Chapter 8: Guest Room

He carried me up the back stairs with my legs around his waist and my mouth on his neck.

He was supposed to guard me, so he took me to his room.

It was the guest suite at the end of the east hall.

It had a dark wood bed and a fireplace and one lamp left on.

I slid down his body, found the reinforced bolt in my jacket pocket and wedged it under his door.

He watched me do it with his chest rising and falling.

"You brought it."

"I take it everywhere."

"Is that for me?"

"It's for anyone who comes through that door while I'm busy."

His smile went slow and dangerous.

"Busy doing what?"

"Take off your shirt and find out."

He took it off in one pull and dropped it on the floor.

He was broad and hard through the chest.

An old pale scar ran over his ribs where a knife had gone in.

I put my palm on it.

His breath caught.

"Eleven years ago," he said. "The same night."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Be here."

I pulled my own jacket off.

He was already working at the buckles of the vest, his fingers quick and rough.

When the last strap came free he lifted it over my head and threw it across the room.

It hit the wall with a heavy thud.

I stood there in a thin grey shirt with nothing between his eyes and me.

"God," he said.

I pulled the shirt off, too.

He lifted me by the hips and laid me on the bed.

Then he knelt over me and just looked, with his hands flat on the mattress on either side of my ribs.

"You're shaking," I said.

"I've wanted to see you without that armor since the second you walked into dinner."

"Then do something about it."

He kissed me, deep and slow and hungry, and I arched up into him until our skin touched, hot against hot.

His mouth went down my throat and over my collarbone.

He took my breast into his mouth and I cried out, my hands fisting in his hair.

"Rocco."

"Say it again."

"Rocco, please."

He kept going.

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