Page 15 of Light Me Up

He often lay in bed for hours watching her sleep. He got on her wavelength and rode it with her, somehow letting her sleep for him. Said it relaxed him. Hmmm. He had a ways to goin that regard.

The shower in the adjoining bathroom was hissing. She got up with the intention of joining him, then saw his laptop on the table.

She slid out of bed and took a look. He’d programmed it to open to her fingerprint, so one touch and a photo filled the screen. Young guy.Dark, handsome.

The name on the document was Stefano Morelli. She scrolled through a few pages. It was all in Italian. No barrier to Noah with his language mods, but she could only make out a few words of ithere and there.

Caro straightened at a discreet knock on the door and threw on her silk robe, belting it quickly as she went out into the other room. “Who isit?” she asked.

“Buon giorno, signora.Breakfast,” a man’s voice called through the door.

She had her hand on the knob when the bedroom door was slapped violently open against the wall.

“What thefuckare you doing?” Noah’s voice rang out harshly. “Stop!”

Caro froze, and then looked over her shoulder at him.

Noah stood there, stark naked, dripping on the floor, towel in hand. Huge, magnificent, ripped. No lenses covered the luminous amber glow of his furious eyes.

He was a terrifying sight. A hot rush of instant lust assailed her. Her body was selling herout. Not fair.

“It’s just room service,” she offered, trying to make her voice soothing. “You ordered breakfast, right? It’s arrived. Everything’s fine.”

He wrapped the towel around his waist as he approached, leaving puddles of water on the floor behind him. “Caro, don’t open a door unless we know for sure who’s knocking. It could be anyone, for fuck’s sake!”

“It’s always the same guy,” she pointed out. “I know his voice after two weeks.”

Noah leaned up against the door. “Chi é?” he demanded.

“Ah … la colazione, signor.” The guy sounded intimidated.

Noah stared the door, as if he could see through it. In a certain sense, he could. He could analyze a person’s thermal heat signature even behind asolid barrier.

Apparently satisfied, he pulled the door open and gestured curtly for the uniformed waiter to push the draped trolleyinto the room.

The waiter’s gaze slid swiftly away from Noah, who cut an intimidating figure dressed or undressed. His huge chest, his cut muscles and brutal scarring, and drill-you-down-to-the-bone stare were not for the faint-hearted. Her husband was flat-out terrifying with that look on his face. Radiating anger and menace and barely suppressed violence.

The waiter backed toward the door, reluctant also to be caught looking at Caro in her slinky robe.“Mi scusi, signori, mi scusi,”he mumbled.

“Thank you,” Caro called, as the door closed.“Grazie mille.”

When the door fell shut, she turned to Noah. “That poor guy. Was the soul-piercing Look of Death really necessary?”

“He’ll live,” Noah said flatly. “I’m just being careful. You need to do the same. Get it through your head.”

Caro chose her words carefully. “Noah,” she said. “This place has top-of-the-line security. That’s why you chose it. We can let room service in with the breakfast cart. We have no reason to think anyone is after us. Whywould they be?”

“We can’t know that,” Noah said. “We never will know in advance. A knock on the door from room service could be the last thing that you or I ever hear.”

She pushed past him into the bedroom. “Eat,” she snapped. “You clearly need it. I’m going totake a shower.”

“You’re mad at me?” He sounded aggrieved. “For protecting you? Seriously?”

“Later. I need a moment.” She stalked into the bathroom withoutlooking at him.

Which felt awful. She howled her frustration silently into her hands under the pounding stream of hot water when she stepped into the shower enclosure.

Everything about Noah was outsized, super-charged, over the top. There was no space for just a plate of scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee. Even something as simple as breakfast had to be this big fucking deal, fraught with peril.

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