Page 77 of Velvet Vaughn

He drew back far enough to look at her and cupped her face with one hand, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. Then he kissed her slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.

She kissed him back harder, both hands fisting in the front of his shirt, urging him into the room without breaking contact. Slow and careful wasn’t what tonight required. She needed proof, immediate and undeniable, that the man in her arms had a pulse.

They made it to the bed in a tangle of hands and half-shed clothing. Anja stopped thinking in checklists and threat assessments the moment his mouth found the curve of her throat and the swell of her breast. There was only the warmth of his skin under her palms, the low sound he made when she took him in her hand, and the certainty of his weight settling over her in the dark. He was alive and hers for as long as the night would let her keep him.

Later, tangled in the sheets with her head on his chest and his heart beating under her ear, she let herself stop shaking.

“Better?” he asked into her hair.

“Getting there.” She traced a slow line along his ribs, feeling the rise and fall of him breathing under her palm. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Get attacked by two men, a smoking trash can, and a bomb at a wake?”

“Yes. That, specifically.” She pressed a kiss to his sternum, right over the solid drum of his heart, and closed her eyes. “I mean it, De Luca. I don’t get to lose you. Not to this. Not to anything.”

#

Leo woke to a screaming smoke alarm. For a split-second, he thought he was dreaming he was back at the wake, but then the smell penetrated, acrid and chemical.

Leo bolted upright. Anja was moving beside him, yanking on the shirt she’d discarded hours earlier and grabbing her phone.

“Up. Now.” Her voice carried none of the softness from an hour ago. “Shoes. Clothes. Phone. Don’t stop for anything else.”

He dressed quickly and shoved his feet into a pair of Nikes. After swiping his phone off the nightstand, he followed her into the hallway where orange light flickered against the window at the far end. Remi met them in the corridor, weapon drawn, shouting, “Fire’s spreading fast.” His face was grim in the strobing light from the hallway smoke detector. “Two separate origin points.”

“Back stairs.” Anja grabbed Leo’s wrist and hauled him toward the servants’ staircase at the rear of the house, the one that emptied near the kitchen and the side door instead of the smoke-choked main hall. “Move.”

The stairwell was hot, heat radiating up through the walls as if the house itself had a fever. Leo’s lungs burned, smoke thickening with every step down. Below them, glass shattered.

“That’s not the fire,” Anja’s warning came out low and urgent. “Someone’s breaching.”

Remi broke off toward the office.

“Remi!” Anja’s voice cracked through the haze. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer. Three seconds later he was back, the manila envelope Vic had sent Leo gripped in one fist. He shoved it into his jacket and fell in step behind them, weapon back up.

“That wasn’t worth your life,” Anja snapped. “Good instinct. Terrible timing.”

“Already back.” Remi didn’t break stride. “Side door’s compromised. We go through the mudroom, straight to the Escalade.”

They ran. Leo’s chest heaved against smoke and adrenaline in equal measure. Anja’s hand fisted in the back of his shirt to keep him moving. Remi cleared the path ahead with a focus that left no room for anything but the next three seconds.

The mudroom door burst open onto the side yard, cold air slapping Leo’s face. The open sky felt like salvation.

Then the first shot cracked through the darkness. The doorframe beside Leo’s head exploded into splinters.

“Down!” Anja shoved him sideways behind the stone retaining wall that bordered the garden. He hit the ground hard, all the air punched out of him. Two more shots followed in quick succession, one burying itself in the mudroom siding, the other close enough that he heard it whine past.

“Multiple shooters.” Remi had his weapon up, returning fire toward the tree line in three controlled bursts that sent whoever was out there scrambling for cover. “Two positions. Maybe three.”

“Escalade’s forty yards.” Anja’s voice stayed calm, even with gunfire cracking around them. “We move on Remi’s cover. Stay low behind me.”

“Anja—”

“Now, Leo.”

They broke from behind the wall in a dead sprint, Remi laying down fire. Leo felt the round before he understood what it was. A hot, tearing line across his upper arm spun him half a step sideways before he forced his legs to keep moving.