Shadow Flight (Shadow Riders 5)

“Nicoletta.” There was teasing firmness in his.

“I’m not going to be able to concentrate on whatever Stefano says, you know that, right? I’ll be thinking about you trying to do that.”

His eyebrows shot up as he handed her the last cup. “Trying? Amore mio, have a little faith. I have spent more than a few years thinking about how you’re going to taste. I will savor every drop and make certain you enjoy every moment. There’s not going to be any worries about that, but you may find it might be too much, in which case I’ll give you a moment to catch your breath before I start again.” He gave her another wicked grin, caught up the towel and hung it on the rack to dry in the sun and took her hand.

“You’re really enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

He was. There was no question about it. She was in his home. Finally. Nicoletta. His Nicoletta. His ring was on her finger. The ring his cousin had made specifically for the right woman, and it fit perfectly, much like Cinderella with her glass slipper. She might have an army of gangbangers coming after her, but she had an entire family of riders swarming to protect her, and he would bet on them every time.

“Didn’t you have second thoughts?”

“Of course I did,” he admitted. “I’m a man. I was a bachelor. Women threw themselves at me. The thought of marriage, being with one woman for the rest of my life, was a very different prospect. That was fleeting, I’ll admit. And only when I thought about an actual relationship. It isn’t like I had a good example with the parents. But then I kept going to your room every evening and talking to you. Listening to you. Laughing with you or holding you when you were crying and knowing how strong you were to survive what you did.”

She shook her head as she settled into the chair in front of the fireplace. “Both you and Stefano act as if I saved myself. I was going to kill myself. That was my only way out. They were going to hand me over to Benito, you know that. You came in when they were desperately trying to save themselves. They knew if they didn’t give me to him, he would kill them. If I was dead, he would kill them. That’s the kind of man Benito is. I wasn’t brave right then. I was a coward. I couldn’t face Benito and what I knew he had in store for me.”

“I thought you were very brave. You saw us kill your step-uncles. You might not have known how we got there, or even how we killed them, but they were dead, and you knew we were the ones responsible. I took your weapon from you, and I asked you if you wanted to come with us. You said yes. That was brave, Nicoletta. You said yes and we’d just killed them.”

“I looked at you and knew you were better men.”

“When you woke up on the plane, you knew we’d stripped you naked. You were wearing my shirt. You didn’t scream, and you didn’t fight me. You just looked at me and then to the door, and you went back to sleep. That took courage.”

“You drugged me.”

“You remember being in the tunnel. You weren’t that drugged.”

She kicked off her shoes and drew her feet onto the chair, a small smile on her face. “That’s true. I do vaguely remember. That’s why the feeling of being in the shadows was somewhat familiar to me. It was looking into your eyes, Taviano. I just trusted you. I did. I can’t tell you why, but I did.”

He poured them both a chilled glass of water before sinking into the chair beside hers. The glasses were placed on the small figure eight table between the two wide-cushioned chairs. The detail in the little table was exquisite. It was another one of the artist’s creations that he’d left behind with his house.

Taviano thought the figure eight table fit perfectly with the two laid-back seamless chairs he’d bought at a gallery. The material was painted in bold stripes and round circles; the colors, muted purples and blues, reminded him of the night skies. Because the chairs were wide and overstuffed, they were extremely comfortable. Eloisa thought his “Bohemian” style of house and décor was atrocious, and she wanted him to allow her interior designer to take over, but he liked his unorthodox home and every art piece in it.

“I love all the sculptures you have,” she said, as if she could read his mind, and maybe she could. They certainly were bound together. “I always wanted to learn to make pottery.”

Something to give her. He could do that. She never would ask. He flashed her a smile. “Lucky for you, we have a little studio just waiting for someone to be interested enough to make pottery in it.”