Chapter 5
Caro shook herself awake, heart pounding in terror, and stared around, disoriented. Like she did every morning.
Just a dream. It was her usual nightmare: violence, explosions, breaking glass, shrieks, blood sprayed across white plaster dust. Fallen bodies with empty eye sockets, streaming tears of blood. No nightmare was complete witho ut that detail.
And that in her dream, she was always stuck in place, unable to run.
At least it was a dream, not a waking vision. Those bloody, empty-eye stress flashbacks were exhausting, like horror movie jump scares. Since the wedding, they’d tapered off. She hadn’t had one in weeks. That was a victory.
She stretched out and let her breathing ease as she gazed out the window. Willing her heart to slow down. Through the window she could see red roof tiles, window boxes full of flowers, and a chunk of brilliantly blue sky. She rested her eyes on that spot of blue, letting the ug ly images fade.
That was past. This was now. She still struggled to convince herself it was real. That Noah was real.
It really was improbable. That she should be lolling in bed after hours of amazing sex with a gorgeous man with whom she was absolutely crazy in love. In Rome, for God’s sake.
Her overwhelmed mind would not accept this as reality. It felt like a wishful hallucination. It would pass, and when it did, she would be well an d truly fucked.
The terror and deprivation of last year had stained her mind. Months of relentless fear while she ran desperately from Mark Olund. The horrific things she’d seen and endured might never fade, particularly with her anomalous visual quirks. Her ability to visualize so vividly sometimes caused her memories to take on real physical form right before her eyes. It freaked people out if she didn’t keep her reaction tightly under wraps. Which was tricky, when the really ugly memories took h er by surprise.
She shouldn’t be telling Noah that he just needed to relax and accept his good fortune. She struggled with the past just as hard as he did.
Whatever. She tried, he tried. They just had to keep fighting, taking it minute by minute. Trying to believe in their own good luck.
Lucky her, to fight her battle alongside someone as amazing as Noah Gallagher. While geeking out on art and wallowing in over-the-top luxury and, well… him.
Sex was actually the least of it. Even putting aside how he’d been modified into a supersoldier and the strange, science-fictiony stuff in his past, Noah himself was like no other man she’d ever met. His focus, his mental powers, his natural-as-bre athing heroism.
Somehow, this supernaturally hot, strong, tough, amazing guy had decided that she was everything he ever wanted. The answer to all his deepest needs.
And now he was her honest to God husband . Flipping wow .
Caro rolled over, looking around for Noah. The bed was rumpled from their erotic antics last night, but Noah never actually slept in it. He relied on sentinel sleep. He rested one brain hemisphere at a time while the other remained sharp and ultra-vigilant.
He often lay in bed for hours watching her sleep. He got on her wavelength and rode it with her, somehow letting her sleep for him. Said it relaxed him. Hmmm. He had a ways to go in that regard.
The shower in the adjoining bathroom was hissing. She got up with the intention of joining him, then saw his lapto p on the table.
She slid out of bed and took a look. He’d programmed it to open to her fingerprint, so one touch and a photo filled the screen. Young guy. Dark, handsome.
The name on the document was Stefano Morelli. She scrolled through a few pages. It was all in Italian. No barrier to Noah with his language mods, but she could only make out a few words of it here and there.
Caro straightened at a discreet knock on the door and threw on her silk robe, belting it quickly as she went out into the other room. “Who is it?” she asked.
“ Buon giorno, signora. Breakfast,” a man’s voice called th rough the door.
She had her hand on the knob when the bedroom door was slapped violently open ag ainst the wall.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Noah’s voice rang out h arshly. “Stop!”
Caro froze, and then looked over her s houlder at him.
Noah stood there, stark naked, dripping on the floor, towel in hand. Huge, magnificent, ripped. No lenses covered the luminous amber glow of hi s furious eyes.
He was a terrifying sight. A hot rush of instant lust assailed her. Her body was selling her out. Not fair.
“It’s just room service,” she offered, trying to make her voice soothing. “You ordered breakfast, right? It’s arrived. Ever ything’s fine.”
He wrapped the towel around his waist as he approached, leaving puddles of water on the floor behind him. “Caro, don’t open a door unless we know for sure who’s knocking. It could be anyone, fo r fuck’s sake!”
“It’s always the same guy,” she pointed out. “I know his voice af ter two weeks.”
Noah leaned up against the door. “ Chi é ? ” he demanded.
“ Ah … la colazione, signor. ” The guy sound ed intimidated.
Noah stared the door, as if he could see through it. In a certain sense, he could. He could analyze a person’s thermal heat signature even behind a solid barrier.
Apparently satisfied, he pulled the door open and gestured curtly for the uniformed waiter to push the draped trolley into the room.
The waiter’s gaze slid swiftly away from Noah, who cut an intimidating figure dressed or undressed. His huge chest, his cut muscles and brutal scarring, and drill-you-down-to-the-bone stare were not for the faint-hearted. Her husband was flat-out terrifying with that look on his face. Radiating anger and menace and barely suppr essed violence.
The waiter backed toward the door, reluctant also to be caught looking at Caro in her slinky robe. “Mi scusi, signori, mi scus i,” he mumbled.
“Thank you,” Caro called, as the door closed. “ Grazie mille. ”
When the door fell shut, she turned to Noah. “That poor guy. Was the soul-piercing Look of Death rea lly necessary?”
“He’ll live,” Noah said flatly. “I’m just being careful. You need to do the same. Get it thro ugh your head.”
Caro chose her words carefully. “Noah,” she said. “This place has top-of-the-line security. That’s why you chose it. We can let room service in with the breakfast cart. We have no reason to think anyone is after us. Why would they be?”
“We can’t know that,” Noah said. “We never will know in advance. A knock on the door from room service could be the last thing that you o r I ever hear.”
She pushed past him into the bedroom. “Eat,” she snapped. “You clearly need it. I’m going to take a shower.”
“You’re mad at me?” He sounded aggrieved. “For protecting y ou? Seriously?”
“Later. I need a moment.” She stalked into the bathroom without looking at him.
Which felt awful. She howled her frustration silently into her hands under the pounding stream of hot water when she stepped into the sh ower enclosure.
Everything about Noah was outsized, super-charged, over the top. There was no space for just a plate of scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee. Even something as simple as breakfast had to be this big fucking deal, frau ght with peril.
But her frustration made her feel guilty. He couldn’t be blamed, not after Midlands and what happened to all of them a couple months ago. The danger from Obsidian was real, and Noah was absolutely justified in his h yper-vigilance.
But oh, how she just wished he could take an occasional break fro m that mindset.
She dropped the soap, and banged her head picking it up, which didn’t help her mood. Awwww. Poor little her. Such hardship. Bring o ut the violins.
She worried about him. Noah’s stress level just kept steadily intensifying, and she had no idea what his upper limit was. Or what would happen when he reached it.
Caro toweled herself off and used the hair dryer on her dark, curly mane for as long as she could stand it. She shook the damp waves out over her shoulders to finish drying on their own, shrugging on one of the thick terrycloth robes that the hotel provided.
Noah had made inroads on the food while she’d been in the shower. The amount he ate never ceased to amaze her. And he was a slab of solid muscle. Not a pinch of fat to be fo und on the guy.
He needed a lot of fuel to keep that massive engine purring along. And what an engine it was. He still had only the towel around his hips. His massive chest was bare.
His gaze flicked up as she approached, dragging over her body. “I liked the other robe be tter,” he said.
“I’m still kind of wet.” She sat down and watched him polish off a slice of chewy bread piled with prosciutto and pecorino cheese. The plate before him was heaped with eggshells, fruit rinds, pastry crumbs. He’d been busy.
“Yeah?” Noah licked his fingers. “I like you wet. Correction. I want you wet.”
His smoldering gaze made her skin tingle with awareness. “Oh, shut up. Are you f eeling better?”
“The answer is yes.”
The sensual awareness sharpened into a sweet hot ache of hunger low in her body. She knew that Noah could see it. Every detail, painted in the col ors around her.
Whatever. All she could do was behave with what dig nity she could.
“Looks like you sampled everything.” She selected a crimson strawb erry to nibble.
“Got to keep my strength up.” Noah snagged another slice of prosciutto and tucked it into his mouth, smiling at he r as he chewed.
“You animal,” she murmured, slowly eating anot her strawberry.
Noah was watching with intense fascination as she put the fruit to her lips, so she made a big, showy thing of it, for his benefit. Licking her lips. Biting into it, slowly, sensually. Closing her eyes with a low moan of pleasure at the burst of ripe sweetness.
When she opened her eyes, the look in his would have made her knees give out if she hadn’t already been sitting down. He exuded pure sex, but he was still p laying it cool.
“There are croissants,” he informed her, lifting the lid of a server. “Filled with that creamy goop you like. Ca n I tempt you?”
She laughe d. “Hell, yes.”
“That’s my girl.” Noah put a flaky croissant dripping with crème Chantilly on a plate and placed it in front of her. He poured her coffee, dosing it with hot foamed milk and a half spoonful of sugar. Exactly how she liked it. Down to the smallest detail. He saw everything. Analyzed everything. Recor ded everything.
It was nerve-wracking sometimes. To be watched so closely. S een so clearly.
Noah’s expression didn’t change, but she felt the energy in the air shift as he turned away, picked up an Italian newspaper and started to read. Deliberately withdrawing, just to give her some visual privacy.
Which made it possible to breathe a little, and do something prosaic, like devouring her pastry and licking the cream off her sticky fingers.
After that, maybe she’d just start licking him. Mmmm, delicious. They could have their big fat serious discussion of their various issues s ome other time.
Or not, if No ah had his way.
Caro took a huge bite, getting crumbs all over the table and not caring. She opened her tablet to an online newspaper, going straight to th e Arts section.
And there it was, front and center, like a bad joke. A long article about the Cross of Orazio. Full of tantalizing high-res col or photographs.
“What is it?” Noah’s v oice was sharp.
She looked up, jarred by his tone. “Hmm? Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Your sig changed fast, and not in a good way. What did you see? What’s in the newspaper?”
Caro just looked at him. “Noah, that’s not fair. Didn’t we just talk about using your AVP on me last night?”
“Yeah, fine. Sorry, not sorry,” he said impatiently. “I can’t be a good boy right now. I’m on edge, and now I’m curious. So just tell me what you saw.”
She let out a measured sigh. “It’s a big article in the Times Arts Section,” she said reluctantly. “About Orazio’s cros s. That’s all.”
Noah’s gaze narrowed. “I see. So? What about it?”
“It’s not an issue for us,” she said. “I’ve let go of the idea. There are plenty of beautiful things to see in Rome and elsewhere that don’t involve TV cameras and social streaming feeds and Instagram insanity, OK? I’ll get to see the cross some other time. So never mind. The picture in the article just took me by surpris e, that’s all.”
Noah grabbed one of the cream-stuffed croissants and took a bite, studying her thoughtfully. “What does the Times say ab out the cross?”
She was surprised that Noah hadn’t seized the opportunity to change the subject. “I haven’t actually read it yet,” she said, scanning the article. “Seems to be mostly about Count Orazio di Coronna himself. He was an Italian nobleman in the fifteen hundreds.” She glanced down and scanned the text swiftly. “There’s a brief history of the di Coronna family here, and then they get to Orazio, who made his cross between 1515 and 1532, though no one quite knows when he started it. Then they talk about the present day excavation efforts. With a few touches of drama that may or ma y not be true.”
“So, how did they find it? A hardworking ditch-digger was about to quit for the day when he suddenly heard a cli nk, and then…?”
“Not exactly. The dig was funded by an Italian hedge fund director named Gianfranco Folti, who’s also hosting the economic conference. The Palazzo Bellocchio has been in his family for centuries.”
“And how’d they lose this cross in th e first place?”
“They didn’t. There was an earthquake and landslide in 1534 that buried Orazio’s castle and the entire village along with it. A whole mountain collapsed on it, according to written records of the disaster in a monastery not far away. Hundreds of souls lost, including Count Orazio himself and most of his family.”
“Ah.”
“It was only because of the monks that anyone outside the family knew the cross existed,” she went on. “One of them described it as ‘a marvel of divine beauty, shining like the sun itself.’” She shot him a careful glance. “A marvel of divine beauty that’ll wait,” she added. “So don’t get all wound up a bout it again.”
Noah sipped his coffee, still not meeting her eyes. “So what is it about this cross that makes it so special? I mean to you.”
Fair enough question. She considered it for a long time befor e she answered.
“I think it’s because Orazio was kind of like me,” she said. “He had powerful visions, for one thing. And he could n’t hide them.”
“Vi sions of what?”
“That I don’t know, but they scared people. And somehow challenged church teaching. And embarrassed the priests. They wouldn’t let him into church, even to pray alone. They declared him possessed. In our time, he would’ve been in the psych ward, all drugged up. Like I was, back in the day. Shuffling around in a terry-cloth robe. Except that they wouldn’t give you the sash.” Caro looked down at what she was wearing. “Excuse me while I go change into something that san e people wear.”
She got up and went back in the bedroom, collecting both herself and her silk robe. She kicked the hotel robe into a corner.
Noah nodded in approval when she came back. “Bi g improvement.”
She smiled at him. “I know. So where were we?”
“You were talking about how you identifie d with Orazio.”
She shrugged, a little uncomfortably. “Yes, I suppose I did. He seemed like a kindred spirit to me. I obsessed over him while I was researching my thesis. But you do remember that this is a non-issue, right? You convinced me beyond all doubt that going to see the cross w as a bad idea.”
His gaze was unblinking. “So how did Orazio deal with being rejected by the Church?”
Caro fidgeted in the upholstered chair. “By making art,” she said. “I identified with that, too. He carved scenes from the life of Jesus on his cross. Seventy of them, in meticulous detail. It took him at least sixteen years to finish it, and he used a fortune in gold and jewels. The plan was to present it to the Church when it was done, but he never got the chance. He bankrupted his wealthy family. One account says that his own sist er cursed him.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. A curse. Like all this wasn’t bad e nough already.”
Caro went on, as more and more details floated up out of her memory. “As the story goes, Orazio blew the entire family fortune on the cross and left nothing for his sister Maria Cristina’s dowry. Her suitors abandoned her, so she cursed him and his cross. Lo and behold, an earthquake struck and the whole family was buried including M aria Cristina.”
“No survivors? Who told the tale?”
“A monk, of course. The event and what led up to it were duly recorded and even illustrated. A curse like that is a mortal sin. And the wag es of sin are—”
“Got it. Doom, destruction, death ,” he finished.
“Yes,” she agreed. “To all who touch the cros s, supposedly.”
“Quite a story,” Noah commented. “Do you believe in the curse?”
“I just want to look at it, Noah.” Caro needed a change of subject. Her eyes fell on the newspaper in his hand. “You’re reading La Repubblica ?” she asked. “In Italian? Lucky you. How many languages did they load into your dat abase, anyhow?”
“Just the top twenty most co mmonly spoken.”
“Just?” She shook her head.
Noah shrugged. “They could have packed in hundreds more, but enou gh about that.”
She fell silent, knowing what she did about what he’d gone throu gh at Midlands.
“Do you want to learn Ital ian?” he asked.
His question wasn’t exactly out of the blue but it still surprised her. “Sure,” she said. “Not that it’s easy, right? Although it sounds easy, just listening. It’s such a beaut iful language.”
“So we’ll stay in Rome longer,” he said. “Rent a swanky apartment. Get you started in the immersive method, maybe hire a tutor.”
“But you—”
“A female tutor,” he clarified sternly. “You’ll pick up the basics in about three thousand years. According to actual Italians, who think that their language is the most complicated in the world.”
Caro laughed. “ Is that right?”
“Totally true.”
“It sounds like fun,” she said. “But what ab out your work?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “I can run Angel Industries from here. They don’t need my physical body. I can be available for them any time of day or night. I’ll work from here, and you just study Italian and look at art until it come out of your ears. I’ll help, if you want. I’m a walking dictionary. And if I have connectivity, I’m an ency clopedia, too.”
She was surprised all over again. And moved. “You’d d o that for me?”
“Hell yeah. Gotta put in some effort to blow away m y competition.”
“Huh?” She was baffled. “Wha t competition?”
“Orazio,” No ah said darkly.
“What?”
“You heard me. The guy sounds like a self-absorbed dickhead to me. Besides, I don’t want you to be anybody’s kindred spirit but mine. S o fuck Orazio.”
A startled laugh burst out of her. “He’s been dead for five hundre d years, Noah!”
Noah gave her a crooked smile. “Lucky for him,” he said. “If he wasn’t, I’d make hi m wish he was.”
“That’s ridiculous, ” she told him.
“Sure it is, but what can you do. I’m hardwired to defend my turf. It’s a reflex. Mine-mine-mine-mine. That’s the refrain that pla ys in my head.”
She giggled at his nonsense, but the fierce intensity in his eyes was very real.
“What is it?” she asked him. “What are you thinking ab out right now?”
He hesitated for a moment before he replied. “I’m not sure how to say this,” he said. “But you would never scare me. You’d never freak me out with your visions. I wish I could see them myself. If you really want to know.”
“You can’t. Mine-mine-mine,” she teased. But s he was touched.
“I’m in awe of your beautiful secret superpower,” Noah went on. “Fascinated by it. Don’t ever try to hi de it from me.”
She swallowed over a sudden lump in her throat.
Noah always seemed to know what she needed to hear before she even knew she was hungering for it. She’d been craving those words since she was a teenager. To be wanted, loved, desired, not in spite of who and what she truly was—but because of it.
The fog in her eyes almost overflowed into tears. She b rushed it away.
“I’m really confused,” she said. “I didn’t get the feeling you were having a good enough time here to want to stay in Italy. I was actually thinking that maybe we should call it quits and head home.”
“I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet,” he said. “I know I’m fucking things up between us by being so tense. I don’t wan t that for us.”
“You’re not,” she assured him. “Please don’t t hink that way.”
“It’s just a feeling that I can’t shake,” he said. “That something is dogging us. Maybe I’m imagining it, but that’s worse, you know? If it’s outside my head, I can chase it down and beat it to death. But inside…” He shook his head.
“Nothing is fucked up,” she said. “It’s wonderful here. You’re wonderful. I just want you to be able to enjoy it more. I want you to…to suffer les s. That’s all.”
“I try.” His voice was star k. “Every day.”
She put her hand over his. “That’s mor e than enough.”
His fingers tightened over hers, and her perceptions seamlessly shifted with the contact. The air between them charged with e nergy, emotion.
She was so conscious of the power of his big, scarred body. The blast force of his intense personality. Together, it was almost too much to take. But paradoxically, she loved it. It lit her up like a bonfire.
Noah slid off his chair. Tossed his towel away and sank down on his knees in front of her. He put both of his big, warm hand s on her knees.
The slippery silk of her robe opened more at the touch of his hand, sliding wide open to either side of her naked body. Leaving just the silken tie loosely knotted over her belly, the long ends dangling down between her legs. It wasn’t the first time he’d played with the ties of her extensive collection of silk, satin, and lace boudoir robes. Noah’s erotic imagination knew no bounds. He loved to push her to places she’d never been, or even dreamed that she mi ght want to go.
But she’d go anywhere with Noah. With him, all roads led to explosiv e erotic bliss.
He looked her over, that urgent heat in his eyes. His cock jutted out, thick and stiff and reddened. He stroked his hands down the tops of her thighs. Shivers rippled deliciously down her legs wi th each caress.
His relentless patience was so seductive. He just petted her, kissed and stroked and smoldered at her until that hot ache of anticipation down low in her body made her squirming and damp and desperate. Wild f or more of him.
She scooted forward a little before she knew what she was doing. Thighs widening of their own accord. Showing him everything.
He stroked the two silk ties down over her labia, then pulled them tight. Just a little pressure on her sensitive folds. Rubbing delicately against her clit. Her breath shuddere d in her chest.
He put a fingertip between the silk ties, and stroked her pussy lips, very lightly. Up and down…and up and down. Barely touching her damp slit.
She spread her legs wider, her breath catching. “Noah,” she whispered.
Noah increased the pressure of the strips of silk. “ You like that?”
“You’re dr iving me nuts.”
“Absolutely.” He traced his fingertip along her slick folds. Up…down. Then sliding delicately inside. A shudder rippled through her body, and Noah stopped. He drew his finger out and licked it. “Oh yeah,” he muttered. “I need to taste you.”
She dragged in a shaky breat h. “Go for it.”
He arranged the silk ties so that the folds of her labia poked through them, shiny and glistening with her intense arousal. She clenched around his slowly thrusting, caressing fingers, breathing hard.
“You’re so hot.” His rumbling voice vibrated through her, making her whimper and squirm. “Like a sexy flow er. Beautiful.”
“It’s yours,” she s aid. “Take it.”