Staring into my eyes, he lifted a piece of hair that had fallen from my scarf onto my neck, and then let it fall again. He traced the strand with his finger, over my pulse, and then down the gold chain and the cross at the end of it. The cross rested against my pounding heart, where his calloused fingers lingered.
His touch was fire against my heated skin. My blood started to boil, but a shiver felt bone-deep made me tremble all over.
My mouth parted at the same time his hand came around my neck and pulled us together, my body moving with his like fire in the wind, our lips crashing, our tongues tangling.
A moan, soft and trembling, left my mouth, and he drank the sound down.
Walls slammed against my back as we moved from spot to spot, something uncontrolled and wild forcing us together, refusing to let us part.
A frustrated noise left my mouth when he pulled away from me. It was sudden, a rip, a tear, in something with no name that demanded more of the stitching—the creating of something life-changing.
My sister cleared her throat. When I met her eyes, it seemed like she had been clearing her throat. She stood at the open door, men behind her, with her hands on her hips, blocking their entrance.
The leftover fire from that kiss seared my cheeks, and I pushed past her and the men, engulfed. She was blinking furiously when I did, trying to hide a smug grin.
“Attraction, Alcina,”mymammaonce told me,“is desire in waiting.”
What mymammadidn’t tell me was that, once I gave in to it and it was set free, there was no going back to that room with four walls and no windows.
Loscorpionehad dragged me someplace, but it did not feel like the hell I had imagined. His hell felt more heavenly than anything I had ever touched in my life.
* * *
I liftedmy head from the steering wheel of the van when I heard someone open the doors and place a box in the back.
Loscorpione.
I groaned, but not loud enough for him to hear. I needed some time to breathe. To recover. To make sense of the senseless.
He climbed in beside me after he set the box I had forgotten with the rest.
“What are you doing?” I said in Sicilian.
He stared at me for a minute, those eyes unnerving me with their intensity. I felt like I could not take in air properly when he looked at me like that … when he was close … when I thought of him. I could not escape him even in dreams.
“My name is Corrado Alessandro Capitani,” he said in perfect Sicilian. “I am a wanted man—by enemies and by the law.”
“I know that name,” I whispered, and my hand was on the door before he could put his on my arm to stop me. We stayed that way for a while, his touch blistering my skin. I looked out the window, refusing to look at him. “How much is the price on my head worth?”
“To me…” He paused. “Invaluable in worth.”
“Will you hurt me?”
“No.”
“Will you kill me?”
“No.”
“Will you—bring me back?”
“That’s the deal I made.”
“You will have to hurt me or kill me to do it,” I said, my voice firm and unwavering. “You should have let theviperaget me.”
His grip on my arm turned almost painful, but I let it flow through me. Nothing could compare to the thought of living a life with the bull and hisfamiglia. “I would hurt or kill myself before I give you up,” he said.
My head turned slowly, our eyes meeting. “Why?” I whispered.
