He bites his lower lip and tucks his head down, a sexy half grin curving the lips that I can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try. “We both know why you’re here. That doesn’t change the fact that you want me. Just admit it. Your nipples have been hard all night long.”
And they’re still hard. Damn him.
“Maybe they’re always that way,” I defend, crossing my arms over my chest.
This is a ridiculous conversation to be having. I should go. But for some reason, I’m still standing here. I can’t leave. Or maybe it’s that I don’t want to leave.
What’s wrong with me?
“They’re not always that way.”
It’s my turn to be cocky now. “Are you saying you’ve been looking?”
“It’s impossible to not look at you.”
We stare at each other, the air between us crackling like live electric wires downed in a storm. My heart pounds hard. There’s nothing I want more than to close the distance between us. To kiss him. To get him out of my blood like the poison he is.
It takes all the self-possession I have not to.
I force a smile I don’t feel. “Guess you’ll just have to keep looking. Good night, Alessio.”
This time, I don’t stop when I walk away.
Chapter 15
SAINT
“You better have some fucking news for me,” I growl at Scorpion when he breezes into my office at Andriani Brothers Contracting.
I’m in a vile mood and it’s not entirely his fault, but he’s going to bear the brunt of my wrath anyway. I spent last night tossing and turning, barely able to sleep knowing Isla was a few doors down.
Scorpion gives me a look. “You want the coffee I brought you on your head or in your lap?”
True to his word, he does have two tall black coffees in hand, one for him and one for me.
“Just give me the coffee,” I grumble, reaching for it.
He passes the to-go cup off and drops into the seat opposite my desk. “You’re welcome,frattore mio.”
I drink the coffee, unimpressed that it’s not taste-bud-searing hot.
I glare at him over the top of the cup. “It’s not as warm as it should be. You stop somewhere between the café and here?”
“It’s called city traffic, dickhead.”
“You better watch your mouth,stronzo,” I warn him.
But we both know I won’t do anything about it. My brothers are all I have. We may harass the shit out of one another, but I would die for any one of them and I know they would do the same for me. We’re in this fucked-up world together, and if we don’t have one another’s backs, we may as well already be six feet under.
“Do you want news or not?” he asks, the cocky fucker.
“I already told you that you better have some fucking news when you walked in here, didn’t I? So, spill.”
“Sidorov is back for good,” he tells me. “Looks like there’s going to be a shift in who runs the Bratva territory here in the city. He’s top of the food chain now, and he wants everyone to know it.”
Fuck.
Mikhail Sidorov is apparently a thorn in my ass that isn’t going to go away any time soon. This isn’t what I was hoping to hear, but it does explain his efforts to big-dick us with Isla. He’s a sinister bastard, and he knows that fear is as powerful a weapon as any gun.
