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It stirred something inside me, and I couldn’t help but remember Alessio on his knees, the bass rattling in my chest as he took me out of my jeans. The grip of his wet, hot mouth. Holding my gaze as he swallowed my come. Heat rolled through me, a dark craving to have that all just once more.
Disgust quickly followed. What the fuck was wrong with me?
“You look good with that gun in your hand, principe.” His voice was deep. A caress I felt all the way in my toes.
I shoved the confusion over my feelings aside. If he wasn’t going to kill me, then there wasn’t any reason for him to be standing here. “Get off my property, assassino.”
The scar on his cheek twisted as he frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Good, because I didn’t want to hear whatever he had to say.
Silent, he walked past me. Continued toward the farmhouse and the path that led to town. His movements were fluid and graceful, but economical. The military training was evident in everything he did.
I didn’t budge. Instead I watched as his frame grew smaller and smaller. Finally he disappeared down the path.
Then I picked up the guns and went back inside. I had to figure out what to do next.
* * *
Alessio
I should have known he would be waiting.
When I started up the trail for my run the next morning, I found Giulio leaning against a rock, his arms folded across his chest. I frowned but didn’t stop.
His steps began dogging mine.
I didn’t say anything, merely pushed harder. I would lose him in the hills.
Sasha had two jobs lined up. The first was next week in Toronto, then another the week after in São Paulo. That meant I had to deal with Giulio before the ferry in two days’ time. Once he was dead, I would fly from Edinburgh to London to Canada, changing identities each flight.
My time in Canna was over.
Finally I could get back to normal. I’d allowed myself to want and feel when it came to this man. He’d become an obsession. It broke every rule I’d established for myself, yet I hadn’t been able to prevent it.
Ever since I first saw him on that Siderno street, smiling at his father and stepmother, I hadn’t been able to think clearly. And terrible luck had followed.
“Bad mood today, assassino?”
He was closer than I expected. How was he keeping up? I said nothing, just kept running.
“I’ve been waiting on you for thirty minutes,” he continued. “I started to think you were sleeping in.”
Ma dai. I never slept in, not since I’d lived with my nonna.
He kept talking. “But maybe you are trying to avoid me. Which would make killing me difficult, no?”
I gritted my back teeth until the pain in my jaw distracted me from my irritation. All my life I’d hidden my feelings, my intentions. This one man saw too much, got under my skin. And I had allowed it, like a fool.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Today is your last day on earth. Strange that you would waste it baiting me into an argument.”
“Do you want to know what I think?”
No, I absolutely did not.
The cold stung my lungs as I climbed, my legs burning. I needed this. I needed to punish my body, work myself until exhaustion.
“I think you don’t want to kill me. I think you—”
In a flash, I spun around. Then I grabbed him and slammed his back into a rock. I braced an arm across his throat and leaned in. “You have no idea what I want.”
