So I lie still and count his heartbeats and memorize the feel of his arm and the roughness of his palm against my bare stomach and the way his breath smells like sleep and nothing else. No death. No war. a man, unconscious and unguarded, pressed against me like I'm the only solid thing in his universe.
I want to cry. I'm not sure why. Maybe because of the tenderness of it. The way his body chose mine even in sleep, curled around me like a question mark, like he's still asking permission even when he's not conscious enough to know he's asking.
The light through the window is grey. Early.. The courtyard below will be quiet, the overnight guards and the occasional engine. The compound hasn't woken up yet. For a few more minutes, the world belongs to us.
His breathing changes.
I feel it before I hear it. The shift from deep to shallow, the slight tension in his arm, the way his fingers flex against my skin like they're taking inventory. He's awake.
Neither of us speaks.
His thumb traces a slow circle on me, below my navel. Once. Twice. Testing. I press back into him, just slightly, and his arm tightens.
"Morning," I murmur.
He doesn't answer with words. His mouth finds the back of my neck, lips warm and dry against my spine, and he breathes me in. A long, slow inhale, like he's checking that I'm real.
"Morning, love," he breathes.
And like that, I’m hopelessly lost in him.
We stay like that for a while. Minutes. His hand splayed across my stomach, his mouth resting against my neck, my fingers laced through his. The silence isn't uncomfortable. It's the opposite. Like a held breath that finally released.
But the world doesn't stop for held breaths.
His phone buzzes on the nightstand. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession.
Leone reaches over me, grabbing it without letting go of my waist. I hear him clicking away at the screen, feel the shift in his body as the soldier starts rebuilding himself piece by piece.Shoulders squaring. Jaw setting. The arm around me goes from lazy to tense.
"I have to go," he says.
"I know."
He sits up, and the cold rushes in to fill the space where his body was. I roll onto my back and watch him dress. It's a show worth watching. Not in a sexual way, not exactly. More like watching someone assemble armor. Every piece has a purpose. The undershirt. The holster. The dress shirt buttoned up. The suit jacket that hides the gun. By the time he's finished, the man who held me in the dark is gone. In his place stands the right hand of Aurelio Bonaccorso, and there's nothing soft about him.
Almost nothing. He pauses at the edge of the bed, looking down at me. I'm still tangled in his sheets, wearing nothing but the marks he left on my skin last night. His eyes travel the length of me, slow and thorough, and I watch his throat move when he swallows.
"Stay in this room," he says.
"I always stay in this room."
"I mean it. Today is..." He stops. Starts again. "Things are moving. I need to know you're here."
I sit up, pulling the sheet to my chest. "What's happening?"
"Aurelio has a meeting with neutral parties. Negotiations about the Castillo situation. The compound will be tense." He crouches beside the bed, bringing his face level with mine. Up close, in the grey morning light, I can see every line and scar. The broken nose. The shadow of stubble. The dark circles that never fully disappear. "I need to talk to him."
"About the war?"
"About you."
My stomach flips. "What about me?"
His jaw works. I can see him choosing words, discarding them, choosing again. "About us. About what this is. If I'm going to..." He pauses, and the pause is loaded with everything he won't say in the open. "If I'm going to do this properly, Aurelio needs to know. He needs to approve it. Otherwise we're a secret, and secrets in this compound have a shelf life measured in days."
"What happens if he doesn't approve?"
Leone doesn't answer immediately. His hand finds my knee through the sheet, gripping it once, firm.
