“I fed him to Cid.”
My heart drops. “What?”
His mouth kicks up into a cocky grin. “Kidding. I took him to the rooftop garden and let him loose in a patch of spinach.”
He takes a slow sip of his drink.
Relief washes over me. “Thanks.”
“It was better than listening to you screaming in there about a little spider.”
“He was kind of big,” I defend myself. “Sorry for screaming.”
I’ve been afraid of spiders since I was a kid. I know it’s an irrational fear, but that doesn’t keep me from reacting viscerally every time I see one.
“Don’t be. It gave me an excuse to see you naked again.”
I swallow hard, my pulse speeding up. As if sensing the tension in the room that’s suddenly thick enough to cut with a knife, Cid leaps off his lap and pads away. Alessio just keeps sitting there watching me, his ocean-blue eyes eating me up.
“I hope you looked your fill,” I force out. “Because it’s the last one you’ll be getting.”
He rests an arm along the back of the couch, totally calm and absolutely devastating, all at the same time. “Don’t lie to yourself.”
“I’m not.” I point emphatically between him and me, needing to clear the air for him as much as for myself. “You and I are not happening again. Ever. What happened in St. Thomas was a huge mistake. A one-off. That’s all.”
He holds my stare, luring me in, holding me. Keeping me. I feel like he’s peering into the darkest places inside me, the desires I didn’t know existed until him. He can see it all. He knows the truth I keep hiding from myself.
“You want me,” he says.
And all the breath seeps out of my lungs. I can’t take in any air. He’s stolen it. He’s everything, watching me like a jaded ruler on the dais in his empire of sin.
“I don’t,” I manage. “You can keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, mobster.”
My bravado is all a show. Idowant him. Every molecule of my body is hyperaware of him in a way that is onehundred percent alarming. But I can’t afford to allow this smug, dangerous Mafia sex god to know it.
He lifts one cocky brow. “Prove it, then.”
Alessio takes another slow, steady drink from his glass, holding my stare as he does. No way. This is a trap I’m not falling into.
“I don’t have to prove anything to you. Thanks for saving the spider. I should get to bed. Night.”
I turn and start walking away, knowing that the longer I linger, the less likely I’ll be to leave without doing something incredibly stupid. Like throwing myself into his lap and begging him to fuck me again just one more time.Sonot doing that. I’ve just escaped from one toxic relationship, and the last thing I need is to get tangled up with a ruthless criminal.
“That’s what I thought.”
I’m almost out the door when his smug voice cuts through me, stopping me in my tracks.
I turn back to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t prove it because it’s true. You do want me.” Calmly, like he isn’t tearing me apart with his words, he drinks from his glass.
Like he has all the time in the world to dissect me and play with me. Like he’s enjoying this. And maybe he is.
Maybe I am too.
What does that say about me?
“I don’t have to prove anything to you. I’m not playing your games, Alessio. I’m here because I don’t have a choice, not because I want to be.”
