Page 18 of Ruthless Mafia Heir

She wants to protest, but she can’t. I move my thumb a little closer to her mouth, watching as her lips part with ease. She wants this. Oh, she wants this.

And, unable to hold myself back any longer, I sink my mouth into hers and kiss her for the first time.

The moment our lips find each other, it’s explosive. I slide my hand from her face to her waist, pulling her in close, needing her, wanting her, craving her in a way I’ve never craved anything before in my life. A part of me expects her to pull away, but she grabs my arms, her nails scratching along my biceps, her lips parting as she allows me to push my tongue deep into her mouth and feast on the taste of her properly.

Her hands slide down my sides as I let my hand drift to the small of her back, cupping her and pulling her against me. I can feel the throbbing of her heart against mine, and as she lets out a soft moan into my mouth, my hardness starts to swell in my pants.

And then, suddenly, before I can push her up against that wall and fuck her just like I’ve been wanting to, she pulls away from me. I catch my breath and push a hand through my hair, staring down at her. Her eyes are dark, her lips slick, and her breath is coming hard and fast. Oh, I know she felt that between us, just as clearly as I did. No matter what kind of games she wants to play, she desires me, too.

"I need to go," she blurts out, as though she’s convincing herself just as much as me. I’m about to reach for her and tell her there’s no way in hell she’s going anywhere without finishing what we started, but I think better of it.

I’ve never been the kind of guy to chase down a girl. I want her to come begging for everything she needs. She’ll come to me when the time is right.

And when she does, I’ll take great pleasure in teasing her just like she’s teasing me right now. I watch as she makes her way back inside, her hips swaying, her hair teasing the skin of her bare shoulders.

Chapter Eleven—Sophia

I shoot a furtive glance around to make sure nobody is watching me and then stand on tiptoe to pull down the heavy tome from the highest shelf. I could get the librarian to come down here with a ladder for me, but I want to be totally incognito as I go about my business today.

I haven’t even told Rachel where I am. She thinks I’m working a late shift at the coffee shop when, in reality, I’ve snuck down to the library to do a little late-night research. It’s quiet here. There are just a handful of students wandering around, looking slightly lost, but I still don’t want to let my guard down.

I know what I’m looking into here could get me in... trouble, to say the least. Much as I hate to admit it, there’s an undercurrent to this place, this university, and everyone knows about it. You don’t invite so many heirs of the rich and influential to one place and expect them not to get up to something, right?

With a slight grunt, I pull the book down, a flurry of dust floating down with it, and carry it over to the desk I’m working at. There's just one adjustable light, along with my scattering of notebooks and other textbooks to make this one I’m taking out look a little less conspicuous.

I plant down the huge, leather-clad book on the table, flip it open, and reach into my pocket to grip the small charm I lifted from Blake’s pocket the other night.

I still don’t know what I was thinking, about any of it, really. The moment our lips came together, it was like my body was starved for him—I couldn’t get enough of him. I was grabbing hold of him like he was the only thing in the world that could sate me. His lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, that cocky fucking attitude of his smothered for just a moment... It was all kinds of a bad idea, but I can’t deny how hot I find him, how much this tension between us seems to tip over into lust in a way I’ve never experienced before.

As we were making out, my fingertips slipped into the pocket of his blazer—and I’d felt a sharp metal object inside. Before I could think about what I was doing, I closed my hand around it and pulled back. Just to have a piece of him close to me? To give me a reason to see him again? Something like that.

I had fled the fundraiser not long after that, feigning sickness to Rachel, and when I got back to my dorm room, I pulled out the strange metal object and examined it at my desk.

It’s... familiar, somehow. As I sit in the library, I run my thumb over the ridges of it for what feels like the thousandth time since I stole it from him. It’s in the shape of a thistle, a flower surrounded by thorns, made out of silver. It’s solid, attached to a pin that’s clearly meant to go through the hem of a blazer, and I wonder why he wasn’t wearing it that night.

Which is when it hit me. He must not have wanted to be seen wearing it that night. Blake is a meticulous man. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about him in all this time, it’s that. He wouldn’t have something like this with him if it wasn’t important.

And the more I’ve thought about it, the more the flower has popped up in places where I haven’t expected it. Going to classes this week, I feel as though I’ve spotted a few more thistles than I ever noticed before, whether carved into the stonework at the crest of an archway or displayed in artwork by a previous alumnus that hangs in the entrance hall. It’s like these things are everywhere, little details picked out all over the university that are clearly meant to call out to the people who recognize them.

So, I’ve concluded that the library must contain some kind of answer. They have a whole section dedicated to the history of the university here, and I’m sure there will be something about all these thistles tucked away somewhere. I flip open the book, plant my fingertips against my temples, and set to work trying to decode what’s waiting for me in the pages of this thing.

I scan through, searching for any mention of a thistle, and I soon feel my eyes begin to droop. It’s not as though this is the most scintillating reading, and I’m exhausted from running around all week, trying to keep on top of work at the restaurant and my studies. Tommy has been kind enough to give me a lift back to the dorms a couple of times, but that hasn’t done much to make up for a general lack of sleep.

I almost drift off for a moment, but then, clear as day, the memory of Blake swims into my mind, the way he grinned when he was staring down at me out on the veranda, the dark shadows in his eyes that should scare me away but instead draw me in. My hand clenches on the thistle charm, and the pin digs into my palm. I wake up with a start, jerking upright, and turn my attention back to the page.

I know there’s more to Blake than what he’s letting me see. I just know it. I don’t care how much he thinks he can hide. He’s never been up against me. The way I had to study to get the scholarship to this place, it’s not like I’m going to let a little labor at the library stop me.

The book is packed full of so much information that I can hardly take most of it in, long-winded backstories about the school’s creation, nothing that I couldn’t find on the website if I was so inclined. Nothing about thistles. But nothing in this place could be by chance, not when every detail has been so carefully considered. I know there’s something more to this.

And I know Blake is in the middle of it. Just like he’s been in the middle of everything else going on in my life lately.

I’m about to give up on this book and pull another one from the shelves—there's nothing here, nothing of use, anyway—when a scrap of paper sticking out of the back pages catches my eye. At first, I think it’s just a bookmark, but when I pull it out, my heart skips a beat.

A thistle. There’s a thistle on it, a simple, faded ink drawing of one, but it’s a thistle, no doubt about it. With slightly shaking hands, I flip it over, and one word leaps out at me—Silencio.

I stare down at it for a moment, trying to parse what exactly this could mean. Silencio? Have I seen that somewhere before? I narrow my eyes, trying to cast my mind back. I can’t place it.

I pull the small scrap over to the light to get a better look at it. It seems to be some kind of invitation to a party that has long since passed me by.

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