Page 2 of Cruel Tyrant

“Are you always this petty?” I manage to squeak out, but now he’s moving and dragging me along with him. “It was an accident, you dickhead.”

“No, my spill was an accident. Yours was very much on purpose.” I stumble in his wake, barely keeping up as my poor ankles are on the verge of rolling over. “If someone accidentally bumps your cart in the grocery store, do you stab them in the neck?”

“That’s a totally different situation,” I complain even though it’s kind of not.

“I bet you’d knock a little kid over at the park if one accidentally stepped on your foot.”

Okay, now he’s just being funny. “Probably, and the little shit would deserve it,” I say and try to yank myself away, but he’s not letting go. “Where the hell are you taking me? Hey, seriously, what are you doing? I said sorry, and I’ll pay for your pants, I swear.” Fear creeps into my throat as we approach the bathrooms, and now I picture myself bent over a sink with my panties in my mouth as this asshole rips my dress up over my hips—and while it’s an extremely disturbing fantasy, I can’t deny the heat gathering in my core.

There is something very twisted and broken in my head.

Here’s the thing. I haven’t had sex in a really long time. Not since college—back when I was a little wilder and freer and not everyone knew my family well enough to keep their hands off me. It’s not like I was throwing myself around or whatever, but I had a healthy and normal dating life, and plenty of opportunities to explore my physical urges with safe and attractive partners, most of which I happily followed through with.

But now it’s been almost three years since I graduated. Three long, dry, terrible years of vibrators and finger stuff in the shower. Giorgia keeps saying I need to just go out and get fucked by the first decent guy I meet, but she doesn’t really understand what would happen if my brothers found out their precious little sister had a filthy one-night stand. I’d rather not have blood on my hands all because I needed to get dicked-down in a bad way, and that’s why I’m basically humming with need right now from one single filthy comment from an absurdly attractive man.

I’m not proud of myself, but a girl’s got needs.

Chapter 2

Stefania

My mystery kidnapper storms into the men’s room with me staggering after him. The place isn’t crowded, but every head snaps in our direction like a bunch of horrified birds staring at a predator. He leaves me standing near the sinks feeling like I’m about to spontaneously combust when two more big guys come in after us. They’re big and wearing black, nondescript outfits, but I know their type intimately: enforcers, the sort of men paid to be intimidating and violent. The pair starts clearing the place, hustling the pissers and keeping anyone else from entering.

“Everyone, get the fuck out,” they bark and start rushing the poor whizzing dudes, making them finish up and kicking them out.

“Keep it clear,” my kidnapper says and the two big guys depart, leaving me in an empty men’s room with a very big, slightly damp, and wildly attractive stranger.

Warning bells scream. I’m a product of my family, and I know the kind of men that travel with a pair of bodyguards. If we were in some other club, I might not be so worried, except this place is owned by my brother, a prominent member of the Rossi Famiglia, and it’s usually crawling with mafia and mafia-adjacent gangsters.

I would get crucified if anyone from that world knew I was alone in a bathroom with a strange man.

“I didn’t know you had an entourage,” I manage to say because my excitement’s wearing off and I’m starting to think I should’ve tried a little harder to escape.

“Dry yourself.” He starts pulling out paper towels. “Don’t ever say I’m not a gentleman.” And there’s that smile again. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and I’m absolutely sure he’s fucking with me now.

I have a split second where I can choose how this is going to go. I could make a run for the door or just start screaming until someone gets security for me. I could use all the self-defense my brothers taught me and jab my fingers right into this dickhead’s windpipe.

Or I could decide to play along and do something dumb and reckless with a man I’m extremely attracted to, even if I’m being dumb and reckless in a way that might get me killed.

“You made the mess,” I say like I’m speaking from a vast distance, my brain no longer in control of my mouth, “you clean it up.” I arch my eyebrow and quirk my lips, challenging the bastard to see what he might do.

My heart’s racing like crazy as he takes a step toward me until my ass is pressed against the sink and he’s pinning me there with his body. He looms over me, absolutely huge and impossibly large, a hard stare on his face and I’m wondering if I read the situation all wrong, because he doesn’t look like he’s in the mood for anything but violence.

“Say that again.” His voice comes out rough like granite dragged across leather.

“I said, you clean me up.” I’m a lot less confident now with him looming over me like that, and once again my impulsiveness has gotten me into trouble. I’ m seriously contemplating another knee attack when he puts his hands on my hips and hoists me up onto the counter.

I lean back on my hands, breath coming in ragged and quick. His mouth opens and he licks his lips as he stares from my mouth to my throat and all the way down the front of my body. My thighs are bare and sticky with alcohol, and I whimper when he pushes up the hem of my dress until it’s barely covering my panties.

“Are you sure that’s what you want, baby girl?” he asks and his fingers curl until they’re gripping the top of my underwear. That’s when I notice his left hand and the mottled skin that snakes up his arm—not tattoos like I thought at first, but a slew of burn scars, ugly and old. If he minds that I’m staring, he doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sure,” I whisper because right now I’ve already gone further than I ever thought I would, and now I want to find out what he’s going to do. If he brought me in here because he really thought he could help dry me off, that’s almost sweet—but this man doesn’t strike me as the type to play the savior.

He reaches up with that scarred hand and grabs onto my hair, pulling it back. I gasp in surprise as his mouth finds my throat, peppering the soft, exposed skin with soft kisses. His stubble tickles, and his lips are surprisingly soft, and my mouth’s watering as he presses himself tighter between my legs until he lands his lips directly onto mine.

I groan into that kiss, grinding my hips and erasing any space between us. I’ve never made out with a total stranger in a bathroom before in my life but I’ve been so damn pent-up and repressed for three long, brutal years, and now I’m finally letting loose a little bit. Giorgia would be proud, except I don’t want to think about her right now—I just want this man, this stranger, this hulking brute of a monster, this overgrown hunk of meat.

His kiss is intense. His tongue invades my mouth, not gentle, not slow, but filled with passion and hunger. I taste whiskey and mint, and I’m starving for more as I drink him in, my tongue playing around his. God, it’s a perfect kiss, the kind that sends tingles of anticipation directly into my core and makes my nipples so hard I’m afraid they’re going to rip through my dress. It’s the kind of kiss I haven’t had in a very long time, if ever, and I don’t want it to stop as I breathe him in and run my fingers through his hair, but he pulls back and kisses my neck again, a little snarl on his lips.

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