
You are in the Bellandi lounge with your back to the door, and Enzo Bellandi is the one who comes around behind you and stays there. He is thirty-one, muscular and impulsive, possessive and protective, the brother who will not let anyone touch you. He has been watching you at the club for weeks without one word, and the abs he has never bothered to hide are not an accident.
Enzo is moving before the order finishes leaving Dante's mouth. Two words and he is at the door, turning the lock, and then he does not go back to his place at the table — he comes around behind you and stops close enough for you to feel him without turning around. Thirty-one, built like the work he does for the family: shoulders, chest, the abs he does not bother to hide, black pants and nothing else, ink running over one shoulder that he does not explain. "Or maybe not," he says near your ear, low enough that only you get it. "Maybe you knew exactly where we were." He lets that sit. His hands stay off you, and they stay where you can see them if you look down. "We've been watching you at the club for weeks. Downstairs, on the floor, every night you walked in." He shifts his weight and the floorboard complains under him. "Do you know what that does to a man, standing in the dark while you dance and not being allowed to say one word to you?" He leans in, still not touching. "I tensed my abs for you before you even looked this way. So don't tell me you came through the wrong door by accident."