That had put a big crimp in his social schedule. No more of that “Portland’s Most Eligible Bachelor” hoo-hah. Just as well. That shit got old. He’d tried to convince Zia Rosa to take down that cover of the
Portland Monthly
she’d put up in the diner after the mag had done that “most eligible” article about him. It embarrassed him now. But Zia Rosa liked his dimples in that picture, and Zia Rosa could not be reasoned with.
Something about the zombie duels, Tony’s death, had changed him. He wasn’t sure what, but he’d started to shut up occasionally. Not all the time, and not for too long, but he was now capable of keeping his yap trap shut for a few minutes at a time.
So if this woman wanted to know something about him, she could ask. He wasn’t going to run the Bruno Ranieri promo spiel anymore.
He gestured toward the rice pudding. “I put cinnamon on it. Cancels out the cholesterol. Read about it on the
Men’s Health
Web site.”
Her lips twitched. “That’s buhit.” She eyed the banana cream pie. “What cheap pop-science justification have you got for that one?”
He contemplated the pie. “Well, bananas are good for you. Lots of potassium, which helps you shed water weight, right? And there’s no trans fats in the crust. I can promise you that.”
“Yeah?” Her lips pursed, suppressing a smile. “So what is in it?”
He grinned wickedly. “Lard,” he announced. “Artery clogging, cholesterol-laden pig fat. Hope you’re not a vegetarian.”
Her smile broke free, and it was fucking blow-your-mind dazzling gorgeous. “At least you’re honest,” she commented.
“Always,” he said.
“I hate liars,” she told him.
“I don’t blame you,” he replied. “I don’t like them, either.”
More sipping, more silence, considering each other. He felt like he was under a blazing light, being silently interrogated. Except that instead of being a bad, scary feeling, it was . . . well, exciting. Like he was laid out naked. On the altar. Before the goddess.
Rigid and ready to serve. Yeah.
She picked up a spoon, let it dangle from her fingertips like a pendulum. The bowl of the spoon swung toward him, a blurred gleam in the foreground. He stared at the triangular arrangement of freckles on the bulge of her tit behind it. Where his gaze was helplessly focused.
“I can’t eat all of this,” she informed him.
“Try,” he urged. “I think your metabolism’s just fine.”
She held out the spoon. “You help.”
His cock jumped at the implied intimacy of the invitation. “No,” he said. “It’s for you.”
“It’s too much,” she said. “And I hate waste.”
He took the spoon, reluctantly, and waited. “You first.”
She went for the rice pudding first. Her soft, crimson lips parted slowly to accept the creamy mouthful, then contracted in eager surprise around the spoon. Her body went rigid with pleasure, her eyes softened in momentary bliss. Oh, man. He shifted on his seat to get some relief.
“Wow,” she whispered. “You made that?”
No need to repeat himself. He just waited for her to try the pie.
She forked up the tip of the triangle and stared at it, while the waiting silence took on an electrical charge that was almost unbearable.
She put it in her mouth, closed her eyes, savored it. Her eyelids twitched as she inhaled, sharply. “Oh, my God. That is delicious.”
Bruno sipped his coffee, trying not to look smug. “Told you.”
“A guy could rack up big points for desserts like this.”
He dipped his spoon into the rice pudding. It was damn good, if he did say so himself. Zia Rosa was a good teacher. “That’s good news,” he said. “What else racks up points with you? Give me a list.” He whipped out his order pad and pen. “I’ll take notes.”
She looked down into her coffee. “Honesty,” she said.
He’d been hoping for more sexy repartee, but if she wanted to take this to the next level, that was fine. “No worries. I do honesty.”
She rolled her eyes. “No worries, my ass.”
“What, have you picked out some liars recently?”
She scooped up another bite, her gaze evading his. “Either that, or it’s all men who are lying rat bastards.”
“I don’t lie,” he assured her. “Ask me anything. I’ll tell you the uncensored, uncut truth. I swear.”
“Yeah? So tell me what you’re thinking right now.”
He was taken aback by the challenge. “Ah . . .”
“Don’t lie.” Her voice snapped like a whip. “Or I’ll know.”
She would. He could tell. She was smart, she had the eye, the ear. And he was a piss-poor liar in the best of circumstances.
He let out a sigh. “Thinking isn’t really the word for it.”
“Use whatever words work for you.”
He braced himself. “I was imagining having sex with you,” he confessed. “I have been since I first saw you three nights ago.”
Her gaze was unflinching. “Oh. Really.”
“Yeah. I would never have told you that if you hadn’t compelled me by brute force. Certainly not before introducing ourselves.”
“I already knew,” she said, matter-of-factly. “And like I said, I do appreciate honesty.” She stuck out her hand. “Lily Torrance.”
He took her hand. It was cool, smooth, and something electric zinged through him at the contact. “Bruno Ranieri,” he said.
Lily. She had a name, finally. It suited her. Flowers were beautiful, feminine, tender. But a lily was no humble flower. Lilies had attitude. They were regal, queenlike. They took no shit off anybody. They demanded respect, worship. Tall, sensual, starkly elegant, even haughty. Flowers for church altars. Flowers for a goddess.
But something was off with her. She was too good to be true. Something was wrong with this picture. He studied her luminous skin, wondering if she was jailbait, maybe. A runaway. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine,” she said.
That was total crap. She looked fully ten years younger. He looked her over, frowning. “You fucking with me?”
“Right after we’ve been introduced?” She handed him the spoon. “For the love of God, stop me before I hurt myself. Eat some of this.”
“I value honesty, too,” he told her, scooping up banana custard.
She stopped in the act of licking whipped cream off her thumb, chin going up in frosty hauteur. “I’m not a liar.”
“Then answer one for me,” he said. “And don’t lie.”
“I won’t lie, but I don’t promise to answer.”
“Whatever.” He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Just tell me. What’s wrong with this picture?”
She jerked, like she’d gotten a shock, and tried to yank her hand back. Bruno hung on, grimly. Her fingers squirmed in his.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “You tell me. It’s just that something’s off with you. You’re hot, you’re sexy, you’re smart, you’re fascinating, yeah. But something’s wrong. So what’s the problem?”
She retrieved her hand with a yank. “I don’t have a problem.”
“Ding, ding. Gotcha,” he said quietly. “That’s a lie.”
The color faded from her face, making her makeup look even more srtling. Her eyes dropped. She grabbed the napkin, made a fuss over wiping some sweet goop or other off her chin. He waited.
“Have you run away from home?” he asked.
A bitter laugh jerked out of her. “I wish,” she muttered, not looking at him. “At the moment, I don’t have one to run from.”
“Well, that’s a problem all of itself.” He reached for her hand again. She whipped it off the table and hid it in her lap. “Did someone hurt you? Your husband, your ex-boyfriend? Something like that?”
“No. No, it’s . . .” Her throat bobbed. “Really. I’m fine.” Her voice vibrated with tension. “Just stop, please. Or I’ll have to leave.”
He sipped his coffee, giving her a moment to get over her freak-out before he tried again. “Is there something I can do?”
“About what?” she snapped.
“About your problem,” he persisted. “Does somebody’s ass need kicking? I can take care of that for you. I kick good ass.”
Her laughter rang out, sweet and bright and gorgeous. “Wow,” she said. “You’d do that for me? After, what has it been now, a fifteen-minute acquaintance? Twenty, maybe, tops?”
He considered that, and opened his mouth, and the raw, uncut, uncensored truth just plopped right out. “Yeah,” he said. “I would.”
Her mouth hung a little open for a moment, totally flustered. And apparently charmed. “Supposing there were a whole lot of asses?”
He shrugged. “Then I’d just have to kick them all.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s bold. Whiz, bang, and suddenly you’re my champion. That’s really sweet of you. Not smart, but sweet.”
Bruno sipped his coffee and let his statement stand. But her words did something to him. Doors, opening up inside him, letting in light. Things lighting up from the inside, coming into focus.
He’d been dead serious. He really would kick ass for her.
And she was right. It wasn’t smart. Not smart at all. But there it was.
He scooped up more rice pudding, covered his embarrassment with chatter. Quick, before he turned red. “So what else can I be honest about? Any other secrets you want to know about the male mind?”
She rolled her eyes, snorting. “Never mind the male mind. Men are mostly dogs and pigs. Tell me about you.”
“Tell you what?”
“Start at the beginning,” she said. “And keep it simple.”
“Not much to tell,” he said. “I was born in Newark. Spent the first twelve years of my life there.”
“Parents?” she asked crisply.
“I was raised mostly by my Uncle Tony and my Zia Rosa here in Portland,” he said.
“And before, in Newark? Who raised you then?”
He flinched away from the question. “It’s your turn, isn’t it?”
“Who said we were taking turns?” She wound her fingers together and rested her chin on them. “You’ve evaded my question twice. Not very skillfully, but that means you’re starting down the slippery slope toward dishonesty. So give up the goods.”
He blew out the tension with a sharp sigh. “I don’t know who my father was. I was a bastard. My mother never told me. Her family was ashamed of me, so it was just the two of us. She raised me alone.”
She looked startled. “Ah. Um—”
“My mother was murdered by her fuckhead scum of a boyfriend when I was twelve. That was when I left Newark. I don’t have anything else to say about Newark. If you don’t mind.”
Her eyes dropped. “No,” she said. “I don’t mind.”
Another charged silence went on and on. He realized that she had absolutely no intention of breaking it. It was up to him.
What the fuck. He just went for it. “I didn’t mean to be evasive,” he said. “I was just really enjoying the conversation with you. And a piece of information like that is a real conversation stopper. It’s like throwing a bomb on the table. Big downer.”
Her lips looked tight. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He sighed. Oh well. So much for this one. You win some, you lose some. Time to swallow the bitter pill of reality and get back to work.
He let the spoon drop and slid across the booth seat to get up.
She snagged his wrist. “I’m sorry I jerked you around,” she said, her voice husky. Long, chipped black nails dug into the skin of his wrist like kitten claws. “And I’m sorry about your mom,” she added, timidly.
He sat back down on the seat, silently jubilant. “What about my dad?” he asked. “Aren’t you sorry about him, too?”
Her mouth curved. “What for? Fuck him. He provided the best of himself and disappeared before he could do any more damage. We’ve already established that men are dogs and pigs, right?”
“Most men,” he said. He rolled his hand around beneath hers until he could clasp her hand from below. The contact was giving his palm a gazillion little mini-orgasms. “The day-shift guy will be here in about twenty-five minutes,” he said. “Want to go out, take a walk? I’ll tell you more about the awful, horrifying truth about men. Stuff you’ll never learn in
Cosmo
. You could write a book. If you’re interested.”
“Strangely enough,” she said. “I think I am.”
5
L
ily feigned not to see the smile he blazed at her before he went off about his business. Razzle-dazzle. The man was dangerous, but for none of the reasons she’d expected. She’d been through hell the last few weeks, but who’d think it to look at her? Giggling. Simpering. Fluttering, for God’s sake. She must be suffering from hormonally induced brain damage to be acting this way. Hey, what’s mortal danger next to a superlative piece of man meat, right?
Not that she could characterize Bruno Ranieri as meat. Far from it. He was special. He blew her mind, or what little was left of it, after the stress of the last six weeks. And she’d thought writing papers for cheating students had been stressful. Try life as a penniless fugitive.
Her first thought, during that dazed subway ride to nowhere, had been to go to the police, but something blocked her. A sense of looming danger, pervasive as a bad smell. The bad guys had been following her, listening to her. They’d known she was going to Nina’s for dinner. And Nina’s address. They’d murdered Howard and covered it up so easily.
No. No police. She was on her own. She scooped up more rice pudding, and her eyes dropped to the red scar curved across her forearm. She adjusted her arm to hide the wound. She probably should have worn long sleeves, but he didn’t have many wardrobe options.
She was lucky she hadn’t gotten tetanus. She’d bought gauze and disinfectant, and mopped up in a Starbucks bathroom, keenly aware of how much emergency rooms cost after all of Howard’s near suicides. It would cost hundreds of bucks to get her cut stitched. Plus, anyone who could terrify Howie into silence, murder him the same day he broke that silence, and then put out an instant contract on her had the resources to watch emergency rooms. And cop shops.
Besides, what could cops do? Give her an armed guard? Send her to a safe house? Please. She was of no use to anyone. She wasn’t poised to testify against a big mob boss. She’d end up filling out a report, and then she’d go home alone, and sit there, shivering. Waiting for the door to rattle, the window to shatter. Until it did.
So she’d stopped at a bank, taken as big a cash advance as her credit card would allow, bought a floppy hat, sunglasses, an oversized jacket. Caught a night bus for Philly at the Port Authority. She remembered the address of a women’s shelter there, a relic from those nights when Nina used to rope her into volunteering to man the hotline.
Her cut and bruises corroborated her story about a jealous boyfriend attacking her with a knife. It got her a place to sleep, an offer of crisis counseling. But she couldn’t tell those people anything, either. No more than she could call Nina. She’d put them in danger, too.
She’d run, as soon as she dared. She’d been running ever since.
She ached to call Nina, tell her friend she was safe. But she had to assume that they’d monitor Nina’s snail mail, e-mail, landline, cell.
Besides. She wasn’t safe. So why lie? Why say anything?
She didn’t even know where to begin. She was so small and clueless, and her opponent so huge and mysterious. But Howard had given her a starting place. He’d paid for it with his life, too. So that cryptic clue had to mean something to somebody.
Magda Ranieri and her death were connected to this mess. God alone knew how. Or maybe, just maybe, her son Bruno knew.
Bruno walked by, flashed another mind-melting smile. She smiled back before she could stop herself.
Hard to get,
she reminded herself.
She’d done what research she could. Magda Ranieri had been murdered in 1993, in Newark, New Jersey. Her obit had stated that she was survived by her mother, Giuseppina Ranieri, and her son, Bruno Ranieri. No further mention of her murderer being found or prosecuted. No speculation as to why she’d been killed. That was as much as Lily had been able to glean from the library newspaper archives.
But Bruno might have a clue. He was supposed to “lock it,” whatever “it” could conceivably be. So he must know what “it” was. And by association, who “they” were. What “they” wanted. Right?
Her search ended here, in Tony’s Diner, where she ran up against a wall with a splat. Because asking Bruno if he had a clue was not a simple matter. In fact, it was flat out unthinkable. She pictured it.
Nice to meet you, Bruno! I’ve been stalking you for a while now. Someone is trying to kill me, and I think this is somehow related to the most traumatic event of your entire childhood, so would you please tell all the details of your mother’s brutal murder to a complete stranger?
Right. Talk about a conversation stopper.
She’d considered just telling the truth, begging for his help, but she couldn’t risk a flat it.” Or worse, a
get the hell away from me, or I’ll get a restraining order.
Which was what she herself would have said, in her former life, if someone approached her with a request like that.
She had no other leads. She had to be sneaky, get close to him, gain his trust. That was the plan. But the perfectly defined shape of the guy’s ass wiped her hard drive clean like a powerful magnet. This lust attack was so unlike her usual modality with the male sex, which was mostly fear and loathing. The men she’d hooked up with so far had been good for one thing only, and even that only on alternate bank holidays that happened to coincide with a blue moon.
She forked up another banana cream oral orgasm. She’d eaten more than half of both desserts. One would think running for one’s life would be a real slimmer-downer, but no, disillusioned again. On the run meant convenience stores, bus stations, hot dogs, Mickey Dee’s, pizza slices. It meant zero access to a decent kitchen, a stocked refrigerator, or any sort of vegetable. It meant all carbs, all the time. It meant desperate sugar compensation for loneliness and fear.
And here she was, compounding her sins with two desserts. The wretched man had not done his part in saving her from her own greed.
Bruno hadn’t been hard to find. His business had a big, fancy interactive Web site. He was smeared all over Facebook and other social media. For God’s sake, there was a magazine cover with his gorgeous, grinning face on it, framed and hanging right there in the diner. She’d read the article from the
Portland Monthly
probably a dozen times. It was one of the first hits she’d made on the Internet when she’d begun to research him. It was all out there on a silver platter, for anyone who wanted to know about him.
All except for the info that she needed. The monsters in his closet.
In any case, she was following him now for all the wrong reasons. Which was to say, just to get a better look. To see if it was a trick of the light, or if he really was that criminally hot. To check out that perfect build. Not swollen gym-rat bulk, which she abhorred, but sinewy, trim perfection. Pantherish power in his long legs, his defined thighs. The jut of his butt made her want to just sink her nails into his ass and palpate the wedges of muscle in his back with a feral squeal of delight.
Three nights ago, she’d risked The First Approach. She’d steeled herself for the close-up reality. Bad breath, enlarged pores, body odor, anything. She almost hoped for a fatal flaw, just to break the spell.
Nope. No flaws. The guy was perfect. She’d had to grit her teeth and look away when he took her order, and remind herself to breathe.
Information flooded in even while ignoring him. That big barrel chest. His black hair, buzzed very close, would be curly if he allowed it to be, but he was having none of that. His heavy-lidded Italian eyes were the velvet brown of rum truffles dusted in fine cocoa. His biceps distended the sleeves of a crisp white T-shirt. The sweeping pattern of body hair against sinewy golden forearms, the pattern of veins, tendons, the shape of his hands, it practically hypnotized her. And his smell. A knee-weakening blend of tapioca, coffee beans, and dish soap.
Fortunately, being speechless was part of the plan. She’d given a lot of thought to his handling, once she’d gotten a grip on his strange schedule, which did not include sleep. Fortunately, her schedule didn’t include sleep, either. She’d broken it down. Fact: Any guy that fine-looking had to think he was God’s gift. Therefore, frigid indifference was the way to go. It was guaranteed to pique his ego, spark his curiosity.
Of course, the corollary to this was that she herself had to be a stunning sex goddess. Yow. A tall order, on her budget. Beauty and glamour were expensive, financially and emotionally. A constant I’m-so-smokin’-hot vibe took a lot of vital energy to project and maintain.
But she was highly motivated. She really wanted to live.
She had lots of practice at frigid indifference, but tonight she was bombing on it, big-time. She couldn’t stop peeking at the sexy beard shadow that accented the angle of his jaw. Those jutting cheekbones, the creases of twin dimples. The throbbing force field of his sexual energy, bumping up against her personal space.
This crush was just a distraction her mind had grappled onto so that she didn’t have to think about how lonely she was, how scared. So she wouldn’t have one of her stress freak-outs, or start to obsess about Howard and his shard of glass. It was much less painful to obsess about Ranieri’s luscious bod instead, and mull over The Approach.
Her problem was, once she’d hooked his attention, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Aside from the screamingly obvious.
She tried to breathe. She needed to get close to him. There was a tried and true way. Though sex did not necessarily mean closeness.
Ranieri was neither married nor engaged. Slut or no slut, there she drew the line. She supposed she could try to strike up a friendship, but how the hell was that even done? Like she had time to join his health club, chat him up at the juice bar, run into him at the bookstore. That kind of thing was so vague, so random. It could take years.
She didn’t have years. She was going insane, treading water. Cocktail waitressing under the table, crashing at a squalid downtown youth hostel. Carrying her netbook everywhere because she had no safe place to leave it. Always looking over her shoulder for the guys in the SUV. Because eventually, they’d find her, and shove her into the back of their car, and skewer her. It was just a matter of time.
She had to find out what Bruno Ranieri knew, now. Ergo, they had to become best buddies, fast. Seducing a guy was a simple, step-by-step process that she could wrap her imagination around.
She would sacrifice her, well, call it virtue, for lack of a better word, in exchange for her life. She’d do penance later. If she had a later.
Then she saw his dimples, his ass, his eyes. Smelled his scent. She’d had that provocative, intimate conversation that she had actually started to enjoy. And suddenly, she couldn’t remember what she was trying to accomplish anymore. Her agenda just flopped on its head.
She watched Bruno pour coffee for a guy hunched at the bar, and scraped up the last of her rice pudding. Wow. She was officially taking this to the next level, after a fifteen-minute conversation. She had to keep it light, playful, but how? Her hands shook. No, correction. Her whole body shook. He was going to notice that. It was hard to miss.
For God’s sake. The man was not scary. In fact, he seemed really sweet. Who’d have thought that Dudley Do-Right vibe could be so arousing? Her champion, indeed. And he made a wicked banana cream pie, too. What a honey bear. A kissable, squeezable, positively lickable—
Cool it.
She pressed her hand to her mouth, until her teeth bruised the inside of her lip. She could wait, of course. But for what? To get pissed off at him, and then alienate him with her hostility? This being as inevitable as springtime, death or taxes. Considering her track record with men.
Bruno glanced over. His dimples deepened the grooves bracketing his mouth. Something expanded in her chest, hot and breathless.
Worse yet, she could fall in love with the guy. God help her.
He pointed at the clock, held up five fingers. She clenched her thighs. Realized, to her dismay, that she was already wet. Her brain buzzed around in tight, frantic little circles. And the rest of her ignored her brain utterly and just kept staring at Bruno Ranieri. Salivating.
Wanting him for his own sake. Wanting to feel the way he made her feel. So alive. Burning with life force. Fierce, vital, hungry. Hopeful.
No rule says you have to fuck the guy,
a dry voice in her mind said.
At least not until you know him better. He offered to help you. Protect you, even. How sweet. You have options.
Shut up,
she told the voice. She didn’t want to think about her options right now. Her brain wasn’t functioning anyway.
She might as well use the parts of her that were still operational.
The elegant young man dressed in a crisp white dress shirt and figure-hugging black trousers took away the cheese and fruit plate without making a sound. He presented new wine goblets, poured a new wine.
Neil King spared him an appraising glance, pegging him in time and vintage. Had the briefest of blank moments before retrieving the boy’s name from his memory banks. Julian. Yes, that was it. Seventeen or so. Coming along nicely, if he was trusted to serve King a late supper.