I can feel it. The weight of his attention. Focused and absolute, like I'm the only object in the room worth looking at.
"You don't have to be so careful." Low. Almost quiet enough to be a thought.
"Yes, I do." I smooth the first closure strip into place. "Careless surgeons make careless scars."
"I have plenty of scars."
"Not from me."
The words settle between us with more weight than I intended. I feel him go still — not his usual controlled stillness. Different. Like I just cost him something he wasn't planning to lose.
I keep working. Second strip. Third. My fingers brush the edge of his collarbone, and I feel the muscle beneath contract.
"Serafina."
"Almost done."
"That's not—" He stops.
I look up.
He's very close. Close enough that I can see the precise moment his control gives up the fight. His eyes are dark, certain, and fixed on my mouth. My hands are still on his shoulder. The first-aid kit is open between us. None of that matters at all.
"If you keep touching me like that," he says, very quietly, "I'm going to forget my restraint."
I hold his gaze.
"Then forget it."
He moveslike the decision was already made and he was just waiting for permission.
Both hands find my face — cupping my jaw, tilting me up — and he kisses me like every other kiss was just practice. Not urgent. Not frantic. Certain. Like he's been thinking about exactly this and intends to take his time.
I'm already pulling him closer.
We move to the small sofa, and he takes me down onto it. I stop cataloging exits, threat patterns, and everything else my brain does to stay in control because Luca Moretti's hands are moving over me like I'm something worth learning, and I cannot think about a single other thing.
"Tell me what you want."
"Everything." The word comes out before I can edit it. "I want everything."
He pulls back far enough to really look at me, and whatever he finds makes his expression crack open. Heat. Hunger. That terrifying reverence, I don't know what to do with.
"Then you'll have it."
He makesgood on the promise.
He's thorough in the way I'm already learning is just how he operates — patient and deliberate, building until I'm pulling at his shirt and he's pulling at mine with too much fabric between us. When it's gone, I forget how to breathe.
Luca Moretti stripped of the tailored suit is a separate problem entirely.
Tattoos cover his chest and arms — dark, intricate ink that climbs the side of his neck in a way that has absolutely no business being on a man who wears Brioni to breakfast. The kind that tells a story in a language I want to spend time learning. Lean. Sculpted. Scars I'll ask about later, scattered across skin that's warm under my palms.
He looks at me the same way.
"Fuck," he says quietly, almost to himself. Then, softer, like he doesn't mean for me to hear it. "Sei bellissima— you are so beautiful."
The Italian does something to my spine I refuse to examine. Not the word. The reverence in it. Like he's not complimenting me. Like he's surrendering.
