Page 70 of Revenge on the Mafia

I stared at him. “Like you?” I croaked.

He shook his head. Stared to the side before bringing his gaze back to mine. For a second, he looked almost pained. “Better. Way better.”

My mind was chaotic. I tried to dismantle his words. “I thought he was just an accountant.”

“That was just a cover.”

I swallowed. A cover? The ugly head of doubt came crawling for me. He watched me. Waited for another question. He would probably have answered all of them. But somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to ask them. I was not so sure that I wanted to hear the rest of it.

He took my silence as consent. Snapping my thong to the side, he buried his head between my thighs. I’d punished him. He gave it back to me tenfold. Splitting my lips open, he shoved his tongue deep inside. Instantly, I bucked underneath him, melting into heat and liquid under his attack. He didn’t relent. With one hand, he pinched my clit while he tongue-fucked me like there was no tomorrow for either of us. I groaned. I whimpered. I held onto the back of his desk and rocked my hips in his face. He muttered things. All Italian. I didn’t have the brain capacity to think or act on them. Then he ran his tongue from entrance to top and sucked my clit into his mouth. It was the trigger I needed. It set me off. I gripped his head, my body convulsing as I came screaming. It kept going on and on and wrung my body out. When I finally came down from it, it felt like my bones had melted into liquid heat.

When he came up, his lips were thick. Glistening wetness around them. A shiver of shame ran through me. But I forgot it under his heated focus. He looked at me with such longing. I knew he wanted to be inside me. Bare, like he’d done the last time. How did he know I was protected? My glance dropped to the thickness behind his pants, and a need ran in my veins, too.

But he stopped it instantly. With words I hadn’t asked for. Words that he gave anyway.

“He was helping us.”

My body turned to ice. “No.” I shook my head. Papá was good. He wasn’t a thief. He wasn’t the bad guy. Every time the accusation resurfaced in my memory, I pushed it down. He couldn’t have been involved in crime.

His face turned bitter. Reading the words on my face. “He was forced into it.”

I fumbled to sit up. “¿Por qué? I don’t understand.”

“I told you. Nothing could get past him. He could see numbers like no one else did,” he snapped.

I pulled back at his tone. He regretted it instantly and reached for me. I backed away. “No me toques,” I snapped. The last thing I needed was his hands on me.

I’d held onto the hope that Papá was innocent. That it had been a random kill. But his talent was what had gotten him killed. Heartbreak ripped through me. I mourned the man he had been. The one who could have done so many things other than what he’d done. He could have left a legacy instead of being forced into the Mafia. The hot prick of tears burned my eyes. I needed to get out of his face. I refused to let him see me break.

But somehow, he knew. Even when I shoved him away weakly, he gathered me into his arms. I curled into his chest, hiding the silent stream of tears. He brought me again to his bed. And again, he left me there. Alone. With sobs that wrenched out of me the moment the door shut behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ANNA

“You’re changing,” the low baritone of his voice slipped into my skin. “Now.” The command set my teeth on edge. I should coax out another reward just for using that tone with me.

I scowled at him while my skin filled with a familiar energy. Like liquid heat injected into my veins.

He studied me from the bottom of the stairs. Dark intensity in his eyes.

I took him in leisurely. He wore a suit that should be advertised as a sex invitation. Molded so perfectly to him that it made me wonder if they had pasted it to his body and how he even removed it at night. How would he look naked if he looked this good in clothes? In the back of my mind, I stored another question for him. Had he ever thought of modeling? That laser sharpness combined with his tousled hair… he could probably do video too with that seductive timbre in his voice. “Can I tell you what to wear, too?”

Our gazes hooked. The only thing he gave me was an indifferent stare.

“No?” I cocked my head, the imbalance he created in my emotions rattling at something inside. “Then I can wear whatever I want,” I said, following my reckless words with a few steps down.

He crossed the room and met me at the bottom. I stopped two steps above him. He was a slab of marble inconveniently blocking my way. The long black dress I wore tingled in all the wrong places, as if it were a physical touch. In the swell of my breasts, in the dip of my waist, and in the heat between my legs.

“Change. Now.”

He was so close I could feel him on me. His scent, teak and cider. His touch, a memory bursting with heat. Tension climbed into the room like smoke rising from the floor. Three days of avoiding each other ignited into a flame. I wasn’t sure I wanted more revelations. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give me more answers. But the thing was, I was beginning to want him. His words, his touch, his taste. My conscience clawed at my soul.

“What’s wrong with this dress?” I asked him, but the memory of how he ripped the last one trembled on my lips. I wiped my tongue over them to erase it.

He stared at my lips and said, “Nothing.”

“That’s settled then.” I took another step down. He remained fixated on the spot. I knew what he wanted. He’d walked into my room in the morning and, as if we were a normal couple, told me his sister-in-law had arranged for a party. But we weren’t normal. We had a deadline for our marriage. Secrets between us. And questions. So many questions. Dangerous ones. But also, chaste ones. Like, where did he sleep? Then he’d casually told me to wear the dress in the closet. When I found it, another question popped up. A dangerous one. How did he know my style? It was fuchsia. Long. Flowing with a slit in the front that teased my mid-thigh. Anna of eleven years ago would have loved that. Not this Anna, though.