Tony lay with his hands locked behind his head and hard-stared the ceiling, the blankets shoved to the bottom of the bed and bunched around his feet. Moonlight streamed through a crack in his curtains, cutting a silver line across his bare chest. He could still hear the occasional peanut-head bug zinging from plant to plant, but the colorfully plumed royal flycatchers perched in the trees outside his window had finally shut the hell up. Not that he could’ve slept if the surroundings were quiet as the inside of a coffin.
Tomorrow he was leaving, and, in all fucking truth, it rankled that he was bailing on this particular op. Yeah, he was the guy who took off when the shit hit, but only when he thought he was doing everyone a favor, saving them for more potential screw-ups.
No more soldier in his unit to be blown up because Tony had been too textbook about his neutralization procedures.
No more female partner to endure humiliation because Tony had been more concerned about the mission than the person.
No more rival agent to risk Tony sneaking into her room, crushing his mouth over hers to muffle any potential protests, and plunge into her again because “in the line of duty” meant diddly-squat to his untrustworthy cock.
But here was the other thing about that rival agent: other than protecting Ronnie from his lust…would he really be doing her a favor by leaving?
This is my first big job for Baretta, and if I don’t succeed at it, they’re going to think they hired no one but a hand-wavey, turban-wearing kook.
Ronnie was a damned newbie.
She no doubt had capabilities. In fact, Tony could see why Baretta had chosen her for this important mission—her psychic talents were perfect for it. But, hell… This was her first major op. If Tony left the villa and something happened to her, how would he ever forgive himself?
The thought that he’d be leaving Ronnie here alone with Carmelo and the other wiseguys after he’d put out her open for fucking sign was also not helping his level of tension. Even now the image of Carmelo’s hairy chest crowding Ronnie into a corner was doing alarming things to his body temperature and blood pressure—upping them both dangerously with things like seething protectiveness and a very ugly stab of jealousy.
Shifting positions, Tony kicked at his sheets. Little wonder he wasn’t sleeping. He was as tightly wound as that one night in Iraq when he sneaked out by himself in the pitch dark to clear the next morning’s path of mines for his unit. He’d definitely needed his steel balls that night.
Just use those steel balls of yours and don’t fucking bail.
Tony stiffened.
Damascus rose…drifting past his door.
What the hell? Ronnie was pulling the heist tonight?
Well, if you leave tomorrow, then so will I.
Ah, hell. She was. Did she even—? Tony cut himself off and forced a couple of short, nostril-pinching breaths. Chill out. Tonight was actually a good night to do the mission. Cuntrera had a new goumada on the mainland, and he was with her now, making it an ideal time to sneak into the den.
Tony took another breath, a deeper one. Ronnie picking such a perfect night to do the job confirmed that, inexperienced though she might be, she had good instincts.
You’ve got this op covered. You don’t need me.
Right.
She did have the mission covered. She’d be fine.
An alarm shrieked.
No thought.
Just whip-fast movement that had Tony bolting out of bed and tearing from his room. Shifting into his highest gear, he sped down the hallway toward the racket. It was coming from Cuntrera’s den, three doors down from his bedroom. He skidded inside and instantly spotted Ronnie near the safe. Her eyes gleamed brightly in the moonlight, staring at him with terrified enormity.
“Get undressed,” he hissed.
A point in her favor: she didn’t ask questions or hesitate. She just lost her pajamas.
Charging at her, he shed his own clothes—sweatpants and undershorts—and had just hoisted her up and jacked her against the wall beside the safe—and good girl, she wrapped her legs around his bare ass—when the lights blazed on.
“Saint Jude!” Carmelo exclaimed.
“Shit!” Tony staggered back, dropping Ronnie to her feet.
She gasped and scrabbled for her clothing, clutching her pajama top to her naked breasts while Carmelo gaped at her.
A pockmarked Tommaso, Cuntrera’s head guard, peered over Carmelo’s shoulder and gawked with equal intensity.
Tony swept his sweatpants off the floor and hopped from one foot to the other as he hauled them on. Since he was an experienced operator and always came equipped to authentically portray an undercover role, he was sporting a full-on rager. Might have a little something to do with the brief but utterly fantastic whole-body contact with Ronnie’s soft, sweet-smelling, womanly nakedness he enjoyed just now. Damn, but she really did have the nicest tits ever.
Carmelo marched over to the safe, his focus fixed on Ronnie as he passed, and punched a code into the control panel. The alarm shut off.
Blessed silence. Except for Toni’s panting.
“What the fuck, Antonio?” Carmelo barked.
“Hell if I know.” Tony stuffed his undershorts into his pocket. “I was going hard against the wall with her, and then suddenly there was an ass-ton of noise.” He glanced at the safe. “All the jolting must’ve set off the alarm.”
“Why didn’t you take her to your room, you idiot?” Carmelo kept transferring his attention from his conversation with Tony over to Ronnie, who was flashing bare patches of skin as she hurried to dress.
“I was headed that way, but…” Tony shrugged then smirked. “Shit got too real, and I couldn’t wait.”
Tommaso inserted himself now. “Lucky for you the capo is with his mistress tonight.” He made a sound with his tongue against his teeth.
“Yeah, well…no need to tell the boss about this since you guys got to see tit.” Tony strode over to Ronnie and, taking her lightly by the arm, guided her across the room.
Tommaso didn’t move from the jamb. He scowled. “Stay out of the capo’s den, Antonio.”
“Sure. Now get the fuck out of my way.” He didn’t wait for Tommaso to comply but used an arm-bar to push him aside. “I’ve got some finishing up to do,” he drawled as he led Ronnie down the hall and into his bedroom.
* * *
Ronnie brushed trembling fingertips over her hair for no logical reason, then double-checked the straightness of her pajama top for even less reason. What did it matter if she was neat and orderly?
She felt her bottom lip flutter, and she shut her eyes. She supposed the small things mattered when a woman was a schizophrenic mess of emotions, everything from blood-icing fear to its complete opposite: abject lust. In a world where a woman was one misstep away from having little holes punched into her head with a screwdriver while her attackers sipped Nero d’Avola, her appearance seemed like the one thing she could control.
If she managed to keep her top from drooping off her right shoulder, maybe the rest of her wouldn’t fall apart too.
“What happened?” Antonio asked her in a rough undertone. He stood in a shaft of moonlight, his sweatpants sagging indecently low on his waist, revealing deep, masculine hipbones and the twin stretch of tendons there. His naked chest was an artful display of sleek, deeply tanned flesh over sculpted muscles. Amazing that a Sicilian was so free of hair, but he was beautifully smooth. She licked her lips. Exactly the way she liked it.
She let her focus drift down the front drawstrings of his sweats, where they dangled over the remnants of an erection that proved he was as effected by their brief bare contact as she was. Her pulse jumped in her throat. His half-clothed state was definitely not helping the lust part of her equation. Her womb already felt way too hot and full, and her skin like it was stretched too tight over her body.
“I thought you said you knew the combination to the safe,” he added.
“I—” Words stopped. She knew the answer; she just couldn’t get it out. As far as the fear part of her equation went, it was hitting her all over again, exactly how close she’d come to going from Verónica the physical therapist, harmless object of leers and lust, to an enemy of the Mafia. She breathed in a few rapid gasps, hauling air in through her nose then expelling it out her mouth. Antonio’s bedroom smelled a bit like the jacaranda tree outside his window.
He frowned at her. “Are you okay?”
She swallowed once. Twice. “So…uh, I guess…I know what it’s like to almost get caught now. Important for my overall training, right?” She tried out a cavalier laugh on him, but the sound came out a weak hehe.
Antonio’s expression hazed with concern. He stepped close and pulled her against his chest, his embrace warm and soothing. Nothing more.
Her return embrace should have likewise been comfort-only, but…being confronted bodily with all of the “real” Antonio—the man who’d ripped his soul apart over her—was unraveling the lust part of her equation even more, turning her into something all damsel-in-distress-y in his very knight-like arms.
The way he’d charged to her rescue in the den just now… She actually felt herself melting over it, her body softening into his, an intoxicated languor weighting her limbs. This man holding her was a true knight, one who wore genuine armor, not merely a sparkly tin can, when he rode in to slay a woman’s nightmares.
Angling closer to him, she trailed her fingers up his back, following the two rises of muscle running parallel to his spine.
His consoling, Good Samaritan intentions altered instantly into heightened male sexual awareness—she felt his energy amplify and his body heat rise.
She shoved her face against his throat and breathed him in. More marvelous. He smelled deliciously of soap, line-dried cotton, and something un-place-ably unique. His own masculinity. Yes, that’s how he smelled. Masculine. Male and solid. It made perfect sense he would.
She continued to explore his steamy hot skin and lean physique. She loved that he wasn’t overly done—not overly tall or overly large. But large enough. A perfect fit for her.
Desire was a slow burn. The more she touched him, the more tension swirled into the area between her thighs.
His desire wasn’t as subtle.
His shaft thickened back up to full erection against her belly, his hardness sending memories flooding into her mind—the substantial size of him inside her, the thrusting friction against all the soft tissues of her core, the skilled way he’d stimulated her clitoris… Lord, if he’d felt so good last night on the desk, during a coupling clouded by fear and anxiety, how good would he feel now, joined with her in free will?
The thought clutched her sheath in a spasm of pleasure and brought a hiccupping little gasp out of her. It would be a shame not to find out, wouldn’t it…?
Her mind tried to find its way to that delectable conclusion with rationalizations—I deprived myself of an orgasm last night, so I’m due. And justifications—Antonio wants this as much as I do. And with a lot of kidding herself—there isn’t a rule against having sex with a rival agent…for the pure enjoyment of it…in the middle of an important mission, is there? She couldn’t recall having read anything about it in the Baretta Investigations orientation packet, after all.
Probably because Baretta Investigations expected their agents to show a little common sense.
Probably she should.
Sighing, she set her hands on Antonio’s waist and pushed away from him. She kept her focus down for a long moment then looked up at him. The translucence of his eyes seemed extra-bright in the moonlight. Or was that the result of lust? She noticed for the first time what an endearing bed-head tangle his hair was.
The world spun, and she had to force herself to speak. “I’d better go.”