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I turn her around in my arms until she is facing me, her legs wrapping around my hips on pure instinct. I set her down onto the edge of the granite island, parting her thighs with my hips, stepping between them until there isn't a millimeter of space between us.

Iris reaches up, her hands cupping my jaw, her thumbs tracing the stubble along my cheekbones.

"Dinner is going to get cold, husband," she whispers, her eyes glittering with a dark, hungry light.

"Let it get cold, wife."

I fuck her among the cutting boards and the good olive oil, talking into her throat about babies and empires and how I am going to take her to bed after this and do it properly, on her back, with my hand on her belly like a promise I intend to keep. She comes again with a startled cry. I follow, grinding deep, filling her while the kitchen smells like tomatoes and sex.

I kiss her through the aftershocks, so gone for her that I’m not sure there was ever a time I didn’t think she was mine.

"Time for bed, Kitten," I growl against her lips.

She pushes against my chest with one hand and tilts her head back until she’s looking at my face with a slow smirk.

“Not yet, husband.” I swallow my groan as she calls me her husband even if it makes her sound like a brat. “I have a wager for you.”

I raised an eyebrow, humming in the back of my throat. She has my complete attention; I do love a challenge and playing with my little wife.

What does she want?

Doesn’t she know she only has to ask and it’s hers? She’ll learn one day; I’ll keep showing her.

“I would like to play a game of hide and seek with you.” She chuckles at the sharp inhale I take and groan in agony because she has to know I’ll take any chance to hunt her down.

FOURTEEN

IRIS

Asharp click echoes through the villa, and then every chandelier, sconce, and recessed ceiling bulb dies at once.

Total, velvet blackness swallows the rooms.

Outside, the Mediterranean night is moonless, thick clouds blanketing the stars. Inside, the villa has turned into a cavern of pure shadow. For an ordinary person, it would be disorienting.

For me, it is home.

I stand in the middle of the grand gallery, the soles of my bare feet resting against the cool, silky grain of the parquet floor. My cotton chemise brushes against my bare thighs with every draught of sea wind wandering through the open balcony doors.

Romeo's low, sinful voice purrs out of the gloom behind me, rich with amusement and dark promise.

"You said you were no longer afraid of the dark, Donna Messina," he rumbles, the sound vibrating through the quiet room. "You claimed you could outmaneuver any man in this house if the lights were out."

I turn slightly toward the deep timbre of his voice, crossing my arms over my chest, a daring smirk touching my lips.

"I said I could run circles around you in the dark, Romeo. You rely on your eyes. You rely on optics, laser sights, and surveillance lenses. Take away your sight, and you're just an overgrown brute stumbling over the furniture."

A deep, wicked chuckle rolls from his chest, closer than it was two seconds ago.

"Is that a challenge, Kitten?"

"A wager," I counter, tilting my chin. "Give me a five-minute head start. If I can hide in this villa until midnight without you laying a hand on me, you return my sketchpads, and you let me take the speedboat into the harbor alone tomorrow."

"And when I catch you?" he asks, his tone dropping into that heavy, gravelly register that never fails to send a slick, electric ache between my thighs. "What is my reward for hunting down my disobedient wife?"

"You won't catch me." I grin, feeling confident I’m going to win.

"When I catch you, Iris," he growls softly, his footsteps making zero sound as he circles me in the shadows, "you strip off that chemise, you get on your hands and knees wherever I take you, and you let me fuck every inch of your pretty, insolent mouth and sweet cunt until you are screaming for mercy."