The Rossi villa was a fortress of stone and whispers, but even fortresses had cracks. Adriana had learned them well in the past weeks—the unguarded corridor near the wine cellar, the hidden chapel door that opened to the gardens, the shadowed path through the orchard where Damian waited when the moon was high.
Tonight, she moved through those cracks like a ghost, her heart hammering with every step.
He was there, as he always was, leaning against the fountain where roses climbed the trellis, his shirt half undone, his eyes hungry the moment they found her.
“Adriana.” Her name left him like a confession and a claim.
“Damian,” she whispered, and in two steps she was in his arms, the world dissolving into the heat of his mouth on hers, his hands desperate against her back.
It was reckles
