Luca is nowhere to be found. I have to go all the way downstairs again to find him, holed up in the living room, working on his phone.
I sneak up behind him and then jump forward with a “Rah!”, grabbing his shoulders.
He just reaches up to pat my hand absentmindedly. “Feel better after your shower, baby bird?”
Now that I think about it, sneaking up on a Mob Boss probably wasn’t my best idea ever. Still— “How’d you know I was there?” I come around his chair and throw myself across the love seat opposite him, one leg hooked over the arm.
“Those pajamas are lovely, but noisy. You make a sort of—” He holds up his fingers, rubbing them together. “—shushingnoise when you walk.”
At least he noticed the damn pajamas. I ask the question I’ve been mulling over since our necking session in a Venetian doorway. “Wasit the perfect evening?”
“Hm?” Luca is finished on his phone, and tosses it aside. He comes over to look down at me, lean over me on the love seat, trace a finger down the shirt collar of my pajamas.
“You said, back there on the street—the perfect ending to the perfect evening.”
But he’s already busy undressing me, impatiently trying to get down to my skin as fast as he can right here in the drawing room. “Did I?”
I take his hands in mine to make him focus on the conversation. “You did. But we didn’t achieve anything we set out to achieve. So was it really perfect?”
Luca’s eyes are a much deeper blue in the mellow golden lights of our Venetian palazzo. They shine like sapphires as he looks down at me, frees his hands, and caresses my nipples under the silk of my pajama shirt until they stand out against the fabric, begging for further attention. “Yes, it was perfect, baby bird,” he says, admiring his handiwork. “We’ve come to La Contessa’s notice, even if we didn’t have a chance to speak with her. We know our enemy is in Venice. And I…”
“You what?”
“I have been reminded, once again, how lucky I am to have you by my side.” He pulls me to my feet, and I let him slide his arms around me. He gives a happy sigh. “Tonight, I felt young again.”
