Page 2 of Light Me Up

Caro’s graceful dark brows rose. “Family’s important,” she said. “No one knows that better than you.”

Noah grunted. “Luke’s not going anywhere. I talked to him. He’s doing great. He’s madly in love with that woman he met, Dani LaSalle. And he’s feeling no pain. I talked to Asa, too, several times. He’ll be released from the hospital soon. There’s no rush. For any of them.”

“Maybe not.” Caro took a bite of her dessert and considered his words as she savored it. “But I get why Hannah was scared for him. Bullet to the abdomen, nicked liver, massive internal bleeding. It was touch and go for a while.”

“He’ll be fine,” Noah repeated, more forcefully. Thinking about Asa at death’s door was the last thing he wanted to do on his honeymoon. His brother was a goddamn idiot, mixing himself up in Obsidian business. Asa wasn’t Midlands-modified, hadn’t been hardwired, didn’t have advanced sensory processingto protect him.

What the fuck had Asa been thinking, going off with the team on arescue mission?

In fact, Noah was pissed at the entire crowd. They’d gotten into all kinds of near-lethal trouble since he’d left, as if to punish him for taking time away. First Zade and Simone almost got themselves killed, and he and Caro had ended up rushing back home for that whole drama. Then, on their second honeymoon attempt, Luke finally emerged from his nerve-rattling year of being MIA. Just in time for a huge firefight involving one and all, in which Asa had ended up gut-shot, dangling from a goddamn helicopter.

The fuck? Couldn’t they all just keep their heads down and behave? Just for a few weeks? Was thatso much to ask?

“I’ll talk to them all later,” he said again. “They just keep pressuring me to make a decisionabout Brenner.”

A shadow flashed over Caro’s face at the mention of Brenner, the Obsidian slave soldier cruelly exploited by their nemesis, Mark Olund. They’d won their battle with Mark a few weeks ago—only barely. Noah, Caro, and the rest of his team survived. The same couldn’t be said for Mark’s kidnapped Obsidianslave soldiers.

Four had died. The fifth, Brenner, ended up comatose, cared for at Asa’s secret mountain fortress until some weeks ago. Until he woke up…and joined their team.

“You can’t put Hannah off forever.” Caro’s voice was neutral, but he sensed her disapproval. If he hadn’t been wearing full-protection shield contact lenses, he’d be able to see it in the shifting arrays of colors and patterns that pulsed around her body. Her energy signatures. Sigs,he called them.

Caro’s sig was special. Unique. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He didn’t appreciate having a grim scroll of combat data racing across his field of vision while he was admiring it.

She forked up a bite of the dessert and held it out, a seductive challenge in her eyes.

“Try this,” she commanded him.“It’s amazing.”

He ate it, but was too busy monitoring the positions of everyone in the room to actually taste it. Diners, waiters, busboys, cashier. He’d run background checks on everyone already. Had to, for anyone in the same room as his wife for anyperiod of time.

Yeah, it was paranoid overkill. He knew it, owned it. It changed nothing.

“Noah,” Caro said. “You’re doing it again.”

He went on the defensive. “Doing what?”

“I feel your AVP going full bore.All the time.”

“And?” He tried not to sound belligerent, with limited success. “So?What if it is?”

“Nothing.” She took another bite, closing her eyes with sensual bliss. “You can take a rest,” she told him. “Nobody’s gunning for us here. Relax.At least try.”

“I do try,” he said stiffly. “And I do relax.In the suite.”

Their hotel prepared excellent food and Caro was a good sport about ordering room service, knowing how badly he needed the down time. But that didn’t change the fact that she loved wandering around Rome, trying the little out-of-the-way places recommended by offbeat blogs andtravel guides.

He had to bite a whole lot of bullets, but hehung in there.

“Right,” she said wryly. “With the blinds down. While you peer through the cracks. You’re on red alertall the time.”

He hated being the one who’d put that worried look on her face. “Caro, look. I’m stimmed up to be hyper-vigilant. I’d turn it off if I could.”

She propped her chin on her hand, studying him with narrowed eyes, like he was a puzzle she fully intended to figure out. “Theremust be a way.”

Hell. She’d just handed it to him. “Well, uh…now that you mention it…”

She laughed at his obvious lustful eagerness. “Of course, there’s that. You insatiable sex god, you. But we can’t always be rollingaround in bed.”

“We can’t?” God, that smile just got him going. “I can tone it down, if you want,” he offered. “The insatiable sex. If I’m overdoing it.Say the word.”

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