First to Burn (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

“What’s wrong?” Theresa demanded as her leather-soled ballet flats skidded across the church’s marble floor.

“Guy was too nosy.” Despite Wulf’s size, his feet skimmed noiselessly through the interior as he dragged her between columns.

“Nosy? What do you mean?” Behind them the door to the courtyard opened. Outside light penetrated as far as the first aisle, but didn’t illuminate the entire nave.

“Had his phone out.” Wulf pushed her through an almost unnoticeable door into a short hall. Each wall canted differently, and none of the corners formed right angles, as if the room enclosed a void where separate buildings failed to join. “He was taking pictures.”

“It’s a tourist spot.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s what people do.”

“Of us. Only us. Not the Mouth.” He shoved something from the floor—a wedge—under the door behind them and drove it deeper with the heel of his shoe. Clearly he wasn’t joking. “Didn’t you notice?”

She’d noticed his behavior change, nothing else, but she wasn’t the trained threat sensor that he was. “Are you sure?” Even asking that made her tense, as if she stood at the top of a stadium, looking down a hundred rows.

“Yes.” He opened one of the two other doors to reveal an ascending flight of steps, and then he whipped the new hat from her head and tossed it to the point where the stairs vanished at a turn. The soft swish as it toppled one step lower was followed by the whine of ancient hinges as he partially closed the stairway door.

And then followed by a squeak next to her.

The brass knob on the door between her and the sanctuary rotated first one way, then slowly back. Someone wanted to come in. Part of her brain inventoried her systemic reactions like she would a patient’s responses.
Respiration speeding to produce more oxygen?
Check.
Muscles from neck tendons to foot arches tensing for flight?
Check.
The rest of her watched as faster spins rattled the knob mechanism, and then she heard a thunk as something heavy, heavy like a man’s fist, hit the wood.

Someone really wanted in.

She smothered a gasp as the person pounded again, but the metal-bound door held square in its frame and the wedge didn’t shift. When she would have stared, transfixed by the shaking knob, Wulf grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the third opening and into a hall. A carpet runner with a grayed path down the center led to a massive door. Thrusting it wide, he revealed sunlight, and then they were out, away from the pounding that beat alongside her heart.

She followed him around a corner and faltered in front of Santa Maria’s arches. A line of oblivious tourists stretched from the portico to the sidewalk. “Why back here?”

“There.” He pointed to another double-decker bus and ran, still holding her wrist.

To stay connected to her arm, she sprinted with him to the end of the block, and he hauled her on board a moment before the doors snapped at their heels. They’d made it. Eyes closed, she panted against his shoulder while relief turned her knees to overcooked linguine. She clutched his waist to stay upright. His scent, evergreen and soap, wrapped her in safety as the bus lurched from the curb. A man hadn’t held her like this, with his arm looped around her shoulder and his hip bumping her hip, in too long. She’d missed that connection of curves and planes, the feeling of two different-size bodies filling one space.

“People on the bus go up and down.” Under her cheek, his chest vibrated like a big cat, a very big cat, whose paw kneaded her spine in time with his words. “Up and down, up—”

“Stop that.” Her order, drawn out and trembling, held no authority. “This isn’t the place.” Her cotton dress left no doubts about every corded muscle and bulging
whatever
that Wulf pressed against her hip. Jammed next to him in the doorway, she could feel that he was hot and, she strongly suspected, half-hard.

“Stop,” she whispered again, despite the stupid-crazy part of her that wanted to arch closer in a
bus vestibule.

“Negative on that request.” His fingers snuck past her intentions and circled into the small of her back. “After a successful E-and-E is the perfect place for—” he nestled her deeper into his body, “—this.”

“You’ll be escaping and evading without that hand if you don’t move it.” Women at Caddie joked about guys with boners after successful missions, so she knew his post-adrenaline reaction had jack to do with her. Just like her trembling and wide-open senses had nothing whatsoever to do with him. Nothing. She inserted a forearm between them and pushed, almost as hard as a chest compression, but he only let her reclaim six inches of space.

“Let go, Ser—” She broke off before she spit out his rank.
Don’t draw attention to military affiliation in public
, security briefings emphasized before anyone could take leave.

A man coughed loudly into the pause, drawing her attention past Wulf’s shoulder. The bus driver leered back. They had an audience.

“
Biglietti?
” He honked with one hand and gestured for tickets with the other.

“
Sì
,
sì
,” she said. “
Un minuto per favore.
” Fumbling with her purse, she caught the eye of the motorbike driver stopped outside the glass doors. He was grinning too. Crap. Every Roman on the road had witnessed their clutch.

Wulf didn’t drop his arms, which meant she had to stay contorted while she hunted through sunglasses, tissues and the map. Damn, she could
not
focus with her entire side plastered against him.

His hand skimmed her hip from belt to thigh.

She clenched her teeth. “I told you. Stop it.”

“Don’t want you to stumble at a sudden stop.” His whisper ruffled the hair at her neck, an emergency-code-level distraction that did not help her to find the tickets. She’d used the bag for a day and a half and it was already a Dumpster.

The driver made a sound like
puh-tou.

Kicking Wulf’s shin with her flats would only hurt her. Finally, she extracted two slips of paper. Her left elbow connected briefly but satisfyingly with Wulf’s solar plexus as she liberated herself and flourished the tickets. She marched past the circular stairs that led to the crowded sightseeing deck and aimed for a bench seat at the rear of the inside compartment.

No surprise, he followed. At least he didn’t sit, so she had space to breathe.

After she straightened her dress hem and crossed her ankles, she felt composed enough to speak. “What happened at the church?”

The bus turned a corner while she watched him cling to an overhead strap and peer out the rear window. Then he answered. “I don’t like having my picture taken.”

“That was a bit much to avoid an online photo album.” Her boss had circulated mandatory reading about soldiers with complex post-traumatic stress as a result of ongoing battle exposure rather than an isolated, acute trauma. She’d spent her deployment huddled in relative safety at Camp Caddie, but Wulf encountered real enemies with every mission. He was trained to anticipate a gun or a bomb under any jacket, in any package or car. Shifting gears to enjoy a vacation probably challenged him to his core. “How many tours have you had?”

She swayed as the driver took a corner too fast.

Whatever Wulf saw, or didn’t see, through the glass must have satisfied him, because he let his weight shift from his feet to the wrist and hand looped on the strap. “Six in the ’Stan.”

“Iraq?”

“Four.”

“Ten?” She gasped at the impact of his answer. One trip to Afghanistan had left her feeling jangly in crowds. Of course he expected threats everywhere. “You’ve had
ten
combat tours since 9/11?”

He shrugged. “Give or take.”

“I’ll confess that I almost freaked out on the Spanish Steps before you found me.” She tapped the seat next to her. “People, noise, everybody drives like crazy—but this isn’t a combat zone. It’s Rome.” Someone had turned that doorknob, but it wasn’t rational to think that the man from the line had chased them. Wulf had secrets, and so did she, but no one would chase them through Rome.

Would they?

He sank to the leather-covered bench less than a hand’s distance from her leg.

“I’ll help you remember this isn’t Afghanistan if you’ll help me,” she said.

They sat together. They didn’t move or touch, but the longer they sat with the bus vibrating around them, the higher the energy ratcheted, until the air felt supercharged. One touch from him and she feared sparks would shoot out of her skin like she was an overhead power line.

“What next?” His question shocked her into twitching against the window.

Did he mean the next bus stop, or what would happen between them? She answered the easy question. “St. Peter’s.” She tried to smile. “Two thousand people with cameras.”

He managed a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Lunch instead? That exercise made me hungry.”

“Sure, you can laugh, but that
exercise
made me
scared.
” She couldn’t forget standing in that odd-shaped room while the doorknob turned. “And I liked that hat.”

“I’ll find you another.” His hand reached for the hair clip at her nape.

She batted him away. “No touching. And we really shouldn’t—”

“Do I need to feed you again to have a civil conversation?”

“All we ever do is eat.” He was right though; she was famished.

“I’d happily pursue other activities.” Desire flared in his eyes and crossed the space between their bodies, so hot and sudden she raised a hand to her throat. “Say the word.”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t tighten her lips enough to swallow, couldn’t count fast enough to measure her own pulse, but none of that mattered when he stared at her with such hunger.

“That’s all you have to do—
say yes
—and you won’t think about food for days.”

She tried not to imagine spending days wrapped around him. She knew how good he smelled, the sound of his voice and the feel of his hands. The only sensation left to her imagination was his taste, and that answer could be hers right now. And it would cost her integrity at a minimum; maybe her career. “You said...lunch?”

In the silence, he searched her eyes and must have seen how she clung to her responsibilities.

“Coward.” He leaned away, and the taut skin around his eyes loosened with a smile.

Her pulse slowed enough to permit coherent speech. “I prefer to be called cautious.”

“Trying to convince yourself, or me?” His grin broadened.

Dammit, eyes that beautiful shouldn’t have been issued eyebrows that mischievous.

They both stood when the bus eased into the next stop. She wanted a meal, but the narrow-eyed scan Wulf gave out the back windows before he let her proceed between the seats made her wonder if food wasn’t his main motivation.

* * *

“
Signorina e Signore.
” As the Hotel d’Inghilterra bartender spoke, he placed a tray carrying after-dinner espresso, the saucers adorned with sugar cubes and spirals of lemon zest, on the ottoman in front of Theresa and Wulf. She’d agreed to a last coffee in a private alcove off the lobby in order to delay the moment when Wulf would suggest he escort her to her room. She didn’t want to banish him into the night, not after a day and evening exploring Rome together, but she couldn’t change the rules both of them had sworn oaths to obey.

Opposite their couch, a tilted mirror showed their side-by-side reflections. Folding doors divided this secluded nook, with its wine-red upholstery and discreet lighting, from the lobby.
Be honest.
Today was a date
, her conscience said,
with a sergeant
. If called to task, she had no other explanation.
And it’s no fun to pay for the ride
, the proverbial bad angel on her shoulder continued in a voice that sounded like her ranch-born roommate’s,
but never get to pet the pony.

Wulf’s cup rattled against its saucer when he returned his espresso to the tray. “You don’t want this coffee, do you?”

His question ignited tremors for reasons she knew she shouldn’t explore. Maybe it was his tone, as dark and rich as the tiny chocolates they’d shared after dinner, or maybe it was the unbidden thought of what she wanted. Him, pinning her to the couch and kissing her the way his eyes promised whenever their gazes locked. Her espresso sloshed over the demitasse rim, so he curled his fingers around her hand and removed the drink to rest safely beside his.

“Relax.” Warm and gentle, those same fingers tilted her chin.

She closed her eyes as he neared. Her skin heated until his breath felt almost cool as it brushed the corner of her mouth and along her cheek.

“We saw everything you wanted today.” After stroking her bare arm, he eased his hand between her spine and the couch as if worried she’d spook and bolt.

Far from it. She wanted to slide closer.

“I followed your directions.” He arched her body the fraction of an inch that brought her breasts against the wall of his chest.

Her hands drifted to his shoulders, then down his back to the groove where his shoulder muscles overlapped. They were hard and distinct, and the pleasure of touching him sizzled from her fingers to the rest of her body.

“I went everywhere you wanted to go.”

The empty ache inside her needed to be filled, yet he was taking his sweet time.

“But we didn’t do everything you wanted, did we?” Then his mouth covered hers.

She’d been kissed before. What Jersey girl hadn’t? But she’d never known a man who kissed like this. His lips were perfect, firm but not overwhelming as they molded to hers. His hands cradled her head and rubbed her scalp and neck at spots that made her gasp with pleasure. His kisses submerged the methodical doctor into a woman who’d sit entwined with a man on a hotel couch. The doctor wouldn’t let her hands wander across his shoulders to seek the hair above his collar.
Noooo
, that woman would never lose her self-control. Only a wanton would pull him closer and let her fingers trace the muscles wrapping his spine. The doctor would never move her chest in tiny circles to create delicious pressure against a male chest. Only a wanton would offer her neck and encourage his kisses to drift lower.