“You invented something new, didn’t you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Yes.” His admission was low.
“There’s so much to learn. All of you are light-years ahead of me.” Nicoletta sighed. “I was studying night and day before we got married. You’re a bit of a distraction.”
He laughed again when she frowned. He couldn’t help himself, he bent to brush her lips with his. The moment he felt that soft bow, his stomach did a slow roll and he locked his arm across her back, dragging her closer to him, tilting her head back so he could kiss her. That mouth. All flames. Alive with heat. With some special addictive aphrodisiac that roared through his body straight to his groin. A powerful, potent fire that invaded every cell and turned him inside out.
She made him feel things he’d thought impossible. She brought him roaring to life in so many ways. He tightened his arms around her when he lifted his head, just holding her close to him, letting the intense emotions wash through him.
“Am I doing the right thing taking you with us, Nicoletta? Should I keep you safe the way Stefano does Francesca? You’re the most important person in my world. I don’t want you ever to think I love you any less than he loves her, or Vittorio loves Grace, or Giovanni loves Sasha. I know every time you go into the shadows it’s a risk.”
“Why would you ask me that, Taviano?” Nicoletta tilted her head to look up at him, a small frown on her face.
She reached up and rubbed at his jaw, her palm cupping the side of his face. There was something so gentle and loving about the way she touched him that his heart turned over. She could just turn him inside out with such a small thing as framing his face or rubbing the pad of her finger along his jaw. He knew it was the way she touched him. He felt her love in the way she touched him. He saw it on her face.
“I have to be in the shadows with you. I can’t explain it to you, but the compulsion is very strong. It’s a drive. A need. I’ve had it since I was very young. I used to play like a bunny, hopping in and out of the shadows. My mom would watch me and tell me I was just like her when she was little. We’d laugh together all the time.” She smiled up at him. “I’d forgotten that until just now. I’d forgotten so many things about my mother that I’m just letting myself remember. It wasn’t like I disappeared or anything. I had clothes on, but I liked to play with shadows.”
Taviano nuzzled the top of her head with his chin. “I know you want to be in the shadows, Nicoletta, but it is risky. We train for years to do the kind of work we do. You’re not ready.”
“I know I’m not. I’m not about to get in your way. But I have to start somewhere. I was careful when I was with you before. I wouldn’t have insisted on going with you once we knew Pia and Bianca were safe at the hotel, but Clariss might have needed me. I couldn’t let her be alone if those men had raped her. That was a very real possibility. I wasn’t just insisting to be a pain.”
“I’m well aware of that, tesoro.”
Nicoletta wasn’t the type of woman to throw a temper tantrum to get her way. She didn’t insist she was as good as others who had trained for years at their job. She was highly intelligent and weighed each situation carefully before making decisions about the best thing to do. She tried to keep her emotions from ruling her. She was young, and that wasn’t always possible. He was hotheaded, and at times it wasn’t easy for him to push aside his own emotions and stay in control, making judgments impersonally.
“I want to learn. The more I’m exposed to this, the faster my body and my mind learn it. I don’t know why I work that way, but I do. Each time I was in the shadows, I was sick, yes, but I could feel the difference in the way every tube worked both on my body and in the way the shadow pulled at us. Fast or slow, the way it moved us along. The corners, sharp or a steady curve. Eventually, I could anticipate them, and I couldn’t see at all.”
He knew everything she said was true. She had been sick, but she had also been more relaxed, riding with him, her body tuned to his, moving with his in a rhythm. She had been anticipating the curves and corners. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t very real dangers always present. The shadows won’t protect you from one of our enemies spraying bullets through the room if you’re sitting in the mouth of a tube. You can’t navigate on your own yet. No one has taught you that. You’d be lost in the shadows, Nicoletta. Even if you didn’t get hit by a bullet and you managed to dive into the tube and the shadows took you, you’d never find your way out again.”