I dressed quickly and watched as she pushed her camera into her bag. That and the laptop she used looked expensive. I guess they were the tools of her trade, but it also showed that she was a serious and successful journalist. I was proud of her for achieving her goals, but it made me wonder what she was doing with me. God, I hoped this wasn’t just a pity fuck.

“Do you want to get breakfast here?” I asked, going for a casual tone. “You didn’t eat anything after lunch yesterday.”

She shook her head.

“No, it’ll take too long. You must know some little café we could stop at? Maybe on the lake?”

“Yeah, okay. But I need to swing by my place first and pick up a few things.”

We headed down to the lobby, and while she went to settle her bill, I collected my bike from the hotel’s underground garage.

Then I drove to the front entrance and lifted the visor as I reached for her suitcase.

“Where are you going to put it?” she asked, her voice bemused.

It was a good thing she traveled light, because I was going to have wedge the suitcase between me and the handlebars. I nodded at her to get on behind me.

It wasn’t exactly legal to travel like that, but we weren’t going far.

When I cut the engine outside my apartment, Caro pulled off her helmet and almost fell sideways off of the bike. I couldn’t help smiling at the chagrined look on her face.

“Nothing to laugh at, Hunter. Just because you’re about a foot taller than me,” she huffed.

“Shrimp,” I said, then had to dodge out of the way as she tried to swat my backside.

“You’re feisty this morning,” I grinned at her. “I think I like it.”

She muttered something I couldn’t hear—probably just as well.

I grabbed her suitcase and opened the door into the hallway.

“Sorry,” I told her, “no lights.”

My apartment was at the top of three flights and I’d chosen it for the view. I didn’t need much, but it occurred to me that it might look a bit bare to her.

“This is it.”

She stepped into the room and gazed around, an oddly blank look on her face. I frowned, trying to see the place through her eyes. The walls were painted white, and my single bed was covered with a USMC-issue blanket and pushed against one wall. Some old paperbacks were resting on the bookshelf and my dress uniform was hanging from a hook on the wall, still inside a drycleaner’s bag.

I had a wooden chair by the window and a chest of drawers next to the door with my iPod and laptop.

I pointed toward the window.

“It’s got a great view.”

Caro walked over to stare out across the tiled rooftops toward the lake.

“Yes,” she agreed softly, “very pretty.”

I shrugged. “It’s all I need.”

She turned away, taking a moment to flick through my books.

I resisted shoving my hands into my pockets. Shit like that got drilled out of you in the Marines, but I felt exposed having her here in my room.

“Still the Conrad fan,” she said, her voice sounding tight, like she was in the grip of some strong emotion.

Because I read Conrad? I know ‘Heart of Darkness’ isn’t exactly a chuckle a page, but it’s a classic, right?

“You should get yourself an e-reader,” she said, trying to find a normal tone of voice. “The whole of Conrad’s oeuvre for two bucks.”

I was reaching under the bed for my overnight bag, so my voice came out muffled.

“Yeah, I guess I should—if I knew there’d always be somewhere to charge it up when I’m in some shithole Stone Age village.”

I was being polite, but an e-reader would have been fucking useless for me when I was in Iraq or Afghanistan. With the kind of jobs I was given, I didn’t get to go back to the main camp at night; I’d be in some godforsaken village, eating air-dried goat, and trying to persuade some village elders to work with us. I could be gone for weeks at a time. And even some of the guys who got stationed in the ass-end of nowhere like Helmand Province where I was going next, they could be there for months. No laptops or skype chats, just 20 minutes of sat-phone home a week, if you were lucky. Not that I’d ever had anyone to call. Most of the time I gave up my minutes to one of the married guys. It was hard enough to keep a relationship going when you were overseas.

I tossed my bag on the bed, then pulled a bunch of my t-shirts out of the drawers, along with skivvies and a couple of pairs of socks.

“What happened to all the colors?” Caro blurted out suddenly.

Puzzled, I turned to look at her. For some reason she looked upset.

“Sebastian, the most colorful thing in this room are your Dress Blues,” she cried. “The first time I saw you again, you were wearing those ridiculously bright red boardshorts.”

I looked down at the pile of white t-shirts, gray briefs and black socks. I kind of saw what she meant. And I remembered those boardshorts.

“Oh yeah. I’ve still got those somewhere. In a box in Ches’s garage, I think.”

“It sounds like Ches has all your worldly possessions.”

I could hear something that sounded like sadness in her voice, although I didn’t understand why.

“Pretty much. I didn’t take a lot when I left my parents’ place. But what the hell—it’s easy to pack up and move on when you’re not laden down.”

She looked so sad and I hated to think that look was for me. I didn’t need her pity. I changed the subject.

“Caro, how much of this stuff do you need?” I asked, pointing at her suitcase. No way we could take that into Italy.

“I definitely need my laptop and notebooks…”

“I mean clothes, Caro. I wouldn’t dare suggest to a reporter that she goes anywhere without the tools of her trade.”

“That’s right,” she said sharply. “You’d just stop her going where she needed to go in the first place.”

Were we back to that? I wasn’t going to apologize again for wanting to spend time with her. I decided that ignoring her comment would be best for both of us. Maybe she thought the same thing, because she started digging through her suitcase and putting clothes into my overnight bag.

“See,” she said, pointing. “Pink, green, blue, yellow and orange t-shirts. These are called ‘colors’. They’re what you get when you’re not wearing black, white or gray.”

“My jeans are blue,” I smirked at her.

She rolled her eyes. “So they are, Sebastian. Way to go.”

“I could maybe get into colors,” I commented, holding up a really fucking sexy lace bra in dark pink.

“I don’t think it would suit you,” she smiled.

“No,” I said evenly, “but I’m really looking forward to taking it off you.”

“That’s assuming you get lucky, Hunter,” she shot back. “You promised me separate rooms, remember?”

Ah shit, I did say that, didn’t I?

“You’re not going to hold me to that, are you, Caro?”

Her bright smile was teasing.

“I don’t know—depends how irritating you are.”

“What if I promise to be on my best behavior, ma’am?”

“Mmm, maybe. I was impressed how well you took orders earlier today.”

Oh fucking yeah!

“And there’ll be payback for that, Ms. Venzi,” I said challengingly.

She tried to step away as I paced toward her, but I caught her in my arms, brushing against her cheek and kissing her throat.

“And I’m looking forward to collecting. Maybe we should christen this bed,” I said, tugging her toward it.

“Christen it?” she said, sounding surprised. “I would have thought it had seen plenty of action.”

I paused, looking up at her. She still didn’t get it.

“No, you’re the first woman I’ve brought here. It’s … private.”

Her eyes widened, then she wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling my head down, meeting my lips with a kiss that had me hardening against her thigh.

“We’ll christen it when we get back,” she whispered.

“Something to look forward to.”

She pulled away and continued with her packing. It didn’t take long. Not like some women who take an hour just to re-touch their lipstick and put on a sweater. I guessed that being a journalist she was used to packing fast.