Page 47 of Revenge on the Mafia

Papá was gone. No matter what I did, I couldn’t bring him back. He didn’t just die. He had to go like that. Slaughtered like he hadn’t mattered. It didn’t matter how beautiful he was. The outward appearance of beauty still locked a monster inside.

I reached my decision in a pulse point. My hand gripped the wooden handle. My arm snapped out. The air whizzed past me with the speed of my movement. The point spiked into his neck.

I readied my body for impact, but only the tip had grazed it. I was so out of sync that it took me a second too long to realize what had happened. His arm behind his head had moved and was lodged around my wrist. Holding it in place.

A choke of despair barreled out of my throat. It was mixed with fury and relief. ¡Joder! His eyes were still closed. How had he blocked me? Maybe it was instinct. I jerked back, but he was faster. In one swift move, my arm was almost pulled from my body when he yanked me to him. The force of it toppled me onto his chest.

Layers of skin, a sternum, and a still-beating heart behind it. The beat of the bass might as well have come from him. I struggled. He gripped my ass, pulled me off my feet, and I landed fully on top of him. My palm went to push him away, but he caged it against his chest. Then his eyes locked with mine. Not a hint of sleep in them. He was seated. On his bed. I was straddling him. He’d trapped me. I realized that just as his cool tone slid down my spine like ice.

“Took you long enough.”

He didn’t give me time to react. To think, to plot, to explain. To run. With a force that shifted the air, his lips smashed into mine. It was intense. Intoxicating. And it dragged me down into a surge of lust. It shocked my senses. My mouth dropped open. His tongue slipped inside, bringing in heat and liquid that made my nerve endings sizzle.

His hand fell from my wrist. Next to us, the knife surrendered with an innocent thud. His grip on my ass tightened. His nails sank into my skin. Sparks of pleasure and pain rushed to a place they shouldn’t have. His other hand ran through my hair, fingers coiling and uncoiling in my locks. For some reason, it felt like a vibration. As if his hand were shaking.

It was erased from my memory when he yanked me closer and sank his teeth into my lips. The taste of copper exploded in my mouth.

I shouldn’t have liked it. I bit back the moan that was crawling at my throat. A thick groan of lust surged within his body. He had me gripped so tightly in his arms I was almost pasted to him from top to bottom. And below. The thick, hard rod prodding me insistently was exactly what I thought.

Something shifted. When I knew better. He was the figure of desire, and God help me, I wanted him. He was wearing sweatpants. Hidden underneath it was something that made me feel. When I had felt nothing for so long. I couldn’t stop myself. I was greedy. My hips rocked against him. The thickness of his erection ground against the slickness of my panties. A low groan of lust vibrated from his body, and I felt it in every fiber of my being. I wrapped one hand around his neck and sank the other into his hair. It was so soft. Like velvet matched to the abrasive touch of his hands or the rough tone of his groan. My nipples brushed against his chest. Cotton that felt like sandpaper scraping against my pebbled nipples. He possessed me. Each lick, suck, and bite on my mouth meant to destroy me.

He did a fine job of it. Pleasure dizzied my mind. My pulse thrummed in my body. My heartbeat raced out of my rib cage. Heat embraced my breasts. I hovered between wondering if I was about to have a cardiac arrest or fall apart from all the hinges holding up my weak body. I wanted to rip his clothes off his back. I wanted to rip mine. But there was no time because every time I grated on his thickness, electricity zapped to my clit and rushed up my body.

I moaned. Half sobbed. Desperate to get to that high. The pressure building and building but not enough to spur my release.

“Por favor.”

His hand gripped my ass. Squeezed. Spread them wider. Then brought it down hard on his erection. The wet silk of my panties was a lubricant against his pants. I stilled. It was just what I needed. The red rush of heat flushed through my body. My muscles pulsed. Clenched. My nails dug into the nape of his neck. And fire lit me up from the inside.

¡Joder!

Pleasure wrung out of my body. His lips released mine, scattered down my neck, where he buried a rough groan in the dip of my shoulder. Then he jerked under me, his hand digging into my ass. I was so far gone into my own pleasure that I was only half aware of his.

My heartbeat rushed through my body. But there was never a high without a downfall. Mine came as sharp as the force of a slap on my face.

¿Qué he hecho?

What have I done?

I snatched my hands off him. My skin burned with guilt as I stumbled off him.

“Stop.” His voice didn’t sound anything like him.

I didn’t have one.

I’d done something worse than avenge Papá’s death. I’d ridden his murderer for my pleasure. There was nowhere on earth I could go to forget that. Nowhere in hell I could hide to survive the truth.

“Anna.”

I didn’t stop. I ran. Then I stood outside barefoot with a bag in my hand and shoes somewhere in it. The chill air bit into my skin, softer than regret and guilt. My hands trembled too much to handle a phone. So I walked. I walked and walked until I limped. Then I limped to the next corner and called an Uber.

When it came, the driver gave me a look. I knew what he would see. A woman who’d sold everything, forgotten everything for one ride of pleasure.

In the entire ride in the back seat of the quiet electric car, all I could hear were my loud, explosive thoughts while shame kept me company.

Papá hadn’t deserved this.

I couldn’t save him that day. Because I’d been a coward.