The flush on me now has nothing to do with embarrassment.
“I guess that’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” he says regretfully.
“Actually,” I say, “we got a little… distracted this morning, but I was going to tell you that my dad feels so bad about me having to stay home with him every night for his recovery, and since the in-home nurse is working out so well, he’s decided that she should stay overnight a couple days a week.”
Nico’s gaze sharpens.
“One of those days is today,” I finish.
His eyes heat, the change so fast it warms me up.
He leans closer just enough that it feels like a private conversation, even though no one else is around to hear. “I’ll text you my address,” he says. “Be at my house after work. If I’m not back by the time you get there, someone will let you in.”
My throat tightens.
My brain flashes to his car. His gate. Cameras. Privacy. A house that’s probably built like him—solid, controlled, impossible to get into without permission.
I nod.
“And, Erica,” he murmurs, gazing intently into my eyes, “the rules apply, even when I’m not around to enforce them. All of them.”
The rules. No orgasms, no touching myself, no crossing my legs.
“Yes, Sir,” I say, breathless.
His gaze drops briefly to my lips, then he turns and walks off down the hall, following his brother.
Chapter Thirty Two
Nico
The van is parked about a block off the warehouse, tucked into a shallow strip of shade beside an auto body shop that’s closed.
The AC is on low. The windows are up. The air inside smells like old carpet and faint cologne and the stale bite of coffee from a cup in the holder that’s been there too long.
Outside, the afternoon is bright and stupidly normal.
People drive by. A guy in a safety vest walks a dog like he’s got nowhere better to be on a Monday afternoon. Somewhere down the street, someone’s music rattles a trunk.
The warehouse sits behind a chain-link fence with black slats woven through it. The loading bay door is down. A security camera points at the driveway. Another points at the street.
They’re not amateurs.
Which is why this is pissing me off.
I keep my eyes on the bay and lean back in the seat, jaw tight.
“Tell me why the hell they’re doing this in the middle of the damn afternoon,” I say.
Vito doesn’t look at me. He’s had his eyes on the place since we pulled up.
“Antonio says they’re getting spooked,” he says. “He got intel they’re moving the shipment right after dark, so we have to hit it before then.”
“This is sloppy and impulsive,” I say. “This is the kind of shit you do.”
Vito shoots me a dirty look. “I’m not sloppy. And anyway, Antonio says this shit is—what did he say? Tri-fold. It’s valuable, we can use it, and we can keep it out of Russo hands.”
I keep my gaze on the fence, on the empty driveway, on the way the cameras don’t sweep. Fixed angles. Multiple overlapping views. Whoever set it up knows what they’re doing.
