“But I don’t beg any man to taste me.” I smile against his cheek. “And I sure as hell don’t offer free samples.”
Kingston chuckles, the rumble deep and sonorous, and then the moment shatters when his phone buzzes against the counter. I groan before I can stop myself.
He stiffens immediately, glancing over at the screen.
“Fucking Bronx,” he mutters as he pulls away andanswers in that clipped, businesslike tone that makes the air around him go cold. “What.”
He listens, and whatever softness had lingered in his expression disappears like smoke.
He curses in Italian, the words sounding sexy even though his tone is glacial. Ending the call with a swipe of his thumb, he turns to me, every trace of dark desire snuffed out.
His shoulders are squared, his expression tight, the man before me once again the heir to a bloody empire, not the one who just touched me like I was worth his time.
“What happened?” I ask, already knowing I won’t like the answer.
“Someone leaked internal Viacava records,” he grits out. “Files that weren’t meant to exist outside my family home. Financials, locations, personnel. Names.”
A chill skates down my spine, settling at the base of my neck.
“How bad is it?”
“We’ll know soon,” he replies, already reaching for his phone and the towel slung around his neck, the shift in him so abrupt it’s like whiplash.
He moves toward the hallway without looking back, but then, as if something drags at him, he pauses just before disappearing from view.
His eyes meet mine one last time, and whatever’s behind them is shuttered.
But his voice, when it comes, is colder than I expect.
“Looks like we’re out of time, princess.”
16
KINGSTON
“You can’t just say that we’re out of time and walk away from me,” Livvie says, grabbing my arm before I can walk out of the kitchen. “Out of time for what?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations,” I say through gritted teeth, trying like hell to ignore the sensations coursing through me when her fingertips dig into my arm, searing my flesh. I can’t let her see what she’s doing to me, what I stand to lose if I give in to what my body is begging for.
Her face is taut, lips pulled into an angry line, brows furrowed. The vein on the left side of her forehead throbs as it always does when she’s pissed off, which is pretty damn often. Admittedly because of me.
I put my hand on top of hers and peel it off. “Don’t fucking think you can put your hands on me like that, princess. You’d better remember who you’re dealing with.”
The static crackling in the air between us electrifies the tension in our connectionbut I can’t let it throw me off course. The files that were leaked will have damning consequences for my family, and now for her, by association.
I need to figure out exactly what else was on that USB drive Roman gave her. If he had access, then it’s because Cormac gave him the order to build evidence against us for whatever reason. Leverage, most likely.
And who the hell knows if she has ongoing contact with that douchebag? I have her under surveillance so I know where she's going and when. But I can’t control whether or not Roman tries to contact her again. That USB had family records on it but Bronx said there was still shit that his trusted hacker, Pearson, was trying to decrypt.
Roman wanted Livvie to have that USB, not me. Maybe he was gonna walk her through a way to access the data, to use it against me somehow, maybe as a threat to get herself out of this marriage.
Her hand balls into a tight fist and for a second, I wonder if she’s gonna try to take a swing at me.
“I am so fucking tired of feeling like a ping pong ball when I’m around you,” she says. “You don’t just run hot and cold. You go from scorching magma heat to frigid Mount Everest temperatures.”
Christ, I want to fuck that snark right out of her.
I lift an eyebrow, relishing the look of frustration etched into her features. I’d told her that mouth was gonna get her in trouble and if I had time, I’d definitely make it so. “For the record, I’d like you a hell of a lot better naked than if you were buried in a Canada goose snowsuit.”
