“You left me,” he says before crushing our mouths together. I return the embrace, but he must have noticed me wince with pain at the pressure of his forearm on my upper arm. When he pulls away, his eyes widen as he looks at my arm.
“What is this?”
Blood has seeped through the make-do bandage and stained the sleeve of my scrubs. Maybe due to the pressure Lorenzo exerted or the warm air in the flat, the injury begins to throb painfully again. He pulls me away by my other arm and leads me down the hall.
“Another attacker,” I explain to his back. “In the hospital. Stabbed me when I caught him attempting to kill Leblanc.”
“The same people.”
“I believe so.”
“Tonight I saw men hanging around outside the hospital gate. I parked my motorcycle and waited in the bus shelter across the road from the hospital to meet you. But something about these men did not feel right. And then the alarms went off. When you left the grounds and headed into an alleyway, one of the men pointed at you and began to follow. Luckily, I remembered you picking out the disguise you were wearing. That’s when I came after you on the bike.”
Lorenzo pulls a stool from beneath the sink and makes me sit. Opening a cabinet, he pulls out a pair of scissors and removes the sleeve material.
“I wonder if they trailed me home last night.”
“That was me. My apologies. I wanted to surprise you. But before I could, Teresa phoned me to check in and advised me to hold back and observe. As always, her advice paid off.”
I hiss in a breath when he dabs a cold, damp sponge around the wound.
“Where is this other man?” asks Lorenzo. “The one who tried to kill Leblanc?”
“Unconscious. Tied up. I imagine the police will have him in custody by now.”
“Good. Okay, I am going to look at this wound.”
Using his fingertips, he probes the gash, then grabs a bottle of antiseptic solution and cotton swabs to clean the area. I pull away from him when he unzips a black pouch containing an array of curved needles and suture threads.
“Is that necessary?”
“You have just been cut with a knife. How can you be scared of a needle?” he asks, amused, then pulls out a large syringe of clear fluid. “This is military-grade surgical glue. Let me close the wound and bind the arm with a waterproof dressing. Then we will shower together.”
After removing the rest of my shirt, he works quickly and efficiently to bandage the cut, then tells me to undress and step beneath the rainfall shower. I stand with my eyes closed, head tilted back, letting the steady fall of hot water wash away the night’s fatigue. When his naked body lines up against my spine, his chin lands on my right shoulder, and his hands clasp around my stomach, I allow myself to melt back into the embrace. I feel Lorenzo’s arousal pressing into my backside, something I am still not ready to allow.
Instead, I grab a bottle from the shower shelf and squirt conditioner into my palm. After shifting my feet apart, I position him between my upper thighs while providing generous lubrication to his cock. Catching on quickly, he rumbles with pleasure in my right ear and moves slowly in and out. There is something to be said about the non-invasive sensation of frottage. One of his hands travels over my chest and stomach before grasping my erection and pumping in time to his movements. As we move faster together, both in sync, his breathing becomes more rapid, our dance getting quicker, suds forming around my balls and drifting down my inner thighs.
Eventually—inevitably—he rasps out a cry and comes, and I am not far behind. We cling to each other and savour the meld of bodies and the fall of water before sharing a flannel to soap each other and clean ourselves.
As I dry off, I watch him towel himself down, studying his shock of black locks, lean muscled body and familiar tattoos that cover half his body. I’m amazed at how quickly I feel more alive and substantial with Lorenzo in the same room. Even the throbbing of my arm has lessened. Still naked, he leads us through the flat to a small bedroom with a double bed.
“We sleep for a few hours,” he says before pulling back the quilt and guiding me into the bed.
I usually eat before sleeping at this time of the night, but I know the pangs will soon fade, especially with the heat of Lorenzo’s body aligned against my back. I am almost drifting off when he begins to speak.
“I rode my bike here. Left Rome Tuesday morning and arrived Wednesday. I travelled through the night. Teresa made me come and find you. Told me if I didn’t, she would come herself. Romano does not know about this. He thinks I flew from Rome yesterday. But I was going fucking crazy, Gabriel. I had no way to call you, and not hearing is worse than torture. Teresa’s advice was right. You were lucky to have a third eye watching over you tonight. We stay together from now on. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Correct answer. Now sleep.”
Lorenzo rouses me in the morning. My arm is still sore, but I’ve slept soundly and wake feeling better than I have in weeks. He tosses me a fresh pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a fleece, and I dress while he is in the kitchen. Once I finish, I follow the aroma of coffee into the living area, where Lorenzo has a speaker for his mobile phone hooked up to a laptop.
“Come. Drink coffee. Before we take breakfast, we need to call this in.”
Using his forefinger on the trackpad, he activates a call, and the voice of Dr Romano comes down the line. They share a brief greeting in Italian before Romano asks a question.
“Is Aksel with you?”