She pauses. "I know that's?—"
I stand and she looks up at me.
I extend my hand and she slowly takes it and stands and I bring her in with one arm around her waist, careful of the wound, and I find her hand with my other and hold it properly. Her skin is soft underneath and she feels oddly warm. I resist the urge to wrap my hands tighter around her small waist.
"You can dance?" she asks.
"I grew up in Italy," I reply. "I could dance before I could drive."
She tilts her head up at me. "That must have been a very long time ago."
I move us into the first step and she follows without stumbling, and she laughs quietly at herself for being surprised by it.
"That's going to cost you," I tell her.
"I'm terrified," she replies, still smiling.
We move slowly across the stones of the garden, no music except what she provides herself, a soft tuneless hum against my shoulder. I guide her steps and she follows them and after a while she stops thinking about her feet and simply moves.
My hands linger at the small of her back and I breathe her in. Then comes another urge to bury my face in her neck.
Suddenly, her cheek comes to rest on my chest and I look down at her, becoming conscious of the blood that is flowing to my member. I clench to control myself, beginning to ask myself why I got myself into this. I should pull away before this turns?—
"Thank you," she says, quietly, into the fabric of my shirt. "For today. I don't think I've been this happy in a long time."
I press my lips to the top of her head, I breathe her in and I close my eyes for a moment.
"It's okay, princess," I tell her. "We had a deal."
"Yes," she replies. "We had a deal."
She says it easily, agreeably, and she doesn't move her cheek from my chest and her hand stays in mine and we keep moving in the dark garden.
I can feel the beat of her heart and her soft hum. The pain on the other side of my bandaged chest is dull.
Against my better judgment, I pull her closer to feel her warmth, ignoring the painful throbbing of my member.
It doesn't matter what I am feeling, I tell myself,this will be over soon.
Tonight, what felt right was keeping her close.
Chapter Ten
Luca
"Why are you staring at my face?" Renzo snaps.
"I'm admiring my work," I reply.
He turns back to the window.
The bruise goes from his left cheekbone down toward his chin and has settled overnight into a deep and impressive purple. His lip is cut at the corner and he is holding himself slightly to the right which tells me his ribs are unhappy about something. The Fremont operation had been more eventful than the brief text he had sent at two in the morning had indicated.
Done. Messier than expected. Going to sleep.
Seven words. I read them and went back to sleep and in the morning I had looked at his face across the breakfast table and felt the particular satisfaction of a punishment.
And to rub it in, I was making him drive me to see Kirill, an old friend, instead of having his much-needed rest. He will think twice about petty pranks after this.
