Page 23 of Sicilian Savior

“I’ll text you when I’m set,” he said over his shoulder just before letting the door close behind him.

I watched him climb onto his motorcycle, sighing at the way his forearms bulged when he turned the bike around. I couldn’t have lucked out any more having a savior come into my life... especially getting one that looked like Knox.

CHAPTER NINE

Knox

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The plane touched down, bouncing on the runway several times before the pilot got it straightened out.

“I’d have landed better than that,” I said to Lucia, who gripped her armrests tight. “Next time, I’m flying us.”

“That was a bumpy landing,” she agreed. “I still can’t believe you could seriously fly this thing.”

I chuckled. “I can fly anything. That’s another one of my talents I bring to the team. We can all fly, it’s part of our training, but I’ve got mad skills in that department. I was an Army Ranger, but the Army created a new division of special ops pilots. Since I had skills flying, I got put on the team. They made us completely lethal by both air and land. There’s nothing I can’t do with a plane.”

“That’s crazy.”

“This one time, I had to do a surface-to-air extraction to get Marcus out. I stole a fighter jet from a base in Syria, and Piper was handling the Skyhook. Well, we got low to get Marcus but started taking heavy fire. I couldn’t slow down to the speeds I usually drop to when I grab someone.”

My eyes lit up as I went on, feeling like I was reliving it all over again. “It was crazy. I was going way faster than I’d planned, so we didn’t take any bullets, and when I hooked Marcus, he just flew into the air. Poor guy was swinging like a pendulum while I got us the hell out of there, trying not to take out any buildings in the city or swing him into one. I was doing like four hundred knots right through the downtown. Piper pulled him up, and Marcus still says I messed up his neck with how fast I was going when I hooked him. Took his chiropractor months to sort him out. Oh, man. Good times.”

I chuckled, and I shook my head, then noticed Lucia staring at me.

“You make that sound so normal. Like it was a daily thing.”

“Well.” I shrugged. “For us, it was. Just another day on the job.”

“You’re amazing,” she said, her eyes softening as she glanced at my lips.

If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought maybe she wanted me to kiss her. Even though my lips begged me to take the chance and claim her as mine, I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

The moment I’d learned about her missing son—the moment I’d agreed to help her find him—Lucia had become instantly off-limits. Even though I wasn’t on an Elite Stealth Force team anymore, where relationships were prohibited, there was still one big problem now that saving Lucia was my mission—I couldn’t take advantage of her.

Even though her eyes no longer showed fear when they looked at me and were starting to gaze at me with something resembling the same desire I felt for her, I wouldn’t take a chance on making a move. It sickened my stomach to think she may only accept my advances because she’d feel obligated to say yes to maintain my help in saving her and her son—which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even if I never got to taste those lips I dreamed of kissing, I would do anything to keep her safe. To keep her son safe. And I didn’t want to make her think otherwise and spook her. I kept my feelings for her locked up as tight as Fort Knox, which was how I got my name, vowing not to make a move until this was all over—even though it would be hell being so close to her and not getting to taste her mouth and knowing maybe I never would.

It didn’t matter. Only she mattered. Only Luca mattered.

After everything she’d been through, to hell if I was going to make her feel like my protection was contingent on her feelings for me.

It wasn’t.

As I soaked in the sight of the features I couldn’t get enough of, I reminded myself of my vow not to touch her until this mission ended. Only then, only when I could be certain that her feelings for me weren’t out of obligation or some hero complex, would I make my move and see where the chips fell.

Clearing my throat, I unbuckled my seat belt. “I rented us a car and got a villa about an hour outside of Palermo. Should be plenty far away so we don’t have to worry about you running into Victor or his thugs. We’ll just hunker down there and wait until everything is in place for extraction.”

“Any word on that?”

“Just that Marcus is working out the details. He never makes a move until he has every single contingency figured out. If there’s a crack in his plan, he finds it, and we don’t move until that thing is bulletproof.”

“I like bulletproof plans. I don’t want anything to go wrong. We can’t risk Luca getting hurt.”

“We won’t,” I stated confidently. “He’ll be at no risk. We’ll ensure it.”