Chapter 7: No Touching

The villa was not safe anymore, so Raffaele took her to the docks.

The safe house was a brick building behind a shipping yard, with a garage on the ground floor and two rooms above.

His doctor had looked her over in the back of the car and given her two pills and an order to drink water.

The fever was gone by three in the morning.

Gemma sat on the hood of a black sedan in the empty garage with Raffaele's shirt still around her shoulders.

He stood at a steel sink, washing blood off his forearm.

A bullet had grazed the muscle above his elbow.

He had not mentioned it.

"Sit still," Gemma said, and slid off the car.

"It's nothing."

"It's bleeding on your cuff."

She found a first-aid box on the wall, tore open a packet of gauze, and took his arm in both hands.

He let her.

The cut was long and shallow, and her fingers shook while she cleaned it.

He watched her do it.

"You shouldn't have run out there," he said.

"You shouldn't have put a man on the gravel."

"I told you to stay in the room."

"You told me to stay put like a dog," Gemma said, and pressed the gauze down harder than she needed to.

His breath hissed.

She looked up.

He was very close, and his eyes were not cold.

She had not noticed when he had stopped being cold.

"You don't touch me," she said, and her voice went rough. "That was your rule."

"It was."

"You touched my face tonight."

"You leaned into it."

"You pinned me to a door."

"You went for my pocket."

"You said you'd have to want me first," Gemma said.

Raffaele's hand closed on the back of her neck and pulled her mouth up to his.

It was not gentle.

He kissed her angrily, and she kissed him back the same way, her nails in his bare chest.

He lifted her onto the hood of the car.

The metal was cold through the back of her thin dress, and his body was hot between her knees.

"You're a liar," he said against her throat.

"I'm not."

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