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I turned to Isabella. “Why don’t you take a shower while I’m gone? After the last few days, I can’t think of much that sounds better, and I fully intend to be next in line when I get back.”

“That does sound wonderful.”

I stepped closer, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her against me long enough to kiss the top of her head.

“I won’t be long, Mouse.”

“I’ll be here.”

I released her, picked up the phone and key, and headed across the road to José’s house. The lock clicked behind me before I reached the road.

By the time I returned to the rectory, José, Nik, and I had worked out enough of a plan to get Isabella and me to the airport without bringing a small private army into the countryside.

The rest could wait until morning.

I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and relocked it.

The shower was running behind the partly open bathroom door.

Chapter twenty-eight

Iset the key on the table and crossed the apartment, already imagining cool water washing the sweat, blood, and mountain dirt off my skin.

Had the partially open door been an invitation, or had it just slipped open?

I nudged the door, and it swung wide.

Isabella stood beneath the spray, washing her hair, and for a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe.

Jesus Christ and all his angels.

I braced one forearm against the doorframe, completely enthralled.

Her head tipped back as both hands worked through the heavy fall of dark hair cascading almost to her waist. Water streamed over her face and along the graceful line of her throat. Her back arched slightly into the cool spray, one knee bent. The pose lifted her breasts, the stiff peaks of her nipples catching the light.

Her warm, golden-brown skin shimmered as water slipped over it, making every inch of her look impossibly touchable.

I watched as rivulets traced her curves, imagining my tongue trailing the same paths.

Beautiful didn’t come close.

I’d seen stunning women all my adult life. Xyst was full of them every night—models, actresses, women dressed by designers. Women who knew exactly how pretty they were and how to use it.

None of them had ever stopped me cold.

Isabella did it without even knowing I was there.

A goddess in a church rectory.

When she’d knelt between my knees in that yellow dress, barefoot on a dungeon floor after cleaning blood from my face, I remembered thinking she was too pretty for that place.

Now I understood I’d barely seen her at all.

The dungeon had wrapped everything in ugliness. Even Isabella had carried some of it on her skin because there had been no escaping what surrounded us.

Here, with all that ugliness washing away, she looked like the delicate flower Ciro’s world should’ve crushed long ago.

Somehow, it hadn’t.