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Our eyes lock, and the moment stretches between us.
It’s his phone that breaks the spell.
He opens his sports bag to retrieve it, and I catch a glimpse of the gun sitting on top of his towel and come crashing back to reality.
While he takes a call, I stare at the gun in the bag.
Then I lean forward and pick it up.
18
Nico
Fuck.
There is one rule I live by.
Don’t make stupid mistakes that will get you killed, and damn if I didn’t just smash that one to smithereens.
Distracted by a barely dressed Bella, namely the way those shorts curve around her luscious ass and the fullness of her juicy breasts in that lacy bra, I left my gun and her unattended together when Massimo called.
Now she’s pointing it right at me.
“I’ll call you back,” I say into my phone and hang up.
I glare at my wife-to-be.
“You need to be careful with that,” I warn her.
I seem calm, but I’m not. A gun in anyone’s hand is dangerous, friend or foe. She might only be trying to prove a point with no real intention to shoot me, but one accidental slip of her finger and it’s lights out.
Especially since the safety is off.
“There you go, underestimating me again,” she says. “If you think I don’t know how to use this, then you really need to talk to the stalkers you had following me. I’ve been visiting gun ranges in both the US and London for years.”
I’m tempted to tell her that in the past year I didn’t have anyone watching her except me.
But I keep it to myself because if I don’t, she’ll read something into it that isn’t there. Like I did it because I didn’t want anyone else watching her because I’m a possessive asshole who doesn’t want someone else knowing the intimate details of her life as well as I do.
She stands, gingerly putting weight on her foot.
“Nice to see your ankle feels better,” I say.
“Lucky me, it’s feeling better and better by the second.”
I raise my hands out to the side. “Now that the ball is in your court, what is your plan?”
A smile twitches on her lips. “I could shoot you.”
“Yes, you could. But what would you gain from doing that?”
Her gaze sweeps over me. “My life would be two hundred pounds lighter for starters. Then there is the whole being held captive thing. I could live where I want.”
“Yes, you could. But what would you do with my body?”
Her brows knit. It was something she hadn’t considered.
“The killing is the easy part,” I say lightly. “It’s the mess you have to clean up afterward that’s the real pain in the ass.”
“Don’t think I wouldn’t consider it worth the inconvenience.” A wicked smile curls her lips, and I feel it all the way down to my dick. “Or maybe I’ll get creative and invent a dastardly villain who broke in here and killed the mighty Domenico De Kysa in front of my very eyes. No, officer, I didn’t see what the killer looked like. It all happened so fast.”
The damsel in distress voice she puts on is kind of hot. My eyes slip to her breasts again, and a new wave of lust curls in my groin.
“There’s only one flaw in your otherwise perfect plan, my love.” My eyes remain on her as I gesture to the cameras in every corner of the room. “The camera doesn’t lie.”
She looks up at the ceiling, and seeing the cameras, she sighs and lowers the gun. “Fine. I won’t shoot you. Not right now, anyway.”
She puts the safety on, clearly familiar with a Ruger.
I put my hand out. “Give me the gun.”
She narrows her eyes. “I’ll trade you the Ruger for more freedom.”
Irritated, I clench my teeth. “What kind of freedom?”
“I want the freedom to come and go as I please.”
“You know I could just grab the gun off you, right?”
“And you know I could just flick that safety off before you reach me and shoot you right between the eyes.”
“Again, cleanup issues.”
“Again, I am a good actress.” She bats her lashes. “Officer, he came at me. I thought he was going to hurt me, so I fired the gun. I didn’t mean to kill him. Really, I didn’t.”
Christ, I wish she’d stop doing that voice because I’m so fucking turned on right now. I don’t know if I want to punish her or fuck her. Both, I want to do both.
She sounds innocent, but the mischievous smile on her face and the nefarious flash in her eyes tells me Bella is just as wicked as I am.
And damn, why does that feel so fucking good?
“You want to negotiate the terms of our arrangement,” I say, calmly folding my arms across my chest.
“More like the terms of my imprisonment, but yeah.”
“Fine,” I grit out. “Obviously, you have something in mind. What is it?”
