Chapter 18: His Room

His room was at the top of the house, and he locked the door behind us before I had finished looking at it.

"Newark's boss comes tomorrow, with a ring," I said. "Tell me what we do."

"Tomorrow he gets my answer," Gianluca said. "Tonight he gets nothing."

There was a narrow bed, a lamp with a green shade and a cigar box on the nightstand.

"Those are the cards," he said.

"I know what they are."

"Leave them," I said. "I want them to watch."

He laughed under his breath.

Then he stopped, because I had pulled my sweatshirt over my head and dropped it on the floor.

I stood in front of him in my bra and my jeans.

He looked at me for a long time.

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you're thinking. Out loud. I've spent three years guessing what people thought of me."

"I think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said, and his voice was rough.

"I think I've wanted you since a soup joke."

"And?"

"And if you don't come here, I'm going to cross this room and lose my mind."

"Then cross it."

He did.

He picked me up by the backs of my thighs, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

He carried me to the bed and put me down in the middle of it.

His jacket went one way and his shirt went the other.

His chest was broad and warm, and there was an old pale scar along his ribs that I touched with one finger.

"What's that?"

"A long story."

"Tell me after."

"Yes, ma'am."

He knelt over me and opened my jeans, and dragged them down my legs, and my underwear went with them.

Cool air touched me, and then his mouth did.

I had not expected that.

I grabbed a fistful of the blanket and said his name in a voice I didn't know I had.

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