Page 283 of Don’t Say Mafia

By the end, I’d felt like something had been siphoned out of me, leaving a thin, empty version behind.

And at the end of the day . . . I didn’t owe him my corpse. I didn’t owe the world a performance of purity just because it made them comfortable. My soul had almost died trying to live up to what I was supposed to be. The loyal wife. The patient one. The strong one. The girl who stayed.

I opened my eyes and met my reflection. I didn’t look wicked. I looked alive.

Flushed. Shaken. Awake in a way I hadn’t been in years.

Maybe what I’d just done was reckless. Maybe it was messy. Maybe it should just be a onetime thing because a man like Jagger would no doubt destroy what was left of my heart.

But at least it wouldn’t be the slow, suffocating erosion I’d survived before. And that had to mean something.

Despite what Jagger had ordered, I grabbed a paper towel, got it wet, and started wiping at his cum. The damp paper only seemed to smear it further, though, turning the mess into something even more obscene.

I gave up and instead tried to smooth my hair with my shaking fingers, tucking stray strands behind my ears and straightening the neckline as best I could. I had no idea where my panties had ended up—most likely with Jagger since they weren’t in here—but it meant that I had to go back out there with nothing beneath this skirt now but the memory of his tongue plunging into me, his fingers stretching me, and his thumb pressing into my ass while I came apart screaming.

This was going to be an experience.

I took one last breath, still tasting him on my tongue, still carrying his scent in my lungs, and pushed the door open.

As I walked, the noise of the floor rushed back in, and I stepped into it like I was stepping onto a stage, pasting on the same practiced smile I’d had on all night.

I had to pour drinks. Take orders. Pretend my legs weren’t still shaking, that my skin wasn’t painted with him beneath my clothes, that every shift of fabric didn’t remind me exactly what I’d let happen.

But at least I was doing it feeling alive . . .

CHAPTER 23

JAGGER

Sweat ran down my spine and soaked into the waistband of my shorts as I circled Cruz, the canvas scuffing under my bare feet. The underground gym smelled like rubber mats, leather polish, and the metallic trace of old blood. The lights overhead buzzed, throwing long shadows against the walls.

We were both shirtless, our chests slick and gleaming, our muscles pumped from the hour we’d already spent beating the shit out of each other. My knuckles ached under the wraps, but the burn was welcome—anything to drown out the noise in my head.

Eden hadn’t answered a single text all day. Not one. After last night—after I’d had her legs wrapped around my face, her screams echoing off the bathroom tiles, her body shaking through three orgasms while I drank down every drop of her—she was ghosting me like none of it had happened. Like I hadn’t marked her chest with my cum, hadn’t felt her pulse racing under my thumb as she came apart.

Cruz feinted left and drove a hook into my ribs. I took it without flinching and came back harder, snapping his head to the side with a clean right.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, stepping back. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Maybe,” I said, rolling my shoulders and stalking forward again.

She wasn’t allowed to act like nothing had happened. I’d felt her. Every reaction. Every tremor. She’d looked at me like I’d lit something up inside her that she didn’t even know was still alive.

And now she was pretending she hadn’t.

Cruz ducked my right hook and grinned like an asshole. “What’s got you so pissy? Eden still playing hard to get?”

I landed a solid jab to his ribs that made him grunt and back up a step. “Fuck off.”

He laughed and bounced on his toes, sweat flying off his pretty-boy hair. “It’s hard when I can smell the desperation from here. You look like a kicked puppy who just realized his favorite toy has teeth.”

Cruz feinted left, then snapped a quick combination that clipped my guard. “You’re swinging like a man who just discovered his dick shrank an inch,” he continued. “I’m assuming Eden finally revoked your imaginary boyfriend privileges, and now she’s ignoring you?”

I drove a sharp jab into his ribs. He grunted, but he was still smiling.

Snarling, I drove forward with a left hook that caught his shoulder. “She’s not ignoring me. She’s . . . processing.”

“‘Processing,’” he repeated in a voice thick with mockery. “Is that code for ‘she woke up and realized she should file a restraining order’?”