Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
STEVIE
Morning limps in, pale and apologetic, like it knows it’s trespassing.
I wake up tangled in too many limbs, one of which is definitely not mine, and for a wild, beautiful second, I think I’ve hallucinated him.
Nope. Dario. Right here. Still solid, still breathing, still wrecking the oxygen curve on my shitty couch.
I stare at him for a while, just to make sure he doesn’t flicker out of existence. Watch the way the light softens his face, how his lashes are so obscenely long it’s honestly offensive. I want to touch them.
Maybe count them. Maybe bite him just to see if he’ll squeak.
He wakes up. Blinks at me, all rumpled, and way too sexy.
“You’re still here,” I whisper.
He gives me a look that’s equal parts mafia boss and golden retriever. “Told you I’d stay.”
“People say a lot of shit,” I say, stretching until my back cracks. “Doesn’t mean they stick around.”
He watches me like he’s memorizing my face. “I mean it with you.”
What do you even do with a man like this?
“We making pancakes, or are you trying to seduce me with toast? Because my defenses are low and my blood sugar is even lower.”
He shakes his head. “I have plans.”
I arch a brow. “That’s ominous.”
“Put something on you can walk in,” he says, and kisses my forehead. “I need two hours.”
I squint at him. “Two hours for what? You plotting my murder? Because I’m pretty sure that ship’s sailed.”
He smiles, infuriatingly smug. “Let me spoil you. No more questions.”
I open my mouth to protest, on principle, obviously, but he shuts me up with a kiss. It’s effective. Bastard.
“Fine,” I say when he finally lets me breathe. “Only letting you get away with this because you look cute when you’re bossy,” I add, poking his chest just to watch him pretend he hates it.
I roll off the couch, heart doing weird things.
Two hours is a fucking eternity.
You’d think it’d be easy to kill time when you’ve survived witness protection, and that one week my period synced with a full moon. But no. Two hours with Dario on a mystery mission is enough to fray every nerve I have.
He’s pacing, making calls, sounding like he’s arranging a hit or a heist, and I’m left to my own devices, which means I do a lot of dramatic sighing and stare at my closet like it holds the secrets to surviving whatever he’s planning.
Eventually, I pull on jeans that make my ass look criminal, a sweater that used to be soft before the dryer got involved, and my hiking boots.
The ones still caked with Colorado dust and at least one regrettable encounter with goose shit.
No makeup, hair back in a ponytail, just me, raw and untamed and vibrating with anticipation.
I step out, find him all buttoned-up, sharp, too composed. He looks at me like he’s about to say something profound, so naturally I derail it.
“Well? Do I pass inspection, or am I about to get lectured on proper outdoor attire?”
He grins, too smooth for this world. “You look perfect.”
“Perfect for what? Sacrifice? Kidnapping? A breakfast that’s going to end with me arrested for public indecency?”
He laughs. Bastard. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be. Did you even sleep? Because you look like a man running on espresso and cookie crumbs.”
He leans in. “Had motivation.”
I arch an eyebrow, refusing to swoon, but, fuck, it’s hard. “Coffee motivation? Or are you about to say something sappy and ruin the last of my self-control?”
He goes for it, no hesitation. “I had you motivation.”
And goddammit, my whole body goes warm. If he keeps this up, I’m going to ovulate before we ever leave town.
We end up at this bakery two towns over, quaint, rustic, aggressively charming. The croissants are good, but not as good as mine. I have to remind myself not to gloat, but honestly? Mine are better and we both know it. The coffee’s strong enough to wake the dead.
Sunlight catches in his hair and for a second, I feel almost normal. Like a woman who isn’t always looking over her shoulder or two seconds from mounting mobsters.
We sit, and I start babbling about The Blue Door, new recipes, expansion ideas, maybe hiring help so I can stop living like a sleep-deprived goblin.
He listens like every syllable matters. I ramble about pastry cream and laminated dough and all the nerdy shit that makes my heart race.
At some point, I realize he’s just… staring.
I pause, cock my head. “You know it’s considered rude to eye-fuck someone in public, right?”
He doesn’t even flinch. “You’ve been eye-fucking me since my restaurant.”
I snort. “I was making observations. Staring’s rude. Observing’s professional.”
He leans across the table, takes my hand, like he’s about to propose or kidnap me. I’d submit to either. “I’m not observing, I’m memorizing.”
For half a second, I forget how to breathe.
If this man keeps looking at me like I’m edible, I’m going to drag him behind the bakery and commit a felony with a bag of flour.
The drive up the mountain is forty minutes of me pretending I’m not vibrating out of my skin, watching Dario like he’s about to drop some top-secret mob-boss survival tip and I’m going to miss it if I blink.
He says he picked this trail for privacy, for the view, for the chance to have me all to himself with no witnesses, and yeah, mission fucking accomplished.
Turns out, I’m absolutely not built for hiking. I’m bouncing through trees, rambling about every rock and bird and weird mossy thing I spot, and he just… watches.
The kind of watching that should be illegal. The kind of watching that makes me consider accidentally tripping and seeing if he’ll catch me bridal-style or just let me eat shit for the comedic value.
At one point I do trip, on a root, because of course I do, and end up clutching his arm, laughing like a maniac.
He’s annoyingly steady. I’m a goddamn chaos muppet with hiking boots.
His hand steadies my hip and suddenly I’m very aware of how close we are. How his fingers press just above my jeans. How easy it would be to just…
“Careful,” he says, and I’m not being careful. Not even a little.
We hit the overlook and I go silent, just… punched in the chest by how stupidly beautiful it all is. Mountains like something out of a fantasy novel. Sky so clear it makes me want to run until I fall off the edge of the world.
“Oh,” I whisper, because my brain malfunctions at peak emotional moments.
He just says, “Yes,” but I know he’s not looking at the view, he’s looking at me. Freak.
I catch him at it, smirk. “You’re not even seeing the damn mountains, are you?”
He shrugs, all smug. “I’m seeing the important part.”
“Gross,” I say, but my heart’s doing gymnastics. I shove him, light, but he grabs my hand and yanks me close, my back to his chest, his arms around me, and the whole world goes soft and warm. I let myself sink against him.
For a minute, nothing exists but this, my breath, his heartbeat, mountains, wind, maybe God watching and taking notes.
“Dario?” My voice is small.
“Mm?”
“Is this really happening?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Looks like it.”
“It doesn’t feel real. Yesterday I was elbows-deep in scone dough for Martha, and now I’m on top of a mountain with you, and tomorrow.” I choke a little, because tomorrow is a black hole. “I don’t even know what tomorrow looks like.”
He squeezes me tighter. “Does it matter?”
I twist in his arms and stare up at him, searching for whatever the hell makes him so steady. “What do you mean, does it matter?”
He brushes his thumb across my cheek, way too gentle for a man with a body count. “I spent my whole life planning. Making the future sit up and beg. Didn’t work. The stuff that matters…” His eyes are on me, raw. “It never listens to plans.”
I swallow hard. “So what do you do instead?”
He smiles, the real one, the one that feels like getting chosen. “You show up. You stay. You build something real and pray the people you want to build it with don’t bail.”
I’m wet-eyed now. “That’s some pretty high-level therapy for a guy who committed cutlery homicide during our meet cute.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve been working on my emotional intelligence.”
I laugh, because otherwise I’ll cry, and then I’m on tiptoes, kissing him hard, greedy, with the whole damn mountain for an audience and not a single fuck to give.
He holds me tight, won’t let me go even when I pull back.
“I have more plans,” he says against my mouth.
“More plans? You realize I have a deeply traumatizing relationship with surprises.”
“Lunch. An activity. Dinner.”
I poke his chest. “Define activity. Is this code for sex in the woods, or am I about to learn basket weaving?”
Please say sex in the woods.
He just gives me the Dario Look. “It’s the kind where you stop asking questions.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep asking questions.”
I snort, shake my head, grab his hand. “Fine. Mystery activity. But if this ends with us naked and pinecones in our asses, I’m blaming you.”
He laughs, and I let him lead me. I’m not scared. Not really. Not anymore.
We get back to the trailhead and I stop dead, because the ground has been taken hostage by a literal picnic spread.
Blanket, basket, wine, fancy cheese, fruit, sandwiches, warm bread, are you kidding me?
I stare at it, half expecting a film crew to pop out of the bushes and ask if I believe in love at first sight or just have a carb kink.
I round on Dario, hands on hips. “When did you? How?”
He gives me that smug little mobster shrug. “Told you I had arrangements.”
“Dario, this is…” I can’t even finish. “This is too much. I feel like I should start a gratitude journal.”
He shakes his head, perfectly calm. “It’s not too much.”
“You keep saying that. Every time you do something big, I try to self-destruct and you just… don’t let me.”
He leans in, deadly soft. “Because you keep underestimating what you deserve.”
That shuts me up. Completely. My brain does the thing where it short-circuits between wanting to weep and wanting to reconfigure my internal organs into a welcome mat.