Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(5)
I took your shirt hostage. The ransom is three kisses. Pay up or the whole wardrobe gets it.
? J
Roma laughed under his breath, rolling out of the blankets and grabbing the trousers that she had been so kind as to not also take hostage. Mornings in late September meant that there was the slightest chill in the air when he opened the bedroom door, but he still padded into the washroom without finding a second shirt, taking his time brushing his teeth and flattening his hair. He knew where Juliette would be waiting. They had adopted a regular weekday routine, and these early hours were for whatever entertained them the most, because the real work and meetings didn’t start until noon, when their suppliers started driving into the township to bring stock and their hired help came around with equipment and messages and whatever else the business needed.
“Has anyone ever told you,” Roma began, opening the front door, “that you leave threats like a gangster heiress?”
“Never heard that once in my life,” Juliette replied without missing a beat. She turned over her shoulder to look at him, perched at the canal with her legs dangling over the edge. A ray of sunlight lit her frame in a perfect rectangular block, putting a gleam in her eye and a redness to her lips that he wanted to consume whole. It didn’t matter that he had kissed her until they were both delirious last night. It didn’t matter that he had her forever and ever to kiss, past death and into whatever afterlife existed. He still couldn’t get enough of her.
Juliette’s eyes dipped delightedly to his chest, then back up again, grinning like she could tell what he was thinking. She probably could. She’d probably thrown on his shirt over her pajama shorts knowing exactly what it would do to him to see her like this, the sleeves slightly too long and the collar askew, the dip of her clavicle more visible than it had any right to be.
With an exaggerated sound of effort, Roma dropped himself down beside his wife, forcing a frown.
“I only came outside to get my shirt back. You’ve left me shivering like a sad little ragamuffin.”
A breeze blew along the canal as if to emphasize his point, rustling the weeping willow tree to their right. The leaves looked like translucent fairy wings, every shade of green as bright as emeralds. Though the waters always gave their surroundings a bite, the sun was warm on his bare shoulders.
“Pay the ransom, then.”
“You’ll make it that easy for me? No further extortion?”
Juliette leaned forward, her eyes crinkling. “Maybe I won’t give it back after the payment. Start counting up to three, and I guess we’ll see.”
Science could tell him that the ground was below his feet and the sky was above his head and the early light of day was upon his back. Roma wouldn’t listen. To him, Juliette was the sun.
He closed the space between them, eyes shutting a heartbeat before their lips made contact. It was second nature to him, a function easier than breathing. She was made for him, and he for her; his inhales were finished by her exhales, their motions anticipated by the other even if it was something as mundane as Roma lifting his hand for the dishcloth and Juliette sliding it his way before he had spoken aloud.
Roma cupped her neck, his fingers brushing the smooth locks of her hair out of the way before sinking down to her collar.
“One,” he murmured against her mouth, undoing the top button and beginning his mission to get his shirt back. “Two.” Their lips brushed again, the contact luxuriously slow. The next button snapped open. Juliette made a noise at the back of her throat that sent his every nerve ending into overdrive.
“Three—”
“Stop making babies on the front stoop!”
Juliette tore away, so startled by the voice calling across the canal that she would have tipped right into the water if Roma hadn’t recovered quicker and clutched her elbow to right her. Succeeding in frightening them, their old neighbor—Mrs. Fan—gave a great big cackle, propping her bucket higher on her hip and turning the corner to go around to the front of her house. She had walked out from her back door, which was directly connected to a set of stone steps that led down to the canal for laundry.
“Tā mā de—not cool, Fan nǎinai!” Juliette shouted after her.
“Sorry, sorry, get back to it! I’ve been waiting for more kids around here, so I guess it’s fine even if you make it a public activity….”
Her voice faded off as she got too distant to hear. Juliette huffed.
“It was not a public activity. There aren’t even any windows facing us.”
Roma resisted the urge to laugh when he knew it would only make her madder. In the first few months after they had settled in Zhouzhuang, the townspeople had been much colder toward them. Rightfully so, since no one knew where Roma and Juliette had suddenly popped up from. Then Juliette started bringing fish to the doors of every old woman along the main canals, and Roma would braid flower crowns for the children who played by the largest stone bridges. Though the townspeople still suspected that the two must have fled from something unlawful, they had come to treat Roma and Juliette like their own.
“I suppose that was our own fault. Come on, we’re going to catch a cold.”
Roma led them inside, giving up on getting his shirt back as he fetched a new one from the closet. It was hers now if she wanted it; he could afford to buy another in the exact same shape and color. Though they had started trading weapons as the avenue they knew best, it also happened to be a lucrative business, bringing in enough that they would often reject clients if they didn’t like what the weapons were being used for.