by Sunniva Dee
She huffs a laugh. “Oh my god, this is so classic. Seriously? The last thing I need is for some stranger to know where I live.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You do live with some sisterhood, right?”
“Of course. But no, I’m not telling you which one.”
“Because... you can see me, now, breaking into the old corridors of your stone monastery, ripping my way through every old broad in there until I find your chamber?”
She lets out a snort.
“By god, is she laughing?” I ask no one in my passenger seat.
“Shut up. Just go home, stranger.”
“My name is Isaias di Nascimbeni.”
“Go home, Isaias di Whateverbeni. I’m fine. I’ve got pepper spray, and all I need is for you to keep your yapper shut and not rat me out to the priest.”
It’s my turn to snort. Whoa, I don’t remember having been addressed with such scorn since I was in middle school. I had a rough few months there until Il Lince got me backup by transferring la famiglia’s other sons into my private school. We were on a roll after that.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” I tell her, “and you have a mouth on you too.”
“Ha, unlike you, I don’t curse.”
I lower my voice until it hits a silky depth that’s had females come on command before. “I believe it’s only a matter of working you up enough.”
She rolls her eyes. Actually fucking rolls her eyes at Isaias di Nascimbeni, ruler of business empires and son of the biggest don in California. She did not just do that.
“Okay, that’s enough. Look, you’re too gorgeous to be in this part of town alone. I’m driving you home whether you want it or not. If you’re not getting in the car on your own, I’m coming out there and I’m handcuffing you to my backseat.”
“Are you a cop?” is her reaction to that threat. I expected at least a trace of wariness on those exquisite features, but she just looks hopeful. At the police part?
I make a show of unbuckling my seatbelt. “No, I carry handcuffs for entirely different reasons than the law. And although roleplay isn’t my thing, I have no problem being the policeman as long as you’re my prisoner.”
“Wow. That was just lame.” She shakes her head, and I feel a grin break out on my face. “I’m gonna head on home, now, all right? I need my sleep, and bickering with some full-of-himself shady dude isn’t how I’m going to get there.” She flutters her fingers at me. “Bye, now.”
I sit there, watching her walk off without a worry in her gorgeous head. She strides away like I couldn’t have kidnapped her and kept her as my sex slave for years to come. Is this the kind of fake security pepper spray creates in all women, or does she think she has a chance at defending herself? Doesn’t she know how tiny she is? I roll slowly behind her.
“Stop following me,” she says.
“Forget about it. I’ll be right here. How far?”
She huffs, throwing her hands up without looking at me. I’m pretty sure what she mutters are cusswords. God, she’s awesome. A nun, huh?
My chubby grows proportionally with her willful ways. I’m gonna need home service tonight if I’m to get sleep. Or hey, maybe I’ll go puberty-style and rub one out in the shower. That’s been a while.
She picks up a light jog, her backpack bouncing against her shoulders.
“What’s in the backpack, Sister Tatiana?”
In lieu of an answer, she growls quietly. Such a tigress. Sweet.
“Is it your robe? The nun outfit?”
“Yeah. Now, scurry off. I’m plugging in my earbuds.”
“Running with a backpack must get old. I’m going to make sure you get home safely either way, so you might as well hand it over to me.”
She offers a small side-glance. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
“All right then.”
We continue in silence, and it’s hilarious that I have no idea where we’re going. I know of no monasteries around here. This could go on for hours for all I know. What am I doing? I’m not the most patient man, but that stubborn little perky ass...
Pleased, I sigh.
“You getting off on this?” she asks after a few minutes. The nun does. No way she passes her nun exams, whatever those are, with all of her sexual innuendos. Her Mother Superior would’ve had a stroke by now.
“Oh sweetheart, let’s not go there.”
She stops abruptly, turning to me. “Well, it was nice talking to you, Mr. Bene. This is me.” She arches her eyes with fake joviality as her thumb hikes over her shoulder toward a bus stop.
A quick scan tells me it’d take her all the way to the city of Ventura. “You’re gonna wait for the bus now?” That’ll happen in her dreams.
“Yes, sir. You’re very observant. I bet you rock the business world with that kind of astuteness.” She nods slowly.
I literally laugh out loud, because—
“Wow. Okay. Would you like for me to wait until the bus appears, milady?”
“Sweet of you to ask, Mr. Benissimo, but it should be here any minute.”
I start shaking my head, calling her bluff, but goddamn if she isn’t right, and a large, square vehicle hobbles around the corner and presses air out of its brakes. The bus flashes its light at me to move.
“Well.” I crook one finger in a mini-wave. “It was a pleasure, bella. I’ll be seeing you around.”
“I don’t think so, but may God be with you.” The sarcasm in her voice is unmistakable. The almost crystal-clear ice of her irises sparks with disdain. “Oh, one more thing.”
“Sure, anything.”
The bus honks. I wave in acknowledgment.
“Find a new hobby.”
“Hobby?”
“Yeah. Stalking is out of style.” She juts her chin up in a last greeting.
I slap a hand over my heart, hard enough to make sound. Then, I scrunch my eyes shut in fake pain and let out an o-o-mph.
She’s fast, but she turns too slowly to hide her smile. Shit yeah, I amuse her.
The bus is on my ass, and I snail forward. Before I can think, I shout out the window in ways I would’ve done if I weren’t in my late twenties, if I weren’t jaded, and if I lived in the old country. “I’m in love! Fuck me, I’m in love with the beautiful, coldhearted Tatiana of the Valley. Lord have mercy.”
While the bus door poofs shut behind this new tack in my heart, she hoods her eyes at me in fake boredom. It’s tempered in my honor, but her smile is still there. That beautiful smile is the last thing I see.
“I’m just saying I don’t know what we’re doing here.”
“I heard you loud and clear. You’re still on my payroll, right?” I snap back to McRoy, my wiry little assistant of four years. He came from my father’s but has been with me through a few business ventures. McRoy’s style is to question my decisions, then retract his bold statements, only to slink out more objections within minutes. Now, he claims religion gives him the heebie-jeebies.
“Yes, Mr. Nascimbeni. But I thought I had Sundays off?”
“Business doesn’t take Sundays off. Business continues even when we sleep. You should know that by now.”
“Oh right. True. And I guess that’s what confuses me? We’re in a church.” He hisses it out under his breath. “During a mass? Like— I’m sorry, sir. I guess I don’t understand how we’ll be doing business here at this hour.”
We glide slowly forward with the rest of the parishioners. Thankfully, I’m taller than most and can scour the room over their heads.
There she is. I see her now. She’s in her nun’s habit, looking so beautiful she’s almost ethereal. I squint, trying to see who she’s talking to. It’s an older man. The organist?
“Our job is to observe. Gotta assist Il Lince,” I lie.
“What are we looking for?” McRoy asks.
/> “Anything out of the ordinary.”
“I’m not a churchgoer, so I wouldn’t be able to tell.”
“McRoy.”
The guy is sharp as a tack and all nerves. “Yes?” He looks up, freckles, short red hair, and pale eyes on jittery display.
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
I lead the way to the far left on the third bench, close to where the beautiful Tatiana stands with a stack of psalm books. I let my stare burn into her until she feels it and twists toward me. I open in a wolf smile.
Tatiana’s movements still. Her hands freeze around the books, but her eyes flick over me in the way of women. I let her take me in. She was in a different mindset the last time we met, with me surprising her in church and later pissing her off. But now we’re in a safe setting. Within the few moments she allows herself, she catalogs my appearance. She probably sees what Belen saw this morning in my bathroom mirror.
“You’re one handsome devil,” Belen purred in her oily-sexy way. “You know that, Isaias? Look at this.” Long fingers ran down my shoulder. “You’re, like, the fricking personification of stunning, I swear to god.”
Turning, I looked her over and pointed at her chin. “You got something there. You might want to clean up before we leave.”
“Oh.” She wiped off my sticky remnants and dried her hand on my stomach. “All these ripples. If I were a man, I’d have a hard-on over your six-pack, and your dark happy-trail, and god, definitely your cock.”
Throughout the mass, McRoy squirms beside me, while I hood my eyes and enjoy Tatiana’s involuntary attention. Every few minutes, her eyes draw my way, but my favorite is still that first time when I caught her off-guard. She displayed my favorite mixture of uncertainty and attraction, a vibe that’s one hundred percent female. It’s fucking addictive.
At the moment, her expression is back to smooth alabaster, an ice princess and my ultimate prize. My dick twitches. I adjust myself discreetly, leaving it resting along my thigh.
Tatiana is nowhere when the mass is over. Where was my attention when she snuck off? Within minutes, her absence is affecting my mood. It’s Sunday, and soon I’ll be joining la famiglia for dinner. If I can’t see her before I leave, I’ll be shitty company at the house.
“Something wrong, sir?” my ever-attentive assistant asks.
“McRoy.” I clasp down on his bony shoulder. “Take a lap through the church. I want you to text me immediately if you run into a young nun.”
“A nun? As in, like, a real nun?”
“She’s a young nun, a novice, and zip it with the questions. Go.”
He runs off. I text my guys outside too.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. “She’s on the gallery. I’m upstairs now.”
“What’s she doing?” I frown, instinctively keeping my attention off the banister eight feet above us.
“Looking out over the crowd.”
“Can you tell what she’s looking at?”
“You and the priest, I think? And then some of the church people when they greet the priest.”
“How do you get up there?”
“There are two stairways, one on each side of the church exit.”
“She seen you yet?” I ask.
“Doesn’t look like it. She’s on the left side of the gallery, and I’m on the right.”
“Okay, I’m coming up.” I saunter toward the exit, blending with the others, nodding to a neighborly comment from an old lady.
I keep a straight line for the front door until I’m under the overhang of the balcony. Then, I stalk up the stairs, text McRoy, and let him know to not let her past him if she tries to leave on his side.
My life is planned out, my typical diversion being to sell a business and start something new. I’m an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist, owner of businesses. I play with people’s livelihoods, and the hunt for success is what gets me off.
What I don’t do is this, lunge headfirst into an unpremeditated goose chase based on an infatuation. I don’t have a plan either, apart from cornering la bella Tatiana on the church gallery. I mean—am I talking with her? Seducing her over the heads of the good parishioners, this nun, this someone who doesn’t know me and I can’t win because God already has her?
As I take the last steps to the top and see the light of the gallery, I chuckle to myself. Isaias di Nascimbeni has officially lost his mind.
I tread onto the gallery floor. Stalk silently toward her. Her back is to me, and I appreciate that her focus remains on the room below us.
I’m a sucker for beauty, and in all my capacities, I’ve met no one like Tatiana. I’m attracted to her beyond reason—I do realize this—but I’m also curious, needing to find out who she is. That calling of hers doesn’t mesh with her sharp tongue, and I want to unravel her secrets.
“Remove your headpiece.” My voice is low. Women are aliens, fucking amazing creatures from distant planets. They’re different and fascinating, but Tatiana, she makes my blood hot. This could be war.
Most people would display some degree of fear when someone unexpectedly speaks only feet away from them. Tatiana does not. Her figure freezes, an ice angel in this house of God. I savor it.
She swings slowly toward me, and I run my gaze over her flawless face. Dark eyebrows curved above lashes so lush they seem wet. Lustrous eyes that don’t move as she fixes her stare on me.
I lift a hand in salutation, letting a small smile do the rest of the job.
There’s nothing affected about her moves as she begins to walk toward me, narrowing the remaining feet between us with her hips swaying. She’s hyper-feminine, calling to my most basic instincts, and I, quite honestly, am completely mesmerized.
I watch her half-danced shifts with my arms folded over my chest. I dip my eyes to every crevice of her robe, letting my laser imagination find her curves beneath it. I don’t hide my growing erection.
“Bella. Pull your coils of brass out of your hood and show them to me.” Her eyes. Jesus, I can study them now. They’re not blue. They’re grey—the glittering grey of Lake Como.
She doesn’t reply. She’s teasing me on purpose, hell, this is what my father talked about; he’d lived through it with girls in Italy, before Ma. Damn enticing is what it is.
The stairway down is narrow. She’s so close, the soft curve of her hip touches my thigh, and I almost groan.
“Tatiana...” I bend my head toward her, inhaling the scent of warm sugar.
She passes me.
She...? No. She did not just do that. The beautiful Tatiana of the Valley just passed Isaias di Nascimbeni.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
No answer. She doesn’t as much as look at me. What the hell just happened? Fuck, those gorgeous greys of hers never met mine. She actually stared through me like I was air.
You got her? Text from McRoy.
No. I let her go.
“Oh, Isa baby. It’s been so long!” Ma exclaims. She grabs both of my cheeks and pulls me down far, far, until generous lip-smacks echo around us in the hallway.
“I love you, Ma, but it hasn’t been long.”
“Oh, too long! Five days? You weren’t at the Isidori engagement party.”
“No. You know I don’t do Nascimbeni business.”
“But baby, they’re famiglia.”
“I know. I know. What’s for dinner?” For years, I thought Dad would never forgive me for opting out of the family business, but on year four, he took me back as a son. Since then, I’ve been welcome back for our big family Sunday dinners, which feels fucking nice.
I straighten and look down at my beautifully painted mother. I’ve never seen her without full makeup and her hair tightened in some intricate updo at the back of her head.
“We’re having the feast of the seven fishes today. It’s
in honor of your late grandpa. He died on the lake of Como.”
“Yes, Ma, I know.”
“He was a fisherman. If it weren’t for him, the Nascimbeni would not have been so strong. Fish is good for the health. It leaves you invincible.”
“Yes, Ma.” I kiss her again while she pats my shoulder affectionately. “Go inside, now. Gabriela is here.”
I haven’t seen my cousin since she returned with her boyfriend from San Francisco. She and I are closer than many siblings, the way her little sister, Silvina and my brother, Gioele, are. Gabriela and I understand each other and have always stood up for each other. Only months apart in age, we were the firstborn in our American-Italian family. Now, she’s staring at me over her glass of grappa.
“Really, we’re doing grappa already?” I lift my eyebrows, running my gaze between the drink and her.
She quirks me a mischievous smile. “Eh. I have a cold. The fog in San Francisco can really do a number on you.”
With long, dark hair and black eyes, she’s the typical Italian beauty. She’s got her coloring from our Southern Italian familiars, and the good-old American boys want to do everything to her. Gabriela likes her men straight-laced, blond, and buff. Currently, she’s dating a law-school guy from Virginia, a former high-school wrestler. I grin and smatter her cheeks with kisses, much to the chagrin of the good-old boy.
“Gabi, I’ve missed you.”
“Ditto. This is Patrick. Patrick, this is my favorite cousin, Isaias. We share everything, and agree on everything, with the exception of our crushes.”
Good-old Boy tries for a laugh, but he’s apparently as square as the rest of her loves and doesn’t pull it off.
“Good to meet you, man.” I shake his hand. Despite the buff body, his grip is weak and only tightens around my hand halfway through.
“It’s a pleasure to meet another of Gabriela’s relatives,” he replies stiltedly. I side-eye Gabriela at that, and she suppresses a chuckle, eyes tender at his dorkiness. Seriously. I understand everything about this girl except her taste in men.
After dinner, I get her alone on the porch. The good-old boy is hurting after having been poured too many grappas by my grandfather. Guess he’s too polite to escape the Nascimbeni peer pressure.