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I stare at the ceiling of the car and count the tiny perforations in the fabric. One, two, three, four. Anything but her.
She's not going to call.
I knew that before I asked. Vittoria knew it too. That doesn't make hearing it hurt less.
I shift in my seat and lower my head onto Valentino's lap before I can think better of it.
His thigh tenses under my cheek.
I settle there anyway, my temple against his leg, my body curled sideways on the seat, the seatbelt digging into my hip at an angle I don't care enough to fix.
His hand lifts, hesitates, then settles against my shoulder.
I look up at him.
From this angle, his jaw is a sharp line against the passing headlights. The stubble. The clenched edge of his mouth. The gray at his temples that I have always found unreasonably attractive.
I lick my lips.
Not on purpose. My mouth is dry. Then I remember where my cheek is resting.
His cock stirs against my cheek.
Oh.
My pulse kicks up, a low drumbeat at the base of my throat. I don't move. I hold his gaze from below and watch the precise moment his expression changes. His pupils swallow the dark of his irises. His jaw flexes hard enough that I can hear his teeth grind.
His hand comes down on my jaw, thumb along the hinge, fingers behind my ear. Not turning my face. Just keeping it exactly where it is.
He leans close enough that his breath hits my lips. "If you keep pushing me," he says, voice dropped to something barely above the engine noise, "I'll fuck your pretty mouth in the back of this car. I don't care if a hundred people are watching."
Every nerve in my body lights up at once. A hot wire pulled taut from my chest to the pit of my stomach, vibrating. His thumb presses against the soft skin below my ear, and I can feel my own pulse hammering back at him, telling him everything my mouth isn't saying.
I want to open my lips and press them against the hard ridge of him through the fabric and watch what happens to that iron control he wears like a second skin. I want to find out if he means it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Valentino
Bruno's name lights up the screen before we've cleared the Bergamo interchange. I have closed my eyes for a while.
Amanda's head is still in my lap, her breathing even, her fingers curled loosely around the fabric of my trousers like she's anchored herself there in sleep. Luca glances at the rearview but says nothing. Good man.
"Talk," I say.
I press the phone harder against my ear.
"When."
"Fifteen minutes after you left the safe house. FBI coordinated with local Bergamo police."
That detail crawls under my skin and stays there. Fifteen minutes.
"Why," I say, and the word comes out flatter than I intend.
"Working on it. What do they have, that's the question I need answered before I can—"
"Bruno." I keep my voice low. Amanda hasn't stirred. "What do they have against him."
