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“She has me.”
Antonio went still. Coming from Ivan, this was major.
It could be duty driving him, or a debt he owed his dead friend. But Antonio felt this went far beyond that. Though Ivan had never intimated that he’d ever cared for a woman, Antonio felt this one was important to him. Very important. In a way no woman had ever been.
This was either a relationship Ivan had chosen not to tell him about, or it was a new development, as intense and life-changing as his situation with Liliana.
And if this weren’t such a grim occasion, Antonio would have told him about her, would have joked about the brothers falling like dominoes one after the other.
But if Ivan felt about this woman like Antonio did for Liliana, what had happened to her, what was still ahead of her, must be killing him. While he had so much joy to look forward to with Liliana starting tonight, Ivan could only watch the woman he cared about struggle for her life.
Feeling guilty that he was the happiest he’d ever been while Ivan suffered his worst pain, Antonio grabbed him by the shoulders. “She will be fine, Ivan. She’s strong, and you brought her to me in the best condition possible. I believe her brother was lost at the scene, and it was only your efforts that kept his systems going till you got him here. It’s the only reason his organs were viable, making the transplant possible. It was you who saved her.”
Ivan avoided his eye, kept his downcast under the blackest frown Antonio had ever seen as he turned away. But not before Antonio saw what felt like a blow to the solar plexus. His iceberg of a friend’s eyes filling with tears.
Knowing Ivan wouldn’t want him to acknowledge his upheaval, he followed him in silence to the ICU’s observation area.
He stood behind him, felt agony radiating off him as he watched his mystery woman being hooked to monitors and drips.
“I’m a phone call away, Ivan.”
Back rigid, breathing strident, Ivan only nodded.
Knowing he could do no more for now, Antonio exhaled at the unaccustomed feeling of helplessness and walked away.
* * *
An hour later, Antonio entered his mansion. It was dim and quiet. But he knew Liliana was there. She’d texted him, and so had Paolo the moment she’d gone inside safely.
He walked through the foyer into the great room and found her there on the couch, her hair streaming off its edge in a cascade of curls. She was sound asleep.
He approached her soundlessly and looked down at her. With his best friend’s ordeal reverberating in his being, seeing her there, whole and irreplaceable, had a storm of emotions raging inside him. He wanted to wake her up, lose himself inside her, hide her within himself. And none of it was about lust. It was about passion and protection. Tenderness and togetherness. And everything he’d never shared with or offered another human being.
Unable to keep away anymore, he bent to pick her up. The moment he touched her, she opened her eyes. They penetrated him to his very recesses with their instant welcome. As she tried to sit up, he scooped her up and pressed her head to his shoulder.
“Shh, cuore mio, don’t wake up.”
She nestled deeper into his hold, her lips moving against his thundering heart as she spoke. “I was just dreaming of you...as usual.”
“Then continue dreaming, mi amore.”
He carried her to his bed, their bed now, wondering again that he was using Italian.
He’d learned the language in The Organization, perfecting it before he had English. They always taught every child his mother tongue, so they’d use him in missions involving his country or countrymen. But he’d never spoken it outside of those times.
Liliana made him speak it. He wanted to lavish on her the passionate endearments unique to the language he should have grown up speaking. Somehow, only they felt right to express what he felt for her.
Reaching his bed, he placed her lovingly on it before remotely parting the drapes, letting the moonlight in. He started to undress her, and she stirred again. She caught his hands, embarrassment staining her cheeks in the silver light.
He kissed her, pushed her back gently, crooning encouragement and praise to her as his hands roamed her body, and she melted back again, letting him do anything he pleased. And it did please him, beyond words, to get rid of every barrier, to finally see that body that had inflamed his though it had always been obscured.
And she was divine. Smooth and strong and sinuous, in the exact proportions he’d just discovered translated into his personal definition of perfection.
She watched him throughout, hanging on his reactions. He didn’t leave it to her deductions. He told her exactly what he thought. Then he started undressing himself, reveling in the awed, voracious look that possessed her face. If there was ever a reward for the years he’d spent training and maintaining his physique, it was that look. He was already addicted to it. Then he removed the last of his clothing, letting her see just how hard her beauty and her hunger made him.
At the sight of his erection, she gasped and sank back deeper in the bed, as if she already felt it invading her, pinning her to the mattress. She licked her lips, those lips he wanted nothing more than to feel around his hardness.
But that would come later. Now he needed to reassure himself that she was safe with him. That she was his to cherish, to protect.
