Page 26 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

“Not my problem.”

“What if I never get out of here? I don’t want to die a virgin. Or what if I’m sold to one of those sleazy men? I don’t want my first time to be rape.”

Fury pounded in my veins. “I won’t let that happen.”

She scoffed and shook her head. “You didn’t stop them from taking me before.”

I moved my gaze across the room, unable to look at her. “Exactly. I’m not your hero. I don’t feel anythin’ until it hurts. And I’d make it fuckin’ hurt. If you had a single brain cell, you’d stay away from me and my dick.”

I closed my eyes and shifted onto my side, ending the conversation before it ended me. The real reason I wouldn’t fuck her? What if I killed her? What if she screamed in pain and I lost control? I didn’t like that I even cared whether I might hurt her. I didn’t like how human she made me feel.

If she could do this, get me talking for the first time in months, and have me breaking every rule I’d made to survive this life just to protect her, then fuck knows what I’d do if I fucked her and liked it. I didn’t trust the version of myself I’d become. If I let myself want her like that, it would only destroy us both.

Hurts So Good

Well, that went disastrously. Even the crazy killer who had meaningless sex with paid women wouldn’t fuck me when I practically begged. Was I really that pathetic?

After what had nearly happened to me, I knew I didn’t have the luxury of waiting any longer. I was being honest when I said I’d thought this through. Now that I knew he wasn’t one of McKenna’s men, I felt I could trust him a little more.

I picked at the skin around my nails, fighting back my anxiety as a plan took shape in my mind. I needed to prove I wasn’t a fragile, innocent doll he might break. Maybe he wasn’t in the mood because he was injured, but I didn’t mean for us to have sex tonight, obviously. I just wanted to discuss it. Put it on the table. I didn’t expect it to be shut down so aggressively.

He was confusing. Was this sexual tension all in my head? The fuck-me eyes from across the bunker for days were leading… nowhere? Perhaps I’d been misreading the signs, and he wasn’t interested at all.

But his dick was hard. It’s been hard since I started tending his wounds. He said he and his dick weren’t on the same page. What did that mean? His dick was attracted to me, but he wasn’t? Urgh.

I’d hoped that reading nearly every smutty romance there was would make me less clueless, but the reality of actually seducing a man was a minefield of live bombs. One wrong move and it could all blow up in my face. Or, hopefully, he might blow up in my face if I made the right move. Or he might kill me for annoying him so much.

For days, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how his fingers felt inside me, or about the obsidian flecks in his eyes that glistened in the light whenever he looked at me as if he wanted to eat me alive. I’d even become mesmerised by the annoyingly sexy shape of his lips, a perfect bow, especially when he scowled. I’d watched him work out enough times to acknowledge that his body was a work of stunning, sadistic art. The tattoos, the scars, the muscles, the power. He was so beautifully dark, like the Florentine fortress with its distinctive exterior and solid, thick walls built to withstand bloodshed.

So I was clearly attracted to him. Did that mean I liked him? I wasn’t sure yet. He was a moody asshole ninety percent of the time. But I still wanted to have sex with him.

I refused to be a victim of ill fate. I would not have my virginity stolen by some overweight, twice-my-age rapist, or by an egotistical, twisted soldier wanting to boast to his mates about how tight my pussy was. Yes, I’d rather have rough sex with the unfeeling, hot, tattooed killer, because at least it would be on my terms. Or so I thought.

Humiliation tried to take root, driving my anxiety higher. Invasive, unhelpful thoughts flooded my mind. Rejection and a sense of abandonment always triggered them. I recognised that after years of therapy.

When Monster sat back down on his bed and let Donal drag me away, those familiar feelings returned. I knew I shouldn’t project my issues onto him. He owed me nothing. I never expected him to protect me. But I thought he’d at least grant me a pity fuck as an apology. Instead, he rejected me, and I had to sit there, watching a bruised and battered man toss and turn in pain, wondering what I could do to convince him to have sex with me.

He finally gave up trying to find a comfortable position and pulled himself back up to sit against the wall. He tried to hide the wince as he reached for his bedside drawer, opened it, and grabbed his packet of cigarettes. Lifting one to his lips, he lit it, and then stared at me through the smoke, those dark eyes smouldering like burning coals.

“Get some sleep,” he ordered.

“Can’t. I have to make sure you stay awake for at least one more hour. Duties of a night nurse.”

“I’ve survived without one up till now; I’ll be grand.”

Cristo. That deep, thick Irish accent made my insides melt into warm, gooey liquid. It was both raspy and smooth, and it wasn’t helping to dampen my attraction to him at all. But I’m glad my body felt safe enough around him to allow me the courage to talk, so I would forever live with memories of his voice.

“Do you need some more paracetamol?”

“No.”

I rolled my eyes. “So you aren’t writhing around in pain?”

He ignored me, taking a long drag and then blowing smoke towards my face. I stared at him, refusing to look away. It was odd, this connection between us. I’d never been able to look people in the eye easily. It felt too intimate and exposing. But with him, I felt safer when his eyes were on me. When he looked at me like he was at that moment, with his deep scowl and raging intensity, it didn’t make me want to hide. I wanted to delve into his mysterious mind and figure him out. He was possibly the most intimidating man I’d ever met, and that was saying something, but I wasn’t scared of him. Yes, he was violent, rage-filled and unpredictable. All the things my twisted brain seemed to find alluring. But if he was going to kill me, he would have done it by now.

That was why I felt stupidly brave. Brave enough to lean from the chair to the end of his single bed, on my hands and knees, and crawl towards him. Nervous energy trickled through my veins, but not the kind that flared my anxiety. It was different. A good nervous, like flutters of uncertainty that excited me.

He didn’t move, not even when I crawled between his open thighs and rested my hands on either side of his hips. He held my gaze the entire time, a silent challenge flaring between us. Would he stop me? Or would I lose my nerve?