I can’t breathe. I can’t think.
“Your hair. Your mouth…”
Adriano’s free hand traces my lips. Then he screws his eyes shut, discomfort and embarrassment warring on his face.
The frenzied death I thought was gone, hovers close again. If I upset this man right now, if I offend him, he will kill me just to save his heart. I touch his scarred cheek. “Adriano, I need to go. I need to see my Zia.”
His green eyes bore into mine. “I saw you.”
My heart aches, because he did. He watched me dance when no one else would. Too tall and too busty to be a ballerina, he didn’t care.
His breathing is ragged now, his fist still working his cock and as scared as I am of him taking me, I’m more scared of what will happen if he doesn’t.
“You hunted me,” I whisper. “You caught me. Please take me.”
He closes his eyes, green lamplights dimming. It’s just the two of us alone in his bed. The last people in the world. The hand on his cock slows and he angles himself between my legs. My body aches, my clit is flushed, and I know I’ll come while he fucks me. I’ll come screaming and shaking and pleading for more, and my husband, whoever he ends up being, will not be the first man to make me feel these things. Adriano Rossi will be. I close my eyes, waiting for the moment my pussy stretches to let this brutal murderer inside me. “Please be my first,” I whisper, as a small tear drops from my eye.
The head of Adriano’s cock rubs against me but doesn’t penetrate.
I buck my hips, urging him inside me. “Take me. End this.”
“Pryntsesa…” Adriano rears back like a stallion, looking me right in the face. I don’t know what he’s trying to see but he doesn’t find it. He bares his teeth and then he’s above me, his fist juddering across his cock, one hand grasping my breast.
His cum is thick and warm as it rushes across my hips and stomach. He throws his head back in a snarl, a grizzly bear straining against a trap. It’s over. Adriano finished without penetrating my body. I am still, somehow, a virgin.
He turns away and I hear a zipper snarl. “Let’s go.”
“Adriano?”
He looks at me, his expression as hateful as the night I arrived in Velvet House. “We’re leaving.”
Chapter Eighteen
Adriano Rossi
January sits boltupright in the car seat beside me. I told her to put on makeup, enough that anyone who knows her wouldn’t recognize her right away. She’s done a good job. Heavy gold eye shadow, pink cheeks, shiny red lips. The clothes help. A thin little nothing of a dress and the ruby necklace and sky-high heels Eli bought her. She looks like a snotty little socialite.
She stares straight ahead, her green eyes vacant. I want to break her head open and read her thoughts. Is she thinking about what we did? Or is that calm, empty expression for her future?
After I was done with her, she picked up one of my T-shirts and wiped my cum off her stomach like she’d been doing it her whole life. “Can I go see my Zia now?”
It was like my head had been turned inside out. I’d finally touched the girl who danced in my dreams and the only reason she’d allowed it was to get her own way. I wanted to throw her back in her cage and hide the key. Instead, I pushed myself to my feet. “If I take you to see your housekeeper, it’ll be the last thing you do on US soil.”
She looked at me, her back straight and her mouth steady. “I know.”
She packed her bags, and I shaved and dressed. By the time we collected an unmarked BMW from the underground garage, neither of us looked like ourselves.
January’s already got a new identity. Eli had it made when he was still deluding himself that he’d send the girl to Naples. Isabella Bianco. I’ve got her passport, driver’s license, and an AMX card with ten grand on it. When we get to international departures, I’ll shove her on a plane with all three and watch her fly to freedom. Morelli’s going to be livid, and Doc and Bobby will throw hands, but eventually, they’ll appreciate why I did it.
This girl is trouble. Abducting her was a needless risk that all of us undertook for different reasons. Or maybe it was the same reason in the end. We all wanted her closer and that was a mistake. As long as she’s with us, things cannot be right. Sending her away is the only thing that can bring the scale back to balance.
Teresa Calderoli is a patient at St. John’s Private Medical Center. It looks more like a mansion than a hospital and the parking lot is full of Porches. Considering Calderoli’s a housekeeper, someone stumped up serious cash to keep her here. Parker or the Whitehall bitch.
I park the car and scan for anything suspicious. Bobby’s intel says Parker’s men abandoned the hospital after three days without us or January showing up. Still, no reason to make things obvious. I reach into my glove box and pull out a pair of clear black framed glasses. The scar on my face is always identifiable, but clean-shaven in a tailored suit and glasses, I don’t look much like Adriano Rossi. I turn to the girl. “Ready to go?”
“Do you usually disguise yourself as a stockbroker?”
She seemed so serious in the ballet studio, so solemn and small. But here she is making fun of my clothes. And back in my room, she acted like my gun-fucking her mouth was a kink of mine. It must be Doc’s fault. He’s always been a bad influence.
