He felt like some kind of magic had taken hold as they walked home over cobblestone streets, the old city keeping her secrets all around them. Boston was far away, his brothers part of another world. Even the specter of Elise seemed to be otherwise occupied for this one night.
Now there was just the two of them, Julia’s hand in his, the smell of the Arno layered under the city like a subtle perfume.
She sighed and leaned her head on his arm as they walked, her heels — another item left in the wardrobe by Ms. Fuller — clicking on the old stone streets.
“That was the best meal I’ve ever had,” she said, her voice sleepy.
“I agree.” He didn’t tell her that it wasn’t the food. It wasn’t the artichoke and tuna salad, perfectly seasoned, or the tender pistachio-crusted lamb. It wasn’t the aged filet with truffle sauce or the perfect wine pairings, each one more sensual on the tongue than the last. It wasn’t even the soufflé, although he agreed with Julia that it was magnificent.
It was her, shimmering like the finest jewel amid a city of jewels, the most precious of any artifact in a city overflowing with priceless treasures. Her face had been smoothed of its worry, as if the city had worked its magic on her too.
There had been no talk of Manifest, of the party to which they still had to gain entrance or the men who operated behind Manifest’s impenetrable facade. They’d talked instead about their childhood and adolescence, steering clear of the sad stuff as if by unspoken agreement.
Julia had told him about the time she’d cut her own bangs in fifth grade the day before picture day and about the time Elise’s date had dumped her the night before prom, prompting Julia to wear a tux and go as her date.
Ronan had told her about the time he’d challenged Nick to climb to the top of the tallest tree at the playground in Peter’s Park. Nick fell and broke his arm and their father had blamed Ronan until Nick tried again the same day he got his cast off, proving that, as Thomas Murphy said, “you can only play someone for a fool if they’re a fool in the first place.”
They’d held hands across the table, their fingers entwined on the fine linen cloth shining with candlelight, and he saw her as she might be if they found Elise and brought her home, if he could take care of things for her so she didn’t have to worry so much.
She would bristle if he said it aloud, would insist she was fine, that she had always been fine, that she was used to taking care of things and perfectly capable of doing so.
So he didn’t. He just watched her instead, vowing silently to give her everything she deserved.
They crossed one of the bridges stretching across the river, the old-fashioned street lamps casting golden light onto the stone. Julia pulled him to the edge and peered over at the dark waters below before letting her gaze travel to the city, ablaze in lights around the water.
She sighed. “It’s so beautiful here.”
The naked pleasure on her face made sense of everything. Everything he’d built at MIS, all the money, the property and other investments Nick had pressed on him over the years. The additional zeros that seemed to appear like magic on his financial statements.
Ronan didn’t care if he flew Economy class or if he stayed at the Holiday Inn or the Ritz. Up until now the luxuries afforded by MIS had been nothing but a side effect of the business, something else to think about on those occasions when Nick insisted on giving him a financial update or urged him to make a new investment.
But now he saw that there was a reason for all of it. That it could serve the highest purpose of giving Julia everything beautiful the world had to offer.
“I love you.” The words escaped his mouth, a violation of the unspoken rule that had crept into their relationship, the rule that said the words were only spoken in the dark, when they were naked and sweaty in each other’s arms.
She turned toward him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed her mouth to his. He only had a moment to realize she hadn’t said it back before her tongue slipped between his lips. Then he was swept away in the urgency of her exploration, the demand of his own.
The scent of her shampoo, vanilla and sandalwood, hit him with a rush of desire. He swept her mouth slowly and carefully with his tongue, wanting to savor the taste of her, the feel of her yielding to him in the only way she knew how.
When they pulled away, his cock was hard and straining for release.
Julia’s eyes shone as she looked up at him, her face flushed. “Take me home.”
For a split second he was confused. What did home mean? Boston? The apartment near the river in Florence?
Then he realized it wasn’t that complicated.
Wherever she was, that was home. Wherever they were together, that was home.
The thought terrified him. How had she crept into his heart? What if she didn’t feel the same way?
He took her hand and started across the bridge, his heart pounding in his chest, not wanting to think too hard about the answers.
12
The apartment was dark when they returned, the lights from the street barely leaking in through the leaves that sheltered the windows from the street below.
She’d realized on the bridge she was a little drunk, had realized it when Ronan told her he loved her, when the words had almost slipped from her own mouth.
It shouldn’t matter. She did love him. That was indisputable, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t told him countless times before.
But after the first time, on the beach after they’d come back from Dubai when the words had slipped like honey from her tongue, she’d taken to saying it in the dark, when she was naked, her limbs entangled with Ronan’s, the barrier she’d erected between them lowered.
It was foolish. It didn’t change anything. And yet she couldn’t help feeling that the darkness offered some form of protection against her own feelings, against the pain she would feel if they later realized their relationship had been a product of Elise’s disappearance, like two refugees who turned to each other for comfort in their time of need.
Ronan had said it to her on the bridge as if it were nothing at all.
As if it were everything.
The words had been on the tip of her own tongue. She’d had to kiss him to keep them inside, had demanded he take her home as the emotion welled inside her like a rising tide, to the safety of the bedroom and the sex that made it easier to hide her feelings behind the physical sensation that overtook her body and mind.
Ronan led her through the darkened apartment to the master bedroom. The room was dominated by a massive canopy bed layered in rich blue silks, cast in shadow in the dim light leaking in from the big windows. The other furniture — wardrobes and bureaus and a small settee and coffee table — were smudges at the periphery of the room.
He turned toward her when they reached the bed and cupped her face in his hand. His blue eyes appeared black as he looked down at her.
“This is where I know you’re mine.”
There was anguish in his voice, and he lowered his mouth to hers, sweeping away her fear in an urgent kiss that sparked a fire at her center.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself to the electricity flaring outward from her core, sparking along her skin until she was alight with desire for him.
His tongue parried with hers as he trailed a hand down her neck to her shoulder, unbuttoning the shawl that came with the dress, tossing it aside like it was nothing in the face of his need to touch her.
She sighed as he rested his palm at the base of her throat, his fingers spread over her chest above the low neckline of her dress. His hand was a brand against her fevered skin.
She reached for the buttons on his shirt, relieved to look away from the possession she saw burning in his eyes.
Her lips traveling over the muscled perfection of his chest as it was revealed, lingering over each nipple, bending to reach his tight, defined stomach, hard as a washboard.
She shoved the shirt off his shoulders and reac
hed for the button on his trousers.
He grabbed ahold of her hand. “Not yet.”
His voice was low and commanding. It was the voice of someone used to being in charge, a voice he only used with her in the bedroom
A voice that made her eager to obey.
He rested his hands on her hips and turned her around, pulling her back against him so hard and fast that she gasped as his erect cock nestled between her ass cheeks.
She leaned back, pressing against the rigid shaft, a vacuum of need opening up between her legs, need that could only be filled by him.
His hands slipped around her waist, moving up over her stomach to cup her breasts, still covered by the dress. She was desperate to remove the barrier between them, to feel his hands on her skin, her nipples between his fingers.
But there was no room for her to move. He had her pressed hard against him, making it clear that he was in charge as the flat of his palms traveled over her stomach, down the front of her thighs.
She moaned as he slid them between her legs, running them slowly up the inside of her thighs, bare under the dress. He made his way inch by inch toward the apex of her desire, her pussy wet and throbbing as his hands came closer, the sparks on her skin turning into a full-fledged wildfire.
He reached the cleft between her legs and slipped his fingers under the nude thong she’d chosen to wear with the dress. She quivered as he brushed her clit and ran his fingers through the petals of her sex.
“You’re so fucking wet, Julia.” His voice was a murmur in her ear, sending a shiver down her spine, more fuel for the inferno raging in her body.
He slipped his fingers inside her and made slow circles over her clit with his thumb until she was moving with him, her body already reaching for the orgasm it knew he would deliver.
Her dress was bunched up around her hips, her back against his chest as he brought her closer to release, her breath coming in short bursts as she climbed the peak of her orgasm.
She was almost there when he withdrew his hand.
She tried to turn to face him, but he held her in place as he reached for the back of the dress. Her frustration was tempered as he lowered the zipper and pushed the dress off her hips until it fell to the ground, one step closer to being naked in his arms.
The brush of her skin against his bare chest sent another arrow of longing to her pulsing core and she sighed as he lowered his lips to her bare shoulder, leaving a trail of kisses so featherlight she might have thought she imagined them if not for the heat left by his lips.
He cupped her bare breasts from behind as he kissed his way up her neck to her ear, rolling her erect nipples between his thumb and finger as he took her earlobe in his mouth and sucked.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder, her knees weak with need.
He nudged her legs apart with his knee and ripped the scrap of underwear off her body.
He knelt on the floor behind her and she felt his hands around her legs, his hot breath as he buried his face between her thighs.
The absence of his body next to hers made the sensation all the more erotic, nothing but the hot kiss of his mouth against her pussy as he pushed his tongue between her wet folds from behind, the rest of her body devoid of stimulation while inside she burned.
She moaned, her hands coming up to cup her breasts, stimulating her nipples with her fingers as he lapped from the well of her sex, his tongue brushing against her clit just often enough to keep her teetering on the edge of orgasm.
She widened her stance, wanting to give him more access, her release again within reach as his tongue covered every inch of her most sensitive flesh.
She was almost to the top when he withdrew his mouth yet again.
“Fuck you, Ronan,” she murmured, out of her mind with lust.
He stood and chuckled in her ear. When he spoke, she caught her own scent on his breath.
“That’s the idea.”
He nestled one knee between her thighs to keep her legs apart while he bent her over the bed.
She was open for him now, spread out and more ready for him than she’d ever been.
She heard the whisper of his zipper, the crinkle of a condom being opened. Then he was pushing against her opening, his swollen head balanced tantalizingly at her entrance.
She pushed back against him and he gave her ass a slap.
“Patience, lovely.”
She whimpered, a shot of exquisite pleasure shooting through every nerve in her body in the moment before he plunged into her with one long, hard thrust.
She cried out, pleasure mingling with the slightest hint of pain coaxing the orgasm to life inside her all over again.
He grabbed onto her hips and dragged out of her inch by inch, letting his tip balance at her entrance before plunging into her again.
“Jesus, Julia,” he groaned. “You feel so fucking good. You always feel so fucking good.”
She moved with him as he plunged into her again, her body pulling him closer on the downstroke, reluctantly letting him go as he pulled out.
He used his hands to spread her ass cheeks wide, then pushed into her again, impaling her so deeply she felt it in a long shiver up her back.
He moved faster and she knew his own orgasm was close, that he was losing his hold on the control he exerted over her until he couldn’t exert it over himself anymore. His thrusts grew more frenzied as he climbed with her, everything between them dissolving as their bodies melted into one, their pleasure and desire mingling as they let go together.
She didn’t recognize her own voice as she screamed into the room, her body shuddering with the force of her release.
He groaned as he came, forcing his way through her engorged channel, clamping down on his shaft as her orgasm rocked her body.
She rode the wave as long as she could, giving herself over to the pleasure rocking her body. She didn’t want it to end, this moment when they were one without thought, when the ghost of their future was finally obliterated by the power of their desire.
13
Ronan stared down at the boxes on the table in the apartment’s living room. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “No. No way.”
“You’re going to have to hear us out,” Nick said.
Ronan looked at the people in the room, wondering which of these bastards had conspired to put him on the spot with Julia. Nick? Declan? Clay? Monica, the woman who’d arrived with Clay the day before?
His eyes slid to Julia, leaning against the wall by the window. Did she know? Had she somehow convinced Nick and the others to advocate for her?
No. She looked as surprised as he felt.
He returned his attention to the table, picking up the man’s Cartier watch. It was heavier than it looked, the links thick and balanced in his hand, the matte gold dial understated with only the slightest shimmer.
“There’s a chip in the band,” Clay explained. “It has all the data that will be required for you to get into the party.”
Ronan turned it over, looking for evidence of the chip. He couldn’t see a thing.
He looked at Clay. “This is how it’s done?”
This was easier than talking about the other watch, the elaborate women’s Van Cleef & Arpels watch with the midnight blue dial that still sat on the table.
The watch clearly meant for Julia.
“This is how it’s done,” Clay confirmed. “It doesn’t have to be a watch, but apparently it’s something of a game for the members of Manifest: seeing how subtly they can hide the chip.”
“And the chip is the invitation?”
Clay nodded. “It’ll be scanned by security on the way in. Yours is coded with Milos Černík's data.”
Ronan lifted his eyebrows. “The arms dealer?”
“The same.”
“His travel lines up with Manifest’s parties in Florence over the past year,” Nick explained. “We assume this means he’s a member.”
“Big assumption,” Ronan
said.
Nick shrugged. “Not much of a choice.”
“What if you’re right and Milos shows up to the party?” Ronan asked.
“He’s been detained by the Ukrainian government,” Declan said. “You can thank Kane for that bit of information.”
“Anyone know?” The last thing Ronan needed was to show up using the ID of a guy everyone knew had been pinched.
“They’re keeping it on the DL,” Dec said. “Hoping to turn him.”
“So they scan the watch, Černík’s data shows up, and they let me in.”
“If all goes well,” Nick said.
Ronan didn’t bother complaining about the uncertainty. Uncertainty was part and parcel of their business. Nothing was ever certain when you planned to kill a man. You had to roll with the punches.
He set down the Cartier timepiece and picked up the women’s watch. It was lovely, with a diamond bezel and white gold band. Tiny diamond chips were sprinkled across the inky blue face, meant to look like stars in a night sky, semiprecious stones set to mimic planets.
“I didn’t agree to this.” He avoided Julia’s eyes, surprised that she’d been quiet so far.
“You need someone else in there with you,” Nick said, “and we couldn’t find another male identity for me or Dec to appropriate. Julia’s chip is coded with the identity of a Czech heiress who’s attended the parties with Černík in the past. Rumor has it she has interesting… appetites of her own.”
Ronan turned over the watch and looked at the band. The chip was as invisible on the women’s watch as it had been on the Cartier watch meant for him.
He set it down and closed the lid on its box, liking the finality of the sound. “I’ll go alone.”
“That would be stupid,” Declan said.
Ronan was surprised to see his brother’s blue eyes flash with anger. Declan rarely got angry about anything. What was there to be angry about when life was one big party and you were always the guest of honor?
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