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“Just give me the keys.” A low growl rumbled from his chest, and we were close enough that I felt it in my own.
“Stop being a child. You’re not driving.”
He threw his body weight against me, flipping our positions again, his fingers trying to pry my hand apart where I held the keys in an iron grip.
We wrestled until we were both panting, me telling him to give up and Cam insisting I relinquish the keys. He had his legs tangled with mine in a wrestling move that brought our faces within inches of each other, and with memories of a similar night in Budapest running through my head, I paused, my mouth so close to Cal’s I could almost taste the coffee he’d been drinking before he’d made a play for the keys.
His eyes were so beautiful. The dark brown had flecks of gold and amber that caught the light coming in through theuncovered window, though they were hard to see with his pupils blown wide, the black blotting out almost all the brown. Cal moved beneath me, and I realized in a brush of denim-clad flesh against denim-clad flesh that we were both hard. My hips pressed him into the bed like it was muscle memory, like we’d been in this exact position before.
Because we had been.
And when Cal’s next breath caught and held in his chest, I wanted nothing more than to press my lips to his and let this go where we both wanted it to.
I couldn’t speak for Cal, but I was getting tired of fighting the distance between us. We were good together. The bedroom was the only place where we worked, and while it wouldn’t be professional, maybe a quick fuck or two would help us both get our heads on straight.
Instead of kissing Cal, I leaned forward, letting the full length of my body press against every inch of his, my lips finding the shell of his ear. A shudder rippled through him, and I smiled, then whispered, “I’m driving.”
When I pulled back, Cal’s eyes were narrowed, and his hands came up between us, shoving me away hard.
“For the record, I fucking hate you,” he said as he rolled off the bed and straightened his clothes.
But we both knew that wasn’t true.
Cal pouted the whole ride out to Azzura Scivolo’s villa and still wasn’t talking to me when we docked the boat in a public slip and crossed the small piazza in front of her home. Her villa was close to the Accademia di Venezia, where she had occasionally been a guest lecturer. The proximity to the university made it that much easier to blend in as students bustled around campus and crammed into the local cafes.
A niggling in my gut told me we weren’t in the right place. “The painting isn’t here.”
My comment caught Cal off guard. “How do you know?”
I nodded to the foot traffic and the traffic on the water behind the villa. “How does she move it in or out?”
“From the water.”
I shook my head. “That’s a main route around the city. There’s no way someone doesn’t see.”
“There could be a hidden door.”
“Did you see one?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Not being able to see it is kind of the point of a hidden door.”
“Just trust me. The painting isn’t here.”
Cal turned so he was facing me, his voice pitched low. “I still think we should go inside and look around.”
“No. Remember what Reuben said?”
Cal looked at me blankly like Reuben had said a lot of things and he wasn’t sure where I was going with the question.
“She’s not supposed to be here. She’s technically banned from the city. I don’t think she’s going to risk drawing attention to herself by bringing a massive painting in through the front door.”
“Then why did we come out here?”
“I needed to check the vibe to see if maybe I was wrong.”
“Are you saying we’re basing our decisions during this op on your Spidey sense?”
I glared at Cal. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the superhero type.”
