Page 13 of Jealous Vows

“You are Mario Luciano’s treasured niece.Calling you by your name is inappropriate, but we’re beyond the formalities of last names.What would you have me call you?”

“Why would calling me by my name be inappropriate?”she challenges.

Itskand tuck her hair behind her ear.Goosebumps pebble on her arms.

“Your uncle came back from the dead,bambolina.I won’t insult him by being so bold.”

“Oh, but a romantic endearment is fine?”she argues.

I chuckle, lean into her space, and boop her nose with my fingertip.

“Who said anything about romance?Isn’tbambolinaalso for sweet little innocent dolls who steal the hearts of everyone around them?”

“I’m not a child,” she scoffs.

“And I’m closer to your uncle’s age than yours,” I quip.

She lifts a disbelieving brow and gives me a skeptical once-over.

“How old are you?”she asks.

“Thirty-six.”

She blinks.

“You’re thirteen years older than I am?”She crosses her arms over her chest and lifts her chin in defiance.“Thirteen years is not a generational gap.Just call me by my name.”

I squeeze her thigh.Her sharp inhale tests my control.I slip my hand higher until she clamps her knees together.

“Whatever you say, Sienna,” I murmur.

Her wide eyes pierce deep into my soul.I chuckle at her startled stare.

Instead of pulling her across the bench to straddle my lap, I exit the vehicle, stride around the trunk, and open her door.She accepts my hand and wobbles to her feet.

Her reluctance to enter the hotel is obvious in the set of her shoulders, but I make a display of giving her both keycards to the room and shooing her into the elevator alone.

“No one would dare admonish such a pretty little doll for taking her time, so don’t rush,bambolina.I’ll be here,” I vow.

The mutinous glint in her eyes warns of retribution, but I step back and let the doors shut between us.After watching the elevator stop on her floor, I return to the front desk and buy another key to her room and book the rooms on either side of hers.

I sit on the couch in the lobby, pull out my phone, send a few messages, and lean back to people watch.Expecting to wait at least an hour, I jolt upright when Sienna emerges from the elevator less than twenty minutes later.

Lust and inexplicable rage tear through me as every male turns to gawk, but there’s no one to blame for her clothing except for me.

With my oversized shirt hanging off one shoulder, exposing her collarbone, bra strap, and the upper swell of her breast through the collar, the bottom hem cinched tight around her waist by some twisty magic, and a strip of her midsection exposed above my sweatpants, which cling to her hips only because she gathered the drawstring as tight as possible, she’s a wet dream in the flesh.Add in her high ponytail and flushed, dewy skin from a hot shower, and no straight man can resist fantasizing about doing the most debauched things to her body.

I clear my throat and wipe all emotion from my face before rising and meeting her halfway across the lobby.

The next few hours will be pure torture, but eagerness thrums through me.The more she trusts me, the more it’ll hurt when she realizes the entire reason I approached her was for revenge.In the meantime, no one else will lay a finger on her.

Sienna Luciano is mine to hurt, humiliate, and torture.

She’s my vengeance.

I can’t wait.

Chapter 5