“I’ll take it.”
“Sarah.” My name is a scold, a call, a declaration of love. The swell between my legs increases as if a rock was dropped in the exact same place in the pond.
“I want your fear.”
“I’m always afraid, Sarah.”
So deep in his eyes, I see it. His fear is small, but bright, and constant, and raw. It’s the fire under everything else, and the rippling waters of my pleasure will never put it out.
“I want your love.”
“You have it.”
“Your trust.”
“Yes. Look at me, Sarah.” He moves slowly, with his mouth so close to mine that we share his words. “Look at me. You have it.”
I want his respect and his joy. I want his tenderness in a way I’ve never been allowed to want anything. I want his very soul and no less, but I can’t say it while locked in his gaze, with every syllable building in my throat turning into a single vowel of surrender.
From ten miles above, I hear his voice groaning “yes, yes, yes,” as he joins me in heaven.
We don’t say a word, lying there wrapped in each other. There’s no vocabulary to define what just happened.
The effects of it are temporary, and the world intrudes.
A musical dinging comes from somewhere in the room. He groans and picks up his pants, reaching into the pocket for his phone.
“Tamara.” He looks at me as he listens to the response, then presses his lips tight. “Let me get you on speaker.” He touches a button and says, “Repeat that for Sarah.”
“Hi, Sarah.” She sounds as if she’s speaking softly into a tin can.
“Hi.” My reply is weak with the shock of Dario including me in a conversation about my own phone.
“I pulled the data delivery schedule for Sarah’s carrier. The towers aren’t delivering ping data in real time. They batch compressed folders on a schedule. Upside for the carrier is less stress on the network. Downside for law enforcement and their benefactors is that you can’t get around the schedule.”
“How long do we have?”
“Sixty-three hours, seventeen minutes.”
“And the other number? Denise?”
“Landline. Data pings on the cell side are the same.”
“Thank you.” He’s about to cut the call when Tamara pipes in again.
“I’ve changed her routing to a VOIP out of Siberia. Which I would have done in the first place if you’d told me.”
“Next time.” He kisses down the length of my arm with a reverence that turns rough inside the elbow.
“Next time.” She hangs up.
He throws his phone aside and kisses my shoulders in earnest.
“I want my phone back.”
“I’m getting you a new one.”
“What if Denise calls that number?”
He backs up to look me in the eye.
“You’re very smart, Sarah Colonia.” He leans back. “And very brave.”
“What does that mean?” I sit up. “Yes or no?”
“It means yes, even with a new phone number, you’ll get the call. You can still jump into danger for your friend.”
“And you still trust me. Even after me doing a stupid thing.”
One eye narrows a tiny bit. I expect him to say he has yet to punish me for calling Massimo, and just to prove he can—he will.
Instead, he takes my right hand, where I put the snowflake ring.
“When I put this on your finger…” He removes the old ring. “I stole you. I didn’t care about anyone or anything. I didn’t earn the right to have you, so I took you. You’re not a stolen thing anymore. You’re not my prize. I said a lot of things before, and for some of them, I’m sorry.” He kisses the base of each of my fingers, back and front. My palms are damp again, but he doesn’t seem to care. “But you are dangerous. You’re too well-intentioned. You’re a pain in the ass, and you might get me killed. Whether you agree to marry me or not, I’ll die a better man because of you.”
“You won’t die.”
“I know I’m a terrible person.” He lifts my left hand and kisses it around the new diamond. “Will you marry me anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” He kisses my lips.
I hold the diamond up to the moonlight. It’s not just fire. It’s electric. It’s a sky full of falling stars.
This ring is a “yes.”
Yes, I will marry him.
I will stand beside him, with him, and for him.
I will sin in his name.
I will not leave him behind.
CHAPTER 30
SARAH
At first, I pretend to sleep to make sure he drops off. He needs the rest. But it’s hard not to relax in his arms, and the pretending turns real.
Of course, he’s not next to me when I get up.
Putting on a robe, I look out the window. The garage door is open. I pad down there.
The Audi is still there, and the cover’s been removed from the other car to reveal its shining black paint and white pinstriping. It’s lifted from the floor and Dario’s legs stick out from the underside as he makes metal-on-metal noises. I assume he doesn’t know I’m standing here. I’m wrong.
“Can you get me the socket wrench?” he says from under the car. His grease-streaked hand sticks out from under the chassis, palm up expectantly.
I can only see him from the waist down, lying on a big sheet of cardboard. Greasy jeans. Black boots. T-shirt riding up just enough to reveal a tease of hair between his navel and his belt.
Stepping over him to the cloth where he’s laid out the parts and tools, I only take a moment to admire the promise of what’s under his jeans. “Which one is that?”
“The silver one that clicks.”
There are three, so I take a guess, handing him one that looks like an undersized lollipop on one side and a six-sided tube on the other. It must be right because I get no complaints, just the clicking noise he warned me about.
“Calipers.” His hand is out again. “Looks like a crocodile head.”
I try to pick up the tool, but it’s flatter than the wrench.
“Thank you.”
“What are you doing?”
“Been meaning to swap out the brakes for awhile.”
“I mean… why are you doing this now?”
“You can’t drive it with manual brakes.”
“I’m driving?” I say with both fear and excitement.
“Can you get me the light?” I give him the little flashlight. “’Ank-oo.”
Kneeling, I look under the car. It’s raised about a foot, still leaving very little headroom. Dario’s laid a bright light on the end of an extension cord near his crown, making a near-blinding halo around his head. It’s obviously still not enough. He’s got the flashlight in his mouth, trying to see around a corner.
I slide in next to him and take the flashlight from between his lips. At first, he’s disconcerted to find me there. Then I put the light on the calipers, and he turns his attention back to his work.
“I can’t teach you to drive before you go. There’s not enough time for that.” He takes a little sliver of metal from his chest pocket, jams it between two other pieces of metal I have no name for, and measures with the calipers. “But I can get you started.”