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Still half asleep, I got up on my elbows, blew hair out of my face, and stared down at the person currently occupying the other side of my bed.

Breath caught in my throat and choked me.

Because my husband lay stretched out on my flame-colored sheets, the broad expanse of his muscled back, that rich olive-toned tan, the scroll of Cyrillic script inked onto the side of his ribs, his shoulder-length hair dark as a raven’s wing, almost blue black, rumpled against the silk pillows. He had his hands tucked under a pillow, his face turned away from me, but I would have recognized him even from this angle anywhere.

I felt my pulse in my tongue, in the flickering of my lids above wide, dry eyes as I studied Dario unblinkingly. Rolling onto my one elbow, I reached out to draw shaking fingers over his left ear, the one that was currently housed in a blood-drenched lab in a private forensics lab somewhere in the city.

“Che cazzo succede?” I breathed, tugging on the perfectly shaped—and attached—appendage.

Beneath my touch, Dario stirred, moaning slightly as he woke, the muscles in his big frame rippling with a feline stretch. I pulled away to watch as he moved onto his back toward me, his hair shifting over his strong, almost hawkish nose, revealing his Roman features and finally, those familiar near-colorless eyes as his lids lifted heavily.

“Good morning, principessa,” he said on a sleepy, full-throated murmur I felt like a punch to the stomach.

I was dreaming.

There was no other excuse for it.

How the hell else could my disappeared, maimed husband be before me?

How the hell else would he wake up in my bed in the morning, something he never did even if he passed out briefly after fucking us both into oblivion?

I gaped at him.

A lazy smile curled the side of his firm medium-rare-pink mouth, soft looking against the bristles of his morning stubble. I held still like cornered prey as his big hand lifted and pushed a layered curl back behind my ear.

“Are you always this dumb in the morning?” he asked.

But it didn’t feel cruel the way it should have.

It felt almost like a tease . . . like he was . . . flirting with me?

I blinked, and when the apparition of Dario didn’t budge, I rubbed my eyes with the heel of one hand and blinked again.

He was still there, staring up at me with an arched brow and a cool look of amusement.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded.

His other brow joined the first high on his forehead. “In our home or in your bed?”

“Unless I’m going pazza—” I struggled for the English word, something I hadn’t done in ages. “Insane, you were abducted en route to Sicily yesterday, and some unidentified party sent me your fucking ear in a box.”

Dario sighed wearily, as if I was exhausting and silly. I watched incredulously as he adjusted pillows behind his back and resettled with one arm cocked behind his head, the muscles in his biceps and long abdomen flexing in a way that was utterly distracting even in my current headspace.

I swallowed dryly and fixed him with a glare.

That tiny grin flexed the edge of his mouth. “Fiammetta, what have I told you about my business? You shouldn’t worry your pretty little head about it. Last night was just a tactic some enemy took to kick the hornets’ nest and see what kind of chaos they could stir.”

“Well, they certainly succeeded,” I said and realized I was almost shouting. “They sent me a goddamn ear in a box! It was even nicked just like yours from Serena’s shot at the casino.”

My eyes fixed on his left ear, half hidden by his hair. Without thinking, I lunged forward and pushed the silky waves behind the shell, searching for the little wound.

Nothing.

I blinked and blinked again, feeling like some kind of demonic owl.

“What the hell,” I breathed. “You had an injury here just the other day.”

Dario shrugged, dislodging my touch and appearing entirely unconcerned about the whole event. “I heal fast.”