Page 29 of Unforgivable Ties

Vincenzo

Stephanie had consumed one too many drinks. She had started hammering them down after we almost kissed, clearly embarrassed by the near-touch of our lips. I matched her drink for drink with ease, but I weighed more than twice as much as she did.

Now, she was leaning against me outside the club, having trouble standing upright.

“It’s time for you to go home,” I said, my arm cemented around her lower back.

“But I don’t wanna go back there,” she whined. “The stairs might break in half when I walk up them, and at night I hear weird scratching in the walls.”

My lip quirked up in a half smile. She was so drunk she didn’t remember she didn’t live in her condemned apartment anymore.

“You don’t live there anymore, Steph,” I said, taking my phone out of my pocket. I was going to have one of our men pick us up. She was so drunk she might mention something about the mafia while we were in an Uber and not even realize it.

“I don’t?” she asked, tilting her head like a confused puppy.

“No,” I said, putting my phone back in my pocket. “You live with me.”

“I live with a mobster?!” she said, her face turning as red as her hair.

We were outside in a relatively secluded spot, so it wasn’t a big deal she brought it up.

“But what if the feds find out?” she squeaked, her eyes wide.

Oh, drunk Stephanie was cute. I was committing this to memory and I would tease her about it tomorrow.

“They never would,” I responded.

“You promise?” she asked, snuggling into me.

“Promise,” I replied, wrapping my arm tighter around her.

The two of us continued to wait for our ride, her babbling drunk nonsense while I held her up from falling over. After fifteen minutes, a car finally pulled up. I opened the door for Stephanie and held her so she didn’t faceplant while sitting down.

All her grace had gone out the window with how plastered she was. She sat in the back seat with her legs wide open, her panties on full display under her short dress. I pulled up the privacy screen so the male driver wouldn’t be able to see her panties in the rearview mirror.

“Careful,” I said, tugging her short dress down.

I tried not to stare at her panties. I wanted to fuck her, and when I did, I would do so with her fully coherent. Looking at them right now felt like cheating.

“I bet you’re really good at sex, Vincenzo,” she said drunkenly.

“Excuse me?” I said, more entertained than shocked at her bluntness.

“You’re all...dangerous and stuff,” she slurred, even looking endearing despite her drunkenness. “Aren’t dangerous men usually good at sex?”

I wasn’t going to sell myself short—I was fucking amazing at it. But that wasn’t something I was going to tell her in her drunken state.

“Guess you’ll just have to use your imagination,” I said, gently tapping her forehead.

“Preston sucked at it. I never came,” she said.

Jealousy flared through my body. I hated her stupid prick of an ex boyfriend. I hated he got to her first, when it should have been me. I wanted to be the first person to claim her, ravish her, and bring her to the peak of ecstasy she deserved.

If his parents weren’t such prominent figures—we even did business with them—I’d put a bullet in his head and sleep easy.

“But I’ve never had sex with anyone else…so maybe I’m the problem,” she sighed, snuggling back into me.

I wanted to tell her she definitely wasn’t the problem; it was Prickton’s fault.

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