AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?”
“Your eye crinkles,” I told him. “You only get them when you smile big.”
“My eye crinkles, huh?” he asked, tone amused, if a little sleepy. “Here I was thinking it was the body, or the suit, maybe the great hairline, or how much I love going down on you.”
“Those help,” I agreed. “But it’s totally only the eye crinkles.”
“Good to know,” he said, giving me another smile. “I’ll be right back,” he said, moving away from me, and walking to the bathroom.
Did I move to the edge of the bed, so I could watch his ass as he walked away? You bet your bottom dollar I did.
He came back out not more than a minute later, still gloriously naked, his gaze moving over my bare body as well.
And his smile was so warm, I knew I could bask in the light of it forever.
I didn’t hear it as quickly as he did.
In fact, even when I did, I didn’t recognize it.
I was too lost in that moment. In the way my heart felt as if it were swelling in my chest. In the complete and utter understanding of what that meant.
What I had never experienced before.
What my mother had told me she thought I was only destined to feel for one person.
Love.
And that Nino, well, he was that one person.
It was no wonder there were so many poems and songs and books about this feeling. It felt of me, yet from outside of me somehow at the same time. Something wholly uncontrollable, undeniable.
Not that I wanted to do either.
I never wanted to feel anything but the way I was feeling right then as I looked over at the most gorgeous and caring and completely unexpected man I had ever known.
And it was because I was watching him so closely that I saw his reaction to the strange pop-pop-pop.
Absolute freaking panic.
My heart seized and my belly tensed as it finally registered what I was hearing.
Gunshots.
Even as the glass started to break in the room.
Nino was across the room in seconds, grabbing my leg, and yanking hard, making my stomach drop as my body fell roughly to the floor.
I only felt the ache for a moment, though, as his own body came down on top of mine, covering me.
Blocking me, I realized, from the bullets.
My heart was hammering in my chest as the bullets kept flying, sailing through the house.
Glass shattered.
Bullets lodged in walls.
And there was nothing, nothing I could do to protect Nino.
