Leon sat forward to gently caress the hair off Carla’s forehead on the opposite side to where the square of gauze was taped over the gunshot wound. “You and I are going to talk when you’re feeling up to it.” He leaned forward and gently kissed the creamy flesh he had exposed. “In the meantime, I’m right here. And no matter how much you protest, you’re staying right here with me until the shooter has been found and punished.”
In the meantime, he really did have to take that shower Natalia had twice mentioned him needing.
After which?
Leon had no fuck—damned idea!
He gave a snort of self-derision for having automatically corrected himself. Because Carla had commented on his use of the word fuck when he was agitated.
“Bella,” he murmured softly as he gave her brow another gentle kiss before standing up. The bedroom had an adjoining bathroom, so he wouldn’t be far away. “Mia bella,” he added possessively.
Carla had no idea what had woken her, but she felt a little more lucid when she opened her eyes than she had when she demanded the doctor remove the cannula from the back of her hand. She’d hated them since she had her appendix removed when she was twelve. They were somehow insidious, and now that the doctor was no longer filtering a painkiller into the mix, there was absolutely no reason she couldn’t deal with her own intake of fluids orally.
Talking of which… She turned onto her side so that she might reach the ice water the doctor had insisted she drink lots of. She ignored the slight throb in her right temple as she sat up to sip some water before taking in her surroundings.
She was in a bedroom, but not the one she’d been in earlier with the blue décor. This room had cream walls and gold-colored bed linen. The furniture was also cream, delicate Regency style, rather than the heavy dark furniture in Leon’s bedroom.
Her smile became self-derisive at the realization Leon’s hotel room was where she had intended being last night. Just not under these circumstances. Nor, in her earlier fantasies, had she been alone in bed.
Leon wasn’t even in the same room, she acknowledged after a brief look round. The lighting was dim, just two small lamps switched on across the room, but it was enough for Carla to be able to see she was completely alone.
But the chair pulled up as close as it could be to the side of the bed said that someone had been sitting beside her earlier, so perhaps…
She turned her head on the pillow as a door opened to her right and Leon walked out of what was obviously an adjoining bathroom. Steam from a hot shower followed him into the bedroom as he was towel-drying his hair. Another white towel was wrapped loosely about his hips.
Carla’s mouth went dry as she took in the drops of water on the tanned bareness of his muscular shoulders and chest. The latter was covered in a light covering of the same iron-gray hair as his head, a T-shaped dusting of hair across his pecs and abdomen, before it disappeared beneath the towel wrapped about his waist.
Was Leon naked beneath the towel?
Duh, if he’d just taken a shower, and he obviously had, then yes, of course he was naked under the towel.
Was it wrong of her to wish the towel would loosen itself before falling off completely?
She gave a soft snort of self-derision at her lascivious thoughts. She might be down, but she definitely wasn’t out!
Leon looked up at the soft sound of her laughter, his pensive expression immediately brightening. “You’re awake.” He threw the towel he’d been using to dry his hair onto a chair before striding toward the bed. “And drinking.” He gave an approving nod toward the half-full glass of water she still held.
Carla didn’t even blink, keeping an eye on the towel about his hips while placing the empty water glass on the side table. She was silently willing the towel to come loose as he walked toward her—
“Are you checking me out?” Leon murmured incredulously once he was standing beside the bed.
Her gaze shot up to meet his mocking one. “I… Well… Of course not.”
“No?”
She gave a frustrated frown. “Someone might have shot at us earlier but I’m not so out of it I can’t appreciate looking when there’s a half-naked man in the room!”
“And she’s back,” Leon noted with a pleased grin.
A grin, along with his tousled hair, that gave him an almost boyish appearance. He certainly no longer looked like the suave and sophisticated—the ruthless—Mafia capo Leon Brunelli.
“I wasn’t aware I’d been anywhere,” Carla came back instantly.
“I meant the Carla who takes no shit is back,” Leon drawled.
She knew exactly what he’d meant. But she was enjoying the verbal exchange too much to lose it just yet by thinking, or talking, about the reason she was lying here with a gauze bandage on her temple and feeling as weak as a newborn kitten.
But still one with claws, she hoped.
“I never really went away,” she assured lightly.
“So, what was the verdict?”
She gave a puzzled frown. “Verdict?”
“On the half-naked man in the room.”
Carla moved her gaze slowly—very slowly—down the length of his body. From that tousled iron-gray hair and chiseled features, to his wide shoulders and muscular chest, lean waist, the towel covering his hips and the tops of his thighs, to his bare legs and feet beneath.
Leon might be in his early forties, but it was obvious from the musculature and leanness of his body that he kept himself fit. His complexion was also a combination of a natural olive and an allover suntan.
All over?
Carla hadn’t seen any tan lines, even when he’d walked across the room. Which had to mean Leon had either sunbathed nude or he wore the tiniest pair of briefs.
Whoa, now there was an image that was
