Alik found the thread easily enough: a document forger in Red Hook, a woman matching Bella's description, and a transaction for a fake new life. A quick visit and some simple threats later, and I had all the confirmation I needed:
Bella Farnassi walked into the forger’s office a year and a half ago, and emerged Bella Creminelli, complete with a driver'slicense, social security card, and the exact employment history she needed to get close to me.
What I ought to have done was fire her on the spot, and reveal to her that I know who she is and what game she’s playing at.
But what I want to do is keep her even closer so that I might drip feed her every bit of doubt until she has no idea what’s right and what’s wrong.
I've spent this entire week telling myself that my plan hasn't changed.
But there's something I wasn't expecting. Something that's been building for weeks, maybe longer, and these last few days have made it impossible to ignore.
I can't stop myself from touching her.
The desire is constant and intrusive. It bleeds into every moment of our interactions. With every chance I get, I push the boundary just a little bit more. I test her to see if this is the time that she’ll ask me to stop.
Each time she allows me to go just a little bit further, until not a single moment goes by that I don’t think about the softness of her skin, the light scent of her hair, and the music of her pulse against my finger.
And I hate that a part of me holds myself in check, like this girl is fucking special when I’ve done far worse with other women.
My hand flexes and I can still feel the ghost of her hair in my fist when I yanked her head back to look at me while I typed in De Savoie’s number. I clench my jaw at the memory of her wet shoulder and try to ignore the heat thrumming in my dick.
She was glaring at me with a renewed challenge and defiance. And it took every fucking bit of restraint in my body to not rip that towel off her body, push her against the wall, and hate-fuck her until my cum is running down her thighs.
But I never do.
I tell myself that it’s because I’m holding out for the exact moment when shebegsme for it, but I know that’s a lie. I want to punish her, that much I know for a fact. I want to turn my rage for her piece of shit brother into something I can take out on her.
But each time I slip into the fantasy like armor, the armor keeps slipping, and I know what I want to do is drain the air from her lungs with one deep kiss after another before I savor the rest of her body.
The attraction is wrong, and I fucking know that.
She's Luca'ssister. I shouldn’t want her, I should hate her. And the fact that Idowant her is the maddening part. Because if I can want her, then I can even dare to imagine something else.
Something forbidden.
Blyad.
I look up into the sky and pound my fist against the door of the car. I close my eyes, but all I see is Bella’s wet hair, dark against her copper skin. There was a flush to her cheek from the heat of the shower. And droplets of water were both pooling around her feet and drip-drip-dripping down her hair.
She wasn’t wearing that fucking necklace, and without that necklace, my anger and hatred refuse to ignite.
Instead, there had been a tightening in my pants and a haunting emptiness shifting in my chest. Neither of which I wanted or liked, because both of those are dangerous things to feel for someone I’m supposed to hate.
I look back down and that’s when she walks out of the front door, and just the sight of her is enough to take my breath away.
She’s stunningly beautiful.
Her long dark hair is swept up to expose the line of her neck. Her cocktail dress is thin and dark. It clings to her curves in ways that send my blood burning with frustration and anger. Her lips are painted a shade of red that makes me think of blood and wine and bruising kisses between breathy moans.
But then I see a familiar seven-pointed star sitting in the valley of her breasts on her chest, and the fire roars back to life.
I welcome it.
The necklace gives me permission to hate her, and I need that permission because without it I'm just a man watching a beautiful woman walk toward me with his heart doing something inconvenient in his chest.
The anger burns, but the pulsing heat of desire never goes away, and every drop of blood in my body is going straight to my dick until I can hardly think straight.
I clench my jaw so hard that I’m sure my teeth are about to crack.
