Shadow Keeper (Shadow #3)

She growled, but turned her head toward him. “Giovanni. Dear. Honeypot.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Please allow me to come? If not, I might have to hurt you.”

He caught her hips, jerked them back to him and slammed into her. She shrieked and instantly her body clamped down on his like a vise. The walls of her sheath contracted, strangling his cock. He plunged into her over and over, right through her orgasm, letting the friction and heat drive them both straight into another realm. He held on to his control through two more wildly long quakes that rippled through her entire body, and then when he built the last one higher than the previous ones, he let her take him with her.

Her sheath was so tight he could barely breathe. It was either hell or paradise. He only knew he never wanted to leave. His release, as he emptied himself into her, flung him back to that place where her mouth had taken him, somewhere he’d never been. He floated while his body went up in flames, and he felt reborn.

She lay limp on the bed, facedown, her narrow channel still gripping his with aftershocks while he kissed the nape of her neck and rubbed her body gently. Soothingly. She turned her head to one side to look at him. “We might not make it out of this relationship alive.”

He grinned at her, flopped on the bed and pulled her up and over him like a blanket. “I’ll go out happy.” His stomach tightened. “What about you? If we killed each other with sex, would you go out happy, too?”

She lifted her head to rest her chin on his chest. “How could I not? I didn’t know sex could be like this. It’s so good sometimes I never want you to stop.”

He could breathe again. He pushed at the wet hair tumbling around her face. They’d lost the towel somewhere. It didn’t matter. His heart hurt just from looking at her. Ached. She did that to him. “Dio, baby, I’m falling in love with you. Really falling.”

Her lashes fluttered. They were long, a dark gold, and very thick. He held his breath, knowing his declaration was probably too soon for her. She was embattled on too many fronts and having him just come out and tell her he loved her …

“Strange, Giovanni, and I can’t believe I’m saying this because we haven’t spent that much time together, but I’m feeling exactly the same way.”

He heard the honesty in her voice. That ring of truth. Part of him rejoiced. The other part knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. She didn’t know his life, and he had to tell her soon. The more ties they had between them, the more their shadows tangled together. Theirs had knitted together very quickly. Once the shadows were woven together, there was only one way to get them apart. She wouldn’t remember him, and he would no longer be able to ride the shadows. That was the very worst thing that could happen to a rider. It was who they were more than what they were.

“I never expected to really find you.” He hadn’t. Somewhere in the back of his mind, even when he was actively looking, he hadn’t believed he would find her. “Going around the world and looking for you, and here you walk right into my club. Shocked the holy hell out of me.” He lifted his head to brush a kiss in the fall of wet curls. “And you had to see me at my worst.”

She laughed and rolled over, sitting up on the edge of the bed. “I doubt that’s you at your worst. Your worst is going to be when you try taking over my life.”

He sat up as well. “Why would you think I would take over your life?”

She looked around the room for her clothes. “I said ‘try,’ and where are my clothes? I folded them neatly and left them on top of the dresser.”

“They’re in the laundry.”

“I’m not going naked to breakfast. You can give me your clothes.”

“In the drawers. I put a change of clothes there for you last night when I came in. The others are already at the house.”

Sasha gave him a look that told him they’d be having a discussion about her going to his house. That look made him want to smile. He loved that she thought he wasn’t going to get his way in everything.

She went to the bureau and took out underwear. He couldn’t help watching her dress. He knew that was always going to be one of his favorite things. He’d never get tired of it. Instead of dressing as well, he remained quiet, never taking his eyes from her.

Sasha started laughing again. “Quit staring.”

“You might disappear on me if I let you out of my sight or just blink.” He knew she would laugh again and that sound did something to his heart. Made it lighter somehow. All the bitterness over the wasted months of pulling playboy duty after getting shot disappeared, suddenly worth every moment because he had her.

“I’m going to find Francesca and breakfast,” she announced.

“Not without kissing me first.”

“Kissing you is dangerous. It leads to other things and we’re never going to get out of this room if we keep it up.”

“Kiss me, baby.” She was right, his cock stirred at the thought of her touching him. That mouth. Her body.

She shook her head, blew him a kiss and ran out of the room laughing.

Giovanni listened until the sound faded away. He pressed a hand over his heart where his chest ached. Very slowly he dressed and wandered down the hall and through his brother’s penthouse. Francesca had made the very cold apartment a warm, welcoming home. Sasha would do that to his home. He could tell already, just being in her little residence.

Stefano sat at the table alone. A cup of coffee was near one hand, a tabloid, of all things, was in the other, and he was frowning. He glanced up at Giovanni and then back toward the kitchen where their two women were talking together.

Immediately Giovanni knew something was wrong and it involved either Sasha—or him. He held out his hand. “What is it?”

Stefano sighed. “You aren’t going to like it.” He glanced toward the kitchen again where his wife was laughing with Sasha over something she’d said and then he put the paper in his brother’s outstretched hand. “Someone got a picture of Sasha that night at the club. They took a couple of them and obviously sold them to a tabloid. I called, of course, but they’re already running them in the magazines as well. It’s all over the news. A woman employed at the Hendrick Clinic gave an interview to the newspapers and let it slip that you’re engaged to Sasha. With that news out, of course whoever took the pictures was going to sell them to the tabloids. He must have made a mint.”

Giovanni looked down and his heart dropped. Sasha was on Darby’s lap, both breasts exposed. Not only exposed, but the camisole, lace gaping open, pushed her breasts up and out, emphasizing them. In the photograph, it was impossible to see that the laces were torn. From the angle the photo had been taken, it appeared as if Giovanni was reaching for her breasts.

He swore. “Whoever took this was on the same tier we were, Stefano,” he said. “They were too close and had too good of a view. Someone at Aaron’s table took this.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Look at it. Damn it, I haven’t locked her down yet. You know why? Our lifestyle. Too much money, too much jet-setting. This is going to shake her up. This is exactly the kind of thing that she can’t stand. We’re in the tabloids nearly every week. Sometimes more. Every story we’ve inserted, every picture we’ve orchestrated, is coming back to bite me in the ass.”

He threw himself into a seat across from his brother and pressed the tatty little gossip rag that just might very well lose him Sasha to his forehead. “I hate this.”

“I know you do. We’re going to have to do damage control, and you’re going to have to show this to her. You don’t want her getting broadsided.”

The elevator buzzed just before the doors opened, and the brothers exchanged a long look. Both looked up as Eloisa burst into the room, her expression furious, her gaze snaking around the room, seeking a target.

Francesca and Sasha turned toward her, and Eloisa gasped and, ignoring her sons, stomped toward the women, purpose and fury in every step.





CHAPTER NINE