Page 106 of Corrado

It was only once she had poured a bit of cream into the mug that she turned back around to sip on her coffee, and stare at the phone again. She didn’t know what made her reach out to pick it up, but she did. Staring at it, but not deciding to make that call, she simply held it.

She didn’t hear Corrado until he was right there, grabbing the damn phone from her hand. He moved like lightening, silent and dangerous. She jumped when he came up behind her, and nearly rammed right into his naked chest when she spun around fast to face him.

With the phone in one hand, he cocked his head to the side, and smirked a bit. “What were you doing?”

“Uh …”

It was hard to focus—hard to talk—when he was standing this close to her. She could blame it on the fact he wore nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs, and she had a glorious view of the hard lines, and ridges of muscle that made up his lean, yet muscular, form. He reminded her of a runner in the way he was built, and the way the waistband on those boxer-briefs rested against the hard V of his groin had her gaze lingering before he cleared his throat.

Ginevra’s gaze traveled back up his body.

Jesus.

Skin uninked.

Though he had scars.

A few.

Yeah, she could have blamed her inability to speak on the way he looked—because he was shamelessly gorgeous, and he probably knew it—but that wasn’t what did it. No, it was the way Corrado stared at her that always seemed to silence her.

He did it when she was looking.

And when she wasn’t.

Did he even know how intense his stare was? Like he’d found prey, and was ready to go in for the kill?

A part of her wouldn’t mind that.

Being his prey.

Not at all.

Corrado’s right eyebrow arched when Ginevra’s gaze drifted over his strong features, and she couldn’t stop that heat from rising up her cheeks. This close, there was no hiding the fact she just stared at him like a foolish girl for at least two minutes.

Just stared.

He was kind enough not to say anything.

His smirk deepened, though.

“Well?” he asked.

“I was just … looking at it,” she said lamely.

Corrado cocked his head to the side. “You know the rules.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No calls out. Yes, I can take you out of the penthouse, we can go do things, and whatever else, but if there is any chance someone could track you back here, then that’s a no-go. From what I understand, you were mostly unknown back in New York, being that you were only recently brought into the folds of the Calabrese family, right?”

Ginevra swallowed hard. “Yeah, my mom … was Matteo’s mistress for a time. We were kept a secret until—”

“They needed someone to marry off.”

“Basically.”

“So like I said,” Corrado replied, shrugging one shoulder, “you’re mostly unknown, and that means you’ll be able to do other things here besides stay hidden away in this penthouse. But if you go off doing stupid things like calling people, which will make it far easier to track us, then we’re going to have to move again. I doubt you’ll like where we’ll go, or the fact you won’t be able to leave the place. Got it?”