by Tamara Lush
Skylar glanced at Luca. He was holding his espresso cup in mid-air and looking at her as if she’d suddenly grown a horn in the middle of her head. Was he offended by the questions she was asking his uncle? There was no way he could understand how reporters did their jobs.
She smiled serenely at both men. “Thank you, Mr. Rossi. I appreciate it. I’m sure my editor will love the pet food scoop.”
They shook hands, and Federico turned to his nephew. “Luca, can you see Skylar out?”
Luca put his coffee cup in the sink. He took Skylar’s, and their fingers brushed against each other. Their eyes met, and the needy feeling surged through Skylar’s body again.
“We can go this way,” he said, pointing to the hallway and guiding her down it with his hand on the small of her back.
His touch. Finally. It was all she had thought about for days.
As they made their way down the hall, she glanced into a room that looked like a den, a space awash in tan and light blue hues. Skylar had grown up in a small rental cabin in Vermont decorated with funky batik throws, Buddha statues and stacks of books. Luca’s family could buy a thousand of her childhood homes, and the cool order in Federico’s house both excited her and made her feel lacking, somehow.
Skylar wondered what Luca thought about this showroom setting. Was this how he lived in Italy? His parents were probably filthy rich, like Federico. No student loans for him to worry about.
Luca was behind her in the hall, and as she passed another room he called out.
“Oh, come look at the study and the garden,” he said, sounding awkward.
Luca definitely wanted to eke out a few more minutes with her. Who would give a stranger a tour of the study? Admittedly, it was a gorgeous space. Hundreds of books lined two walls. Skylar’s eyes stopped on an imposing mahogany desk. A brief fantasy floated through her mind of Luca picking her up and sitting her on it, spreading her legs and entering her as she bit his neck and dug her nails into his back. She glanced at him and looked to the desk, feeling embarrassed. Those sorts of thoughts didn’t usually enter her mind during work hours. Or any hours, for that matter.
Skylar paused at a large picture window overlooking a tropical garden. Giant leaves and colorful flowers erupted over a patch of trim lawn. She pointed to a grove of angry red flowers that slightly resembled pineapples. The blooms jutted out from spiny green leaves and the entire plant looked prehistoric.
“Do you know what those are?”
Luca shook his head and stood next to her. His eyes were as green as the tropical foliage outside, and Skylar stammered because the color was so arresting.
“They’re…they’re called hurricane bromeliads. I learned this while covering a garden club meeting. They bloom in August and September. People in Florida say the more they bloom, the bigger the chance a hurricane will hit that year.”
Her mind wandered, remembering how Luca’s mouth felt on hers. She licked her lips and tasted her gloss.
“Skylar, you have pen on your chin,” Luca said matter-of-factly, jarring her from the kissing fantasy.
Gah. That’s why he’s staring at me. I’m a babbling, ink-stained wretch.
“Oh! Where?” she asked, her hand flying to her face.
“On the left side of your mouth.”
Skylar rubbed with her fingers, trying to appear dainty but certain she looked stupid—or worse, coarse. Like a trucker scratching his beard.
“Um, no, the other left,” Luca said, stepping forward and taking her chin in his hand. His thumb grazed her skin and set her cheeks ablaze.
Skylar’s mouth was open because she was in mid-gasp from his touch. Luca’s thumb shifted and brushed her bottom lip. One slow stroke to the right. Another to the left. She inhaled and looked into his eyes as his touch sent a million volts through her body.
“It’s gone.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, and inhaled his scent. It reminded her of limes and cinnamon and clean laundry. She wanted to lick his skin and bathe in his essence.
“I can’t be this close to you and not kiss you,” he said in a hoarse voice.
He bent toward her and their lips met. It was a ravenous, hard kiss, and she suddenly couldn’t control the rhythm of her heart. She knew this was wrong, making out with a source’s nephew after an interview. If the story on Federico was already published, she’d feel a little less unethical. But she couldn’t stop kissing Luca. Didn’t want to. The intensity was too startling, especially in the blazing light of day. A kiss this hot should be confined to the dark corners of night.
She explored the tip of his tongue with hers and her palm grazed the dark stubble on his chin. It was soft, not bristly, and the discovery made her heart melt everywhere.
He threaded his fingers into her hair, and she resisted the urge to curve her leg up to his hip. She broke away from his lips and watched with satisfaction as he gulped in a few breaths. She was breathing fast, too. Their first kiss in the pool had been hot, but what had happened just now was scorching.
“You asked my uncle some interesting questions,” he said unsteadily, looking up at the ceiling as if to regain composure.
Skylar ran her finger down the smooth skin of his neck and smiled. Was it wrong of her to enjoy teasing him? “And I still have a few questions for you. About the plane crash and where you were.”
He took her hand off his throat and kissed her palm softly while looking into her eyes. “How about this? Have dinner with me and I’ll tell you.”
The story on Federico would be published by then. And even if Luca was the rescuer of the plane crash victim, she couldn’t write about him at this point. Or could she write about a guy she kissed? She’d have to think on that more.
“Deal.”
* * *
One night. That’s all he would need. One night of crazy, erotic sex. With a woman who could share an intelligent conversation in the moments between their carnal pleasure, no less. After everything he had been through, didn’t he deserve at least that?
As they stood in the den, Luca stroked Skylar’s cheekbones with his thumbs. Finally. She was giving in to him. The idea of spending the night with her made him hard with anticipation. Oh, who was he kidding? He was already aroused from watching her in that sexy dress, grilling his uncle with those questions. The way she’d worn that knowing little smile was too alluring.
“God, you’re so sexy.” He groaned out loud, and she giggled.
“Stop.”
“So, dinner. My uncle’s leaving tomorrow, and I’m alone.”
“Alone is bad.”
He brushed his thumb over her lips again. Her eyes fluttered shut. So sensual, this girl. “Thursday night at seven?”
She nodded and opened her eyes.
Luca grinned and slipped his thumb into her mouth. She swirled her tongue around the tip of his thumb and stared into his eyes, and his cock throbbed with a disconcerting need. It would be so easy to take her right here in the study. Shut the door and fuck her on the couch. Or bend her over the desk and shove her skirt over her hips. Or press her against the wall. But that wouldn’t be right, not for the first time at least. If he was going to risk spending time with her, he wanted both of them to enjoy it. For hours.
He took his thumb out of her mouth and kissed her forehead. “Let’s get you to your car before I do something we both regret.”
She laughed. “You’re going to make me have regrets? I don’t like the sound of that.”
If only she knew.
“No regrets,” he whispered, then he quickly kissed her again.
Skylar followed him out of the study. They went outside and stood in the driveway, the sensation in his groin uncomfortably tight. Why couldn’t he control his body around her?
“Do you like your little Italian macchina?” he asked, patting her Fiat 500’s roof. He’d seen the car the night they first kissed, but was so stunned that she didn’t want to spend the night that he hadn’t commented on her choice in autos.
He smiled. “I think it’s…it’s…adorable.” And he did think that. Nervousness washed over him, as if he were a teenager talking to a girl for the first time. Actually, he hadn’t even been this nervous as a teenager. He’d always been confident around women.
“I drove it down from Boston.”
“You and your little car, all that way.” He paused and peered in the window. “It’s kind of messy inside.”
“Yeah, I work out of my car a lot.” She bit her lip, and a look of embarrassment crossed her face.
Luca straightened his posture. “Are you interested in the photographer?”
She turned, snorting. “Where did that come from? No. I told you. I’m not dating anyone. And I’m trying not to date journalists.”
Luca half laughed. “You’re ‘trying not to date journalists’?”
She shook her head. “My ex-boyfriend was a reporter. A former war correspondent. After we broke up, I figured I’d try to stay away from reporters, editors, photographers. They’re too complicated.”
Luca laughed, hard. Hopefully not too hard. “Probably a good idea.”
She smiled in return. “Thanks again for the coffee. I’ll see you Thursday. It’s actually great for me. I don’t have to go into the office Friday because I’ve worked overtime since the plane crash.”
“Perfetto,” he said. “Perfect. We can make it a late night. Or an early morning. Or something.”
She laughed, so he leaned down and held her face in his hands, gave her a long kiss on one cheek and then the other. When she let out a little sigh-moan, it took herculean willpower not to kiss her mouth again.
“Ciao, Skylar Shaw.”
After saying that, Luca went quickly inside. If he lingered, the urge would be too strong to push her up against the Fiat, grab a fistful of her hair and kiss her long and deep in the hot sunshine. The thought of their bodies, sweaty and naked, made him swallow hard. Maybe they would make love on the terrace lounge chair in the middle of the day.
Yes. There. And several other places.
Luca padded into the kitchen. He washed the dishes to give his restless hands something to do, but Skylar’s light pink lipstick stained the rim of an espresso cup and kept his mind on her. It had been amusing to watch how she asked questions of his uncle. Luca was once a young, green reporter like that, naïve and filled with ambition. Those days were over, though, had been for years. Now he felt old and jaded. Skylar was still the sort of reporter who thought she’d find truth in everything she wrote. She didn’t know yet that the truth was subjective on every story. She’d learn soon enough.
His initial impression of her as an amateur was wrong, though. Dead wrong. All her articles he’d seen were top-notch, and she’d been comfortable while talking with Federico. It wasn’t easy for a new reporter to speak with such authority to a powerful man. She’d paused, scrunched her forehead a little but looked at her notebook and asked the strong questions despite any reservation. She had done her homework and researched Federico’s finances—which seemed ethically challenged, Luca had to admit. He hoped to God his uncle wasn’t involved in anything criminal, because he was putting his full trust in the man. He didn’t have much choice. Federico was the only family he had.
Luca paused in reflection. His mother had spoken cryptically about his uncle, saying that Federico was a good man but that she hoped he would stay out of Italy for the sake of the family. How he wished he could go back in time and ask his mother what she meant. Soon he would get to the bottom of the tangled relationship between his parents and uncle, though. He didn’t see how he could avoid it while staying on Palmira.
Speaking of hard questions, he shouldn’t have asked Skylar if she was interested in the photographer. But he’d felt an uncharacteristic jolt of jealousy when Matt looked at her. He’d recognized the attraction in the man’s eyes.
Of course that buffoon thinks she’s beautiful. She is.
Luca emptied the grounds from the espresso pot into the trash, slapping the funnel containing the packed coffee against the garbage can.
So, she doesn’t get involved with journalists.
We’ll see about that.
CHAPTER NINE
Skylar woke to an ink-black bedroom. With scratchy, unfocused eyes, she rolled over and fumbled for her smartphone. It was three in the morning.
This had happened before. An invisible alarm went off inside her on the night a big story was published. She awoke at the exact time The Post was delivered to the newspaper boxes and the one convenience store on the island. Those copies were always delivered first, before the home edition.
The Rossi story. What if she had made a mistake? What if the copy editors had inserted an error? What if she accidentally misspelled a name? While it was true that if she made an error the online version could be tweaked, the paper had been lately publishing its longer stories exclusively in print to gain subscribers. There was no way a longer story could be changed. If there was a problem, she’d have a dreaded correction in the following day’s edition.
Anxiety rose in her chest as the scenarios rolled in a loop through her mind. She knew her feelings were irrational, obsessive even, yet they consumed her. Already she had lost track of how many nights this happened since she came to work at the paper. The anxiety had also consumed her the night before exams. When the panic first appeared in high school, her mother’s suggestion to meditate more had ended in failure; Skylar couldn’t stop the waterfall of anxiety. Other than her mother, the only person she’d ever told about the panic was James…who’d scoffed, ordering her back to sleep because she had no idea what real panic entailed.
Waiting until 7 a.m. to read the delivered paper wasn’t possible.
Climbing out of bed, Skylar slid a pair of pink cotton pajama bottoms on over her underwear. She added a white zip-top hoodie over her T-shirt, shuffled on some yellow flip-flops and grabbed her car keys. She didn’t bother doing anything with her wild hair because she didn’t give a damn. This was no time for fashion.
She opened her front door. A wave of nighttime humidity struck her face, and her skin was slick with sweat within seconds.
After looking up and down the long corridor, she pressed the button lock on the doorknob and stepped out. Her grandmother had bought the condo years ago, and the neighbors were either elderly, year-round residents, elderly snowbirds, or youngish restaurant workers. Everyone’s front doors opened to a shared, outdoor hallway, like a cheap motel.
She tiptoed down the corridor, aware that her neighbors’ bedroom windows were just feet away. It was a squat, two-story building, and her unit was on the second floor. There were just two good things about the place: her small balcony that overlooked the beach and the fact that she owned it free and clear.
Creeping down the stairs, she went to her car, parked in its assigned space. She paused there, pawing in her purse and hoping she hadn’t locked herself out again. A surge of relief went through her when she found her keys. She’d been absentminded recently, her thoughts on her articles, and left them inside the house. Because of that, she’d taken to keeping her bedroom window cracked just in case. As a sometimes crime reporter she’d considered whether this was safe but eventually scoffed at the thought someone would break into her mostly retiree-populated building. According to state statistics, Palmira was one of the most crime-free places in all of Florida.
Her heart pounding with trepidation, Skylar drove the three miles to the other side of the island and its one 24-hour convenience store. The Post van was there, and she watched from her car as the deliveryman exited the building. In another parking space, a shirtless guy covered in blurry tattoos smoked a cigarette while draped over the tailgate of his truck. Skylar avoided eye contact, but his skeevy gaze oozed in her dir
ection.
“Hey, girl, you look fine as silk,” the guy said softly as she walked past.
Shuddering, Skylar ignored him and hurried inside. She grabbed a copy of the paper from a rack and held it in both hands, scanned it while standing there, the fluorescent lights harsh against the newsprint.
It was stupid and old-fashioned how much of a thrill she got by seeing her name in print, but Sky felt a swell of pride when she saw her name. The article was above the fold, the headline stretching across the page. Matt’s portrait took up four columns. Skylar smiled a little. The story was exactly as she had written. Nothing was misspelled. It was perfect.
She glanced up to watch the shirtless guy’s truck pull away and exhaled with relief. Picking up two copies, she beamed at the clerk and handed him a fistful of change.
“That’s me,” she said, pointing to her byline.
“Oh yeah?” asked the sleepy-eyed clerk. “I don’t ever look at that rag.”
Her nostrils flared and she stifled a frustrated sigh. Sometimes she wondered why she worked so hard when few seemed to read the paper or care what was in it.
* * *
“The Miami Herald. The Tampa Bay Times. The St. Augustine Record.” Jill tossed printouts of stories from the state’s big newspapers onto Skylar’s desk, which was strewn with stacks of paper, pens with chewed caps and empty iced coffee cups. “The Jacksonville Times-Union. The Palm Beach Post. Even El Nuevo Herald. All credited The Palmira Post on the dog food lawsuit story from Rossi. Nice job.”
Skylar grinned. Kind words weren’t easy to come by in the news business, and neither were statewide scoops for a small-town reporter. “Thanks. It was nothing, I guess. He really opened up to me.”
Matt the photographer strolled past her desk. “Yeah, Skylar did awesome on that story. I think Rossi’s nephew was also intrigued by her.”
He winked and walked toward the photo department. Skylar scowled at him and stifled a laugh. He jokingly stuck out his tongue, but only when he was behind Jill’s back.
Since starting at The Post, Skylar had come to realize newsrooms were like adoption into a slightly crazy, profane family. Everyone cared—or at least pretended to care—what the others were doing each day. She had never known her dad, and her mom died when she was seventeen, so the newsroom camaraderie was welcome. It made her feel part of a team, part of something important.