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He’s athletic and well-toned, with an elegant amount of muscle that makes him look strong but not burly. The definition in his shoulders and abs is absolutely drool-worthy, and the way his eyes dance as he catches me looking at him sets my skin on fire.
“Your turn,” he threatens playfully, stepping close to find the zipper running up the side of my tattered green sequined dress. “Pity it’s been shredded. You were a vision walking down those stairs at the masquerade.”
I smile coyly, then shiver as the fabric falls in a heavy pile around my feet. “After what I’ve been through in it, I don’t think I’ll ever look at it in the same way.”
I’m dressed in nothing but a pair of black satin undies. The abrupt exposure of so much flesh combined with my comment instantly brings to mind the kidnapper Maksim and how close he came to forcing himself on me. I shiver violently, my shoulders curling in on themselves on instinct.
“Hey,” Cassio says gently, his fingers cupping my chin as I close my eyes and swallow forcefully. “You’re safe now,” he breathes. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Ever.”
“I know,” I whisper, looking up at him through my lashes.
I do know. He moved heaven and earth to find me. And somewhere deep in my gut tells me he would have given up his life to stop Maksim from taking anything further. Because that’s who Cassio is. He’s selfless and brave, and he loves me.
He leans in slowly, his lips caressing mine softly, tentatively, and I melt into him, my cold fear trickling away with his gentleness.
“Come on,” he murmurs after several arousing moments. “Let’s get cleaned up.”
I nod and follow him into the shower, joining him beneath the warm water. I don’t know that anything has ever felt better than the heat drumming against my skin, the warm steam surrounding me, with Cassio’s hands tracing soft lines along the planes of my face, down my neck, and across my collarbones and chest.
It’s more comforting than erotic; we both take our time lathering soap over each other’s bodies. The water turns a sickly color of pink as I work the suds through Cassio’s locks, and he groans appreciatively as I massage his scalp.
And when it comes time to scrub my feet, he does it carefully, guiding me onto the shower’s built-in ledge before washing them thoroughly, his thumbs kneading my tender arches and heels as he does his best to relieve my pain.
We both step from the shower a good time later, well rid of the filth and grime of our traumatic overnight venture. Cassio wraps a towel around his waist, and I tuck one firmly beneath my arms to wear like a rather precarious minidress.
Then I dig my first aid kit from beneath my sink and guide Cassio to the foot of the bed, where I sit him down so I can address the cut on his face. Neither of us dared touch it in the shower beyond rinsing the worst of the dried blood away. Now, I coat a cotton ball in antiseptic and gently dab the long gash that runs from the top of his left cheekbone down to about an inch away from his smile line.
“You never finished your story, by the way. What happened after they caught you? How’d you get this?” I ask, pulling out the Steri-Strip tape to close the cut.
Cassio’s fingers rest lightly on my hips as I work, his eyes looking up at me, just slightly, his height not much diminished from his seat on the bed. “Well, I blacked out while they were dragging us back to the house, and when I woke up, we were back in that office where I first found you.”
I nod for him to continue, though my eyes remain fixed on my work.
“They roughed me up a bit more, trying to figure out who I was and how the hell I happened to turn up, and then the Matron arrived. She seemed to recognize me by sight and seemed pretty happy to find a Marchetti in her clutches. Anyway, she left, I took a nap, and–”
“Wait, come again?”
Cassio chuckles. “Like I said, pretty sure I have a concussion. I was feeling pretty woozy.”
I pause to look deep into his eyes, worried I might not be taking his injuries seriously enough.
“I’m fine,” he insists as if hearing my thoughts, his fingers squeezing my hips reassuringly. “Next thing I know, I hear gunfire off in the trees. My brothers, along with yours and a few of his men, came barreling through the door a minute later, but not before the Matron had me out of my chair so she could use me as a shield.”
Just hearing the drama makes my heart beat painfully in my chest, and I pause my methodical taping for fear my hands might be shaking too hard.
“Long story short, your brother and the Matron go back to about your father’s funeral, and my brother recognizes her as some New York Bratva leader of some clan called the Veles. I don’t know. She offered to hand me over if Nico shot Ilya–which he obviously didn’t. But I couldn’t just stand by and see if Nico would or wouldn’t, so I spoke up.”
His face contorts slightly as he points to his wounded cheek. “This is what I get for having a faster mouth than a brain.”
“You might have saved my brother’s life for speaking in his defense,” I murmur, my heart swelling impossibly more with gratitude for the man before me.
He shrugs it off like it was nothing, his hand finding my hip again. “Whatever the case is, the only way the Matron would let me go was if Nico and Ilya let her get to her plane. They let her escape in exchange for my life, so it’s my fault she got away.”
The level of guilt in his tone makes my heart ache. “I’m glad they have their priorities straight,” I say firmly.
Warmth glows in Cassio’s hazel eyes as his lips quirk into a smile. “So, what’s the verdict, doctor?” he teases lightly. “Will it scar?”
“Not that I’m any voice of authority,” I clarify, adding the last strip to his face and hoping it’s enough adhesive that the wound will scar minimally. “But I would say any permanent scarring probably won’t be too noticeable. At least it’s a straight line, which should help it heal properly.”
