“What time shall I come tomorrow?” His arm circled her shoulders while his other hand slid the cage door open.
“You’re coming back? What are you, a con-she-, I mean, con-see-erge?” The plastic key card flexed in her grip.
“Your mood for the last five minutes hasn’t changed my mind.” As he steered her along the hall, his grip was firm but not grabby. He wouldn’t be grabby. “I like smart mouths even more than beautiful women who can’t hold their wine.”
His meaning temporarily eluded her, but he’d said beautiful and he’d smiled, so it must have been fine.
Although she didn’t care if he liked her. He couldn’t like her. She was a superior officer. She couldn’t like him. Not that way.
She tried to slip the key card in the slot but couldn’t make the pieces connect. Sounding remarkably like her roommate, a voice in her head buzzed that he’d be able to connect the right parts. When his hand wrapped around her fingers, her knees wobbled from the urge to rest against him, but instead she jerked to the side.
“Whoa, gotcha.” His forearm supported her as he eased the card out of her fingers.
The electronic lock clicked and flashed green. Enter. He couldn’t. She couldn’t.
“Shall we say oh-nine-hundred?” Pushing the door open, he shepherded her past his body. His hand, above the rise of her butt, seared through her clothes like an electrocauterization.
“I’ll bring aspirin,” he said. “Sleep well.”
She turned too slowly to see him before the door shut, but she thought he’d murmured domani ci baciare. What the...he didn’t want to...why not?
She glared, but the closed door didn’t offer an explanation.
And didn’t that Italian bit mean something about tomorrow and kissing?
Chapter Eleven
Theresa perched on the edge of the blue-velvet fainting couch and leafed through her guidebook for the third time. Two glasses of water and twenty push-ups had tied off the slight hangover threading through her head, so she could decline any aspirin Wulf might bring.
If he showed up.
Her book extolled restaurants, nighttime strolls and ideas for la dolce vita, as if every tourist had a partner. So what if these photos of the Roman Forum at night made it harder to turn Wulf away and go forth unaccompanied? To follow the rules, she had to. She’d thank him for last night’s dinner and then politely refuse today’s invitation. No waffling, no sinking in his eyes.
The knock jolted her to her feet. She settled the wide belt of her safari dress, then crossed to the door.
“Good morning.” The standard greeting covered her awkwardness as she drank in the contrast of his square shoulders against the hallway’s cream-patterned wallpaper.
“Good morning to you too.” His deep voice, not the simple words, sent tingles racing from her chest to her fingertips.
She retreated, but he mistook it as an invitation and followed. Knowing he’d pass too close, she abandoned the dim entry for safety in the middle of the well-lit room.
“You picked a good hotel.” His gaze traveled her curves.
“How can you tell?” Until he’d invaded, her room had felt spacious. Now it felt as tight as the littlest two-seat cars that roamed the city. “You haven’t looked at the room.”
He glanced past her to the bed. She’d smoothed the duvet and fluffed all six pillows, but his eyelids lowered as if he could see through her effort to the sheets where she slept.
“It has everything that matters.” His nostrils flared and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, it was as if he’d forced himself away from a ledge. “Ready?”
“Um, no.” Somehow she had to ask him to leave. At the bureau, she fiddled with a lip gloss tube and caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. You need color, her mother would chide. “You don’t really want to sightsee.”
“No.” He stalked closer as she unscrewed the plastic cap. “But I’ll sacrifice for you.”
Sounding like a bigger promise than a few hours of his day, his words recalled the helicopter crash aftermath. Her hand trembled as she brought the squeeze tube to her lips without looking away from his reflection. Automatically, she stroked the shimmering wine color across the bottom curve while she watched him. The nerves and muscles connected to her quivering thighs urged her to pivot into his arms, but her brain rejected risking her career. “Don’t—”
Outside, metal grated on metal, as if a car scraped a steel post.
Wulf spun in a blur, hands up and forward of his body, to face the window.
The metallic rasping stopped.
The speed and intensity of his startle reflex reminded her that he was a Special Forces soldier, trained to be fast and alert. He was also a mystery, and the only way to find answers was to spend time together.
In a few seconds the low hum of the room’s electronics and muted street noises released him from his defensive position. He stared into her eyes, his gaze heated by what she guessed was a mix of adrenaline and embarrassment spiking his system like a potent drug.
Her hands braced on the vanity behind her hips. The starched edges of her dress sleeves rubbed the underside of her arms where she supported herself. He was six feet away, but it was almost as if he stroked her body, because she could feel every seam of her clothing where it touched her skin. She swallowed, at a loss for her next words as he continued to stare. She wanted to ask if he was fine. She wanted to tell him to stop staring. She wanted to lay her palm on his cheek and whisper that he was allowed to relax because this was a vacation. But his gaze pinned her into unmoving, unthinking, unbreathing silence.
Then he turned away. By the time she exhaled, a chasm separated them.
“Unless you put out a Do Not Disturb sign, we’re leaving.” He spoke from the entry, his back to her. His head hung low, and his hands gripped the door frame above his shoulders, as if he waited for a whip to descend.
She, the good girl, the smart jock, the girl picked first in intramurals but not for house parties, had reduced him to a penitent. Gathering her self-control along with her purse, she decided they both needed fresh air.
He must’ve heard her footfalls on the carpet, because he opened the door and held it. Without exchanging a word, they let the elevator deliver them from temptation. Each ding as they passed a floor unwound her tension another notch. In the populated safety of the lobby, she found her voice. “You’ve visited Rome before, haven’t you?”
“I lived here for a while.”
“Lucky you. When?”
“Before I joined the army.”
He couldn’t have been more than thirty, and to be a staff sergeant he would have been in the army at least eight years. “An exchange program? Or with your family?” She preceded him through the outside door.
“Exactly. Last night you mentioned the double-decker bus tour, so I bought tickets.”
“That sure of me, were you?” She turned and caught him staring at her butt.
“Hopeful.” The oversized paper stubs in his hand and the crinkles around his eyes mollified her into a smile. “Rome’s the Eternal City. I’m eternally hopeful.”
“Well, I’m hopeful about some espresso, if you pick up the pace back there.” She whipped forward, her take-charge voice damping her desire to let her hips sway.
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
“Our next stop is Bocca della Verità,” Theresa read from the guidebook as the bus rolled through narrow streets. “After we visit the Mouth of Truth we can lunch across the river.” The past three hours with Wulf had been perfect. Following breakfast, they’d strolled to the Ara Pacis Museum, where he’d touched her back to alert her to stairs or ramps while she immersed herself in the audio tour. He didn’t roll his eyes or interrupt while she absorbed the art. As they left, he’d plucked a
straw hat from a street vendor and settled it on her head. He’d been right about the sun on the uncovered top deck.
“Shall we de-bus?” she asked, the part of her that struggled to maintain an appropriate distance restraining her hand from touching his shoulder.
“You’re in charge.” He folded the tourist map with a soldier’s ease.
Perhaps he didn’t notice when his trousers brushed the bare skin between her knee and her hem, but she did, because she wanted to stroke her palm across the fabric. She imagined it would be warm from his leg, and smooth under her fingers, but she ordered herself to sit like the frieze of Octavia until the shuffling of other tourists released them to exit.
In the shade of the front portico at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, they waited their turn to approach the giant stone face. The parents of a boy, four or five years old, urged him to poke his fingers in the carving’s mouth while they took a picture, but he crossed his arms and tucked both hands securely in his armpits.
“He has the right idea,” Wulf whispered. “Don’t reach in farther than you can see.” Then his body tightened like a tourniquet, and he dropped his sunglasses from the top of his head to his nose while he slid behind her.
“Surely you don’t believe in the Mouth of Truth?” She twisted to see him.
“Do you?” His stance altered, as if he poised on the balls of his feet, while he tugged her hat across her forehead until it tipped awkwardly toward the floor. The line inched forward as the family left, replaced by Japanese tourists.
“It wouldn’t matter if I did. I don’t lie so it won’t bite.” She pushed the brim out of her eyes. His stance and his face reminded her of his reaction to the noise this morning.
“I don’t intend to stick my hand in.” On the way up, his palm passed hers coming down and again he jammed the hat to her eyebrows. “Leave it.” His voice sounded lower and uninflected, like a command instead of a request.
“You don’t lie that much, do you?” She’d intended to pat his arm and reassure him that for right now she wasn’t dwelling on his lies, but he must have thought she wanted to remove her hat because he intercepted her hand. His clenched fingers revealed his tension, although he knew how to check his strength so his grip didn’t crush her. If she could’ve seen behind his mirrored lenses, she suspected she’d have recognized his on guard squint. Was it the crowd that had tightened his screws? Being in Rome, in civvies, and away from their duty station didn’t sanction holding his hand, but he seemed to need reassurance—justification enough to twine her fingers with his. “The story about liars is only a legend.”
“I lie to everyone. To you, to the army.” The corner of his mouth drooped, and his voice grated across his vocal chords, its smooth cadences replaced with sandpaper. “Even to my team.” Her fingers fluttered in empty air as he abandoned her and made a fist against his thigh. “My whole life is a lie.”
She didn’t know how to respond, so she rested her hand on his upper arm. His muscles quivered, tense and on guard like his fist and jaw. “We can go.”
“No, you want to do this.” He gestured her forward. “Be quick.”
The blank eyes and raised brows carved on the ancient stone resembled a face frozen by fear more than a truth-seeking river spirit. She cradled her right arm across her torso. He had a point about sticking hands into dark holes.
“You don’t have to do it either,” he whispered in her ear. His shoulders walled off the sunlight. “But the line is waiting.”
She couldn’t recall the last time she’d told a lie. This was a silly myth, so she closed her eyes and shoved her hand in the opening.
Nothing happened. She started to turn, but he gripped her upper arms and kept her facing the stone.
“I’ll snap a picture of both y’all,” an American voice offered.
“No thanks.” Wulf’s voice sounded muffled, as if he’d tucked his chin to his chest. He lifted her nearly to her tiptoes and shifted her along the wall so fast she had to crab step to keep her feet in line with her hips.
“What are you—”
Without turning their bodies from the wall, Wulf hauled her over Santa Maria’s threshold and kicked the door closed.
“Hey—” She wiggled and tried to peer at the door behind them, but his shoulders and chest blocked her sightlines, as if he’d doubled in size. “Why—”
“Move.” Locking her wrist in an iron grip, he dropped her flat-footed and hustled her across the sanctuary.
Chapter Twelve
“What’s wrong?” Theresa demanded as her leather-soled ballet flats skidded across the church’s marble floor.
“Guy was too nosy.” Despite Wulf’s size, his feet skimmed noiselessly through the interior as he dragged her between columns.
“Nosy? What do you mean?” Behind them the door to the courtyard opened. Outside light penetrated as far as the first aisle, but didn’t illuminate the entire nave.
“Had his phone out.” Wulf pushed her through an almost unnoticeable door into a short hall. Each wall canted differently, and none of the corners formed right angles, as if the room enclosed a void where separate buildings failed to join. “He was taking pictures.”
“It’s a tourist spot.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s what people do.”
“Of us. Only us. Not the Mouth.” He shoved something from the floor—a wedge—under the door behind them and drove it deeper with the heel of his shoe. Clearly he wasn’t joking. “Didn’t you notice?”
She’d noticed his behavior change, nothing else, but she wasn’t the trained threat sensor that he was. “Are you sure?” Even asking that made her tense, as if she stood at the top of a stadium, looking down a hundred rows.
“Yes.” He opened one of the two other doors to reveal an ascending flight of steps, and then he whipped the new hat from her head and tossed it to the point where the stairs vanished at a turn. The soft swish as it toppled one step lower was followed by the whine of ancient hinges as he partially closed the stairway door.
And then followed by a squeak next to her.
The brass knob on the door between her and the sanctuary rotated first one way, then slowly back. Someone wanted to come in. Part of her brain inventoried her systemic reactions like she would a patient’s responses. Respiration speeding to produce more oxygen? Check. Muscles from neck tendons to foot arches tensing for flight? Check. The rest of her watched as faster spins rattled the knob mechanism, and then she heard a thunk as something heavy, heavy like a man’s fist, hit the wood.
Someone really wanted in.
She smothered a gasp as the person pounded again, but the metal-bound door held square in its frame and the wedge didn’t shift. When she would have stared, transfixed by the shaking knob, Wulf grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the third opening and into a hall. A carpet runner with a grayed path down the center led to a massive door. Thrusting it wide, he revealed sunlight, and then they were out, away from the pounding that beat alongside her heart.
She followed him around a corner and faltered in front of Santa Maria’s arches. A line of oblivious tourists stretched from the portico to the sidewalk. “Why back here?”
“There.” He pointed to another double-decker bus and ran, still holding her wrist.
To stay connected to her arm, she sprinted with him to the end of the block, and he hauled her on board a moment before the doors snapped at their heels. They’d made it. Eyes closed, she panted against his shoulder while relief turned her knees to overcooked linguine. She clutched his waist to stay upright. His scent, evergreen and soap, wrapped her in safety as the bus lurched from the curb. A man hadn’t held her like this, with his arm looped around her shoulder and his hip bumping her hip, in too long. She’d missed that connection of curves and planes, the feeling of two different-size bodies filling one space.
&nbs
p; “People on the bus go up and down.” Under her cheek, his chest vibrated like a big cat, a very big cat, whose paw kneaded her spine in time with his words. “Up and down, up—”
“Stop that.” Her order, drawn out and trembling, held no authority. “This isn’t the place.” Her cotton dress left no doubts about every corded muscle and bulging whatever that Wulf pressed against her hip. Jammed next to him in the doorway, she could feel that he was hot and, she strongly suspected, half-hard.
“Stop,” she whispered again, despite the stupid-crazy part of her that wanted to arch closer in a bus vestibule.
“Negative on that request.” His fingers snuck past her intentions and circled into the small of her back. “After a successful E-and-E is the perfect place for—” he nestled her deeper into his body, “—this.”
“You’ll be escaping and evading without that hand if you don’t move it.” Women at Caddie joked about guys with boners after successful missions, so she knew his post-adrenaline reaction had jack to do with her. Just like her trembling and wide-open senses had nothing whatsoever to do with him. Nothing. She inserted a forearm between them and pushed, almost as hard as a chest compression, but he only let her reclaim six inches of space.
“Let go, Ser—” She broke off before she spit out his rank. Don’t draw attention to military affiliation in public, security briefings emphasized before anyone could take leave.
A man coughed loudly into the pause, drawing her attention past Wulf’s shoulder. The bus driver leered back. They had an audience.
“Biglietti?” He honked with one hand and gestured for tickets with the other.
“Sì, sì,” she said. “Un minuto per favore.” Fumbling with her purse, she caught the eye of the motorbike driver stopped outside the glass doors. He was grinning too. Crap. Every Roman on the road had witnessed their clutch.
Wulf didn’t drop his arms, which meant she had to stay contorted while she hunted through sunglasses, tissues and the map. Damn, she could not focus with her entire side plastered against him.
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