“So what’s today’s problem?” she asked and then hissed as he cleaned a cut on her heel with an alcohol wipe. “Me?”
Enzo grinned at her and then went back to wiping her feet. He pulled out an adhesive bandage. “If only all the problems were as easily fixed as your feet.” He pulled the paper off the bandage and smoothed it over the cut on her foot.
“I wasn’t talking about my feet,” she said as she tried to pull them from his grasp.
He held them firmly as he met her gaze. “What are you talking about then?”
“You said you were saddled with me. I’m sorry I’m a problem. This whole mess is because of me, and I’m sorry you got dragged into it. I hate being a problem to be solved.” She tried to say it without her voice breaking, but it cost her, and her eyes filled with unshed tears.
Enzo pulled her feet over his lap and leaned forward with an arm braced on the wall. “Kathleen, you are not a problem. This mess would have happened whether you were involved or not. Rocco, Bianca, and Vitale would have made sure of it.”
He tucked a knuckle under her chin and nudged, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I hate to admit it because it doesn’t paint me in a very heroic light, but I am damn glad you’re in this with me. I wouldn’t want you to be anywhere else. I know I should want you safe, and I do, but I’m a selfish bastard, and I want you with me. I like having you close,cara.”
Her heart slammed against her ribcage. She licked her suddenly dry lips. Everything he’d just said crowded out every other thought, and damn! he was sexy. He just said all the right things. It was stupid. He represented everything that had turned her life into a major upheaval. He was connected to the mafia, and she should be running away as fast as she could. She should want to be safe somewhere else, too, but all she really wanted was to be right here. With him.
Because, at the end of the day, she felt safer with him than she’d felt in the past eight years.
She wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged his hand away from her face, only far enough to lift his forefinger to her lips, where she pressed a kiss to the tip, then stroked it with her tongue. His pupils flared, transforming the green of his eyes to something molten, and he gasped.
Her lips curved as she slid her finger between his. “I don’t think you are close enough, Enzo.” She arched her back, lifting her breasts toward his torso.
The low growl in his throat thrummed over her excited nerves, all her previous terror forgotten in the urgent need to be as close to him as possible. The heat of his palm as it landed on her ankle was pleasantly searing. He lifted her left leg from his lap, and repositioned it around his hip, then he lifted onto his knees
She shifted her hips and clamped her legs around his torso. Her skirt fell to her thighs, revealing the white silk panties, the damp fabric leaving her core open and nearly exposed to him. Enzo closed the distance between them, his eyes never leaving hers. She dipped her gaze to his mouth, then surged forward to press her lips to his. Her tongue slid out to stroke his lips, and his hands came to her shoulders. His mouth was aggressive on hers, his kiss drugging, compelling.
Kathleen scooted closer to him, her buttocks brushing his thighs, and he lowered one hand to her hip, then slid it under her butt and lifted. His mouth left hers but landed again on the cloth between her thighs. She threw her head back and pressed down on her heels, trying to eliminate any space between them, wanting his tongue, his fingers, his cock inside her right this minute.
She dropped her back to the uncomfortable mattress behind her, but pressed her hips up. Enzo balanced her hips between hispalms on her ass, squeezing in time with each kiss he pressed to her still-clothed clit. Her hands moved, one to his chest, fingering the solid muscle under his shirt, the other moved to her breast, and she palmed it, giving it a squeeze, pretending it was Enzo’s long fingers circling her nipple. The sexual lethargy encompassing her left room for every other sensation to rule, greed, lust, longing…
“Off, Enzo. Please take them off.”
The smile lighting his face as he lifted his head was beatific, transforming his features to a crazy mashup of angelic and satanic, and all she wanted was for him to take everything she was willing to give.
In the blink of an eye, his face blanked. He pressed his palm to her lower belly, moving his thumb to her clit where he rubbed small, gentle circles on the bundle of nerves. God, her flesh actually trembled, a sensuous sizzle rumbling through her body like an electrical storm.
“Kathleen,” Enzo’s voice finally broke through the erotic haze that had enveloped her the moment he sucked her clit and stroked his finger along her seam. “Kathleen. Cara,” he said a bit more forcefully.
She lifted her head from the bed and speared a look at him she hoped would melt him. Well, everything about him except his cock. That she wanted hard. And fast. “What? Why are you stopping? Don’t you want?—”
“Ah, cara mia, I want this so much. But do you?” He pressed his fingers more firmly on her belly.
She dropped her head to the bed with a sigh, noticing that he hadn’t stopped the movement of his finger along her slit, and the continuous tap of his thumb on her clit revved her up in untold need. The backs of her thighs rested on the top of his.
Was this really what she wanted? The last time she’d slept with a mobster, her life had been turned upside down. Wouldcrossing the line she’d drawn in the sand cause more heartache and uncertainty? She couldn’t be sure.
A small voice in her heart prompted,But could this man right your life? Correct the course you’ve been on for years? Are you willing to take that chance?
“Cara?”
Lifting her head off the bed enough to see the concern and desire mingling in his expression, she sighed. The excitement dancing in her was more than sexual; it was rooted in stronger emotion.
“I want this, Enzo. I want you. My body and soul come alive around you. It’s like you make me whole in a way I haven’t been for… Please don’t make me beg.”
“Cara, it is I who should be begging.” He stretched up along her body, pressing a path of fiery kisses along the way, and god, she really wished she wasn’t wearing clothes, so she could take the blaze of his lips on her bare skin.
On his elbows, on either side of her head, he lowered his lips to hers and laid siege to her mouth, plundering, thrusting, sucking, nibbling…until no thoughts lingered, and the world beyond their bodies ceased to exist.
She returned each kiss with a passion that had built over the past few days. Good Lord, how had she only known him for days? Such a short time, but sheknewhim. Knew that he was the man for her. He’d protect her, but still treat her as an equal partner. Never had she felt this degree of certainty that a man could be everything to her.
