Page 88 of One Breath After Another

He kissed her once—then twice.

The third time, her lips trembled against his as he started to pull away, and her shaky breath echoed between them. Then, he kissed the tip of her nose. And the top of her head. He didn’t let go of her waist, and Penny’s hands came to tighten around his wrists like she was trying to keep them right there in that moment. There was something incredibly innocent and enthralling about the way she let her tongue sweep the seam of her lips for a taste of him as she glanced up to meet his gaze again.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Luca only smiled back. “Happy birthday, Penny.”

• • •

LUCA WAS PERFECTLY content to sleep until the afternoon after the night of Penny’s eighteenth birthday party simply because he could. He didn’t have an early morning class, no lecture to race to, and all business for the family side of things was on hold while everyone recuperated from their celebration.

Italians knew how to party.

And rest.

With no place to go or be, Luca couldn’t find a reason to roll his ass out of bed at a decent hour. Shit, this might be the only time he was able to sleep in for months. Maybe even years. Who was he to say?

If only everyone else agreed ...

It was the sharp ring of his phone—the piercing ringtone he’d chosen for Naz’s number snatching Luca from his slumber instantly—that fucked it all up. He could have ignored the call. Even considered it when he saw the digital alarm clock said it wasn’t even nine in the goddamn morning.

Except it was Naz.

So ...

“Fuck,” Luca grumbled, rolling to the side in the bed under the fluffy comforter to reach for the cell phone ringing on the nightstand. He almost dropped the phone as he tried to blink awake and answer the call at the same time. Feeling like more of an idiot, he shoved the phone hard against the side of his face and mumbled, “What?”

“She’s gone.”

That was all Naz said.

She’s gone.

Luca blinked again and sat up in the bed, scrubbing a hand down his face to wipe away the sleep when he asked, “I don’t understand. What—who?”

“She’s gone, man. Penny. She’s gone.”

He thought his lack of comprehension and his slowness to catch up was just that he had woken up. Quickly, he understood it was simply because none of this made sense.

“Naz, I talked to Penny last night. Everybody did. She was happy. Are you sure she’s not just taking a walk or some—”

“She’s fucking gone—left her shit, took mine. Left a note, too.”

No way.

“Naz—”

“Remember the program I created? The one that scours the dark web for sexual predators?”

Of course.

Hell, the whole set up Naz made stayed at Luca’s place for a while just to keep Roz from stumbling on it. Eventually, his friend moved the system to his own home, satisfied that it wouldn’t be bothered or a problem.

Luca hadn’t asked about it since.

“She took files I had for it and the mainframe ... the laptop,” Naz murmured. “Luca, she took everything.”

“And she’s—”