Page 9

Her voice is a note higher than yesterday morning. Nervous, possibly. Or something else.

“I live here.”

“That’s news.”

The corner of my mouth pulls. Not a smile.

“Come here.”

She doesn’t move. She’s still standing three steps into the kitchen with her keys in one hand and the sleeve of a soft gray sweater rucked up on her wrist where it caught on the door handle.

“Please.”

She comes. Slowly. Around the corner of the island, until she’s on the other side of it from me, one hand flat on the marble like a person holding onto a railing.

“You’ve been reading in my living room.”

Color floods her face.

“I’ll stop.”

“I didn’t say stop.”

Her eyes flick to my mouth. Back to my eyes. The color in her cheeks deepens.

I set the glass down.

She holds onto the island. I go around it, stop with one inch of air between us, close enough that the front of her sweater brushes the front of my shirt when she breathes in.

“Tell me to leave the room, Rosalie, and I will.”

I say it low, watch what it does to her.

Her lips part.

“Don’t,” she whispers.

I put my hand in her hair.

It’s softer than I expected. Thicker. I tilt her head exactly where I want it and I kiss her, and it is not soft. Over twenty-four hours of surveillance, denying myself, pulling the kitchen feed up a hundred times and telling myself I was watching for threats when I was watching for signs of her — all of it lands in her mouth, in one movement, and I take.

She kisses me back like she has been waiting since yesterday. Like she has been thinking about this since long before yesterday. Her fingers close around the front of my shirt and pull, and she makes a small sound into my mouth.

She bites my lower lip.

“Dio mio.”

I could take her here. Against the marble. Right now. Every part of her body pressed against mine is telling me she would let me — the fist in my shirt, the small answering sound, the way she is already tilting her hips a fraction toward the line of me under her sweater.

I could ruin her over this island in a way neither of us would come back from.

I break the kiss with an effort she must be able to feel through the hand still in her hair. Rest my forehead against hers. Both of us are breathing hard. Her mouth is a little swollen. Her eyes are half-closed.

I let go of her hair. Take one step back.

“I don’t share a bed with women who work for me.”

Her lashes lift. Her breath is still catching.