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But the entire house was empty.

Forty-Five

ANDREA

We’d stayed the night in the city… and it had been absolutely amazing. Best of all, there had been no remorse. No guilt about sneaking away, no worries about being found out or having to get back in time.

And the whole thing, strangely enough, had been Holden’s idea.

We’d wandered the nighttime streets for a bit more, just the three of us. Me in the middle, with my two gorgeous SEALs holding my hands, pulling me close. We saw the city shut down. The people turn in. It was all so beautiful. So breathtakingly romantic.

It was well past midnight when we found the inn. The woman at the front desk gave us a double-take as we paid for a single room, but vacancy was vacancy, and money was money.

The place was quaint… and small. Together we peeled our clothing down to our underwear and jumped into bed together, with me nestled between them. Then we all fell sound asleep… with me wrapped in my lovers’ arms.

It was the best four or five hours of sleep I’d ever fucking had.

I woke to the sound of Randall, snoring like a buzzing chainsaw. Just as the first light of day was filtering in, through the tiny window.

“You up?”

The voice came from my right. I spun to face Holden, shielding my morning breath with a giggle.

“Did he ever not snore like a lumberjack?” I whispered.

“Nope. Always.” Holden smiled, reaching out to touch my face. As his fingers trailed gently across my cheek, his eyes went to the window. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

I practically snorted. “Of course I am!”

“Good. Let’s go.”

We got dressed quietly, although I’m pretty sure we could’ve played the accordion and not woken Randall up. A few minutes after that we were walking the cobbled streets, on the most epic adventure of anyone’s early morning: the quest for coffee.

It didn’t take long to stumble upon a street vendor, just setting up for the morning crowds. Two double-espressos later, we were wandering along the Via Teatro. Looking out over the Theater of Taormina, a crumbling horseshoe-shaped amphitheater built in Roman times, more than two-dozen centuries ago.

“Perfect place to drink our coffee, no?” said Holden, ducking beneath the bars of the steel fence.

I gasped in surprise, and then followed. “I can’t believe you’re breaking the rules like this!”

“Yeah, well believe it or not I’m as stir crazy as the rest of you,” he replied. “And I’m getting well past the point of ‘fuck it’.”

We climbed halfway down the steps of the ancient arena, and sat down right in the center. The crystal blue waters of the Ionian sea lay spread out behind us. In the other direction — beyond the theater’s stage — the volcano of Mt. Etna loomed, smoking in the distance.

“Gladiators used to fight here, you know.”

It was hard to imagine. A place of such beauty, immersed in blood.

For a minute or so we sat side by side, huddled over our steaming beverages. The whole theater was soon cast in a magnificent golden glow, as the sun finished emerging from the sea.

“Randall told me why you’re after Kyrkos,” I said abruptly.

Holden continued staring forward as he sipped his coffee. His handsome face had more than the usual amount of stubble on it.

“He did, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess… I guess I just wanted you to know I understand.”

His lips went a little tighter, his eyes just a tiny bit more narrow. The SEAL’s body language told me what his mouth would not. That no matter how good my intentions, I couldn’t possibly understand.