Chapter 15 Lucia #3
The shower hisses behind us, steam thickening, and for a moment the world narrows again, not to gunfire, but to skin and breath and the fact that we are here.
He takes the bandage from my nerveless fingers and we step beneath the spray. We kiss as he washes me, touch as he dries me.
He murmurs hot, beautiful words in my ear as he walks back into the bedroom, reminding me that we’re alive. Together.
Then—
“Enough of that.”
Caterina’s voice cuts through the doorway like a blade.
I jerk back, mortified. Giovanni doesn’t even blink.
Caterina stands with her hands on her hips, eyes sharp.
“You will eat,” she declares. “Both of you. Get your strength back before you collapse or do something else equally foolish.”
Giovanni’s mouth twitches. “Caterina—”
“No,” she snaps. “You think blood and adrenaline replace food? Sit. I have cooked.”
She disappears like a general issuing orders. I stare after her, then glance at Giovanni.
“She scares me.”
“She scares everyone,” he says proudly.
We don bathrobes and walk out onto the moonlit terrace with a cosy and intimately laid dining table.
Candles, plates already laid and a spread so sumptuous it borders on absurd: roasted lamb with herbs, citrus-bright salad, warm bread slick with olive oil, a pasta dish fragrant with truffle, figs and cheese arranged like an offering, and a bottle of red wine breathing patiently beside two glasses.
Caterina has staged a feast like she is warding off death with food.
Giovanni pulls out one chair. “Sit.”
I hesitate, frown when I go to pull out another, and he shakes his head. “No, amuri. On my lap.”
Another blush attacks my cheeks. “What? Oh, absolutely not.”
His gaze flicks up. “Absolutely yes.”
“Giovanni—”
“Lucia.” The way he says my name makes my spine go straight. “I never got the chance to feed you tonight the way I intended. This way will do just as well. Come here.” He holds out his hand.
I sigh. And I end up exactly where he wants me, rankled and flustered, too aware of the solidity of him beneath me. A brazen reminder of everything we did in that warehouse.
He pours wine with one hand, steady as ever, as Caterina returns with more food, stands and watches for a moment, satisfied, then leaves us.
The silence that follows is thick.
Giovanni tears bread, dips it, brings it to my mouth.
I glare. “I have hands,” I gripe half-heartedly, aware of his gaze fixated on my face.
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because I want to,” he says simply. “And you will indulge me in this too, sì?”
Between his thick, muscled thighs beneath me, the sultry heat in his eyes, and the simple need to care for me that is completely disarming in a man as powerful and dynamic as the man I call my husband, yielding is as inevitable as breathing.
So I do.
He pushes the first morsel into my mouth. And I moan, because the flavours are almost obscene, rich and grounding, dragging me back into my body.
Giovanni watches me as though feeding me is its own kind of intimacy.
As is watching him take healthy mouthfuls of his own, his Adam’s apple bobbing as we gorge on the meal.
After a few bites, I swallow hard. “What happens next?”
He knows I’m not talking about the food and his jaw tightens. “We won’t talk about that tonight.”
“I want to know.”
He lifts a brow. “You want to discuss how I mean to deal with Salvatore Bellandi right now, over lamb?”
“I want to know how much time I have before La Fratellanza strike next. If I’m going to die,” I snap.
His hand stills and his voice goes low with fury. “Listen to me. Enough has been taken from us tonight. Know that what happened tonight will never happen again.”
My heart drops when I remember what we learned in the car on the way home. That not everyone on the Dragoni side made it out alive.
“One of your men—”
“I know,” he cuts in, eyes dark. “And that is exactly why I will not spend what remains of this night giving Bellandi more space in my head. We honour the fallen by taking the time to remember them, taking care of their families, then taking stock while we plot our next move. Sì?”
“Okay.”
I stare at him as he leans closer. “Trust me when I say, I mean to rewrite how this ends.”
My breath catches and I manage to summon a smile as he pulls the dessert towards us.
He feeds me another bite. His fingers brush my lip.
And this time the touch is deliberate and different. Loaded with sensual promise.
I swallow. “I know what you’re doing.”
“And? You object?”
“How can I? You’re… relentless.”
“And you,” he murmurs, “are finally here.”
My pulse stutters. I try for snark, for armour. “Are you saying it was a good thing I ran away?”
His gaze turns lethal in an instant. “Try it again,” he says softly. “Bella mugghieri. I dare you.”
Heat floods me and I don’t answer.
Because the truth is in the way my body settles into his, in the way his arms tighten around me as though he’s anchoring us both to the fact that we survived.
The wait has been worth it.
The hunger is only sharper.
And somewhere beyond these walls, the storm is still gathering.
But tonight—
Tonight we are alive.
And Giovanni Dragoni intends to make sure I feel every second of it.