Page 11 of Alliance

I suck and tease for as long as possible, until his hand tugs on my hair and pulls me off him. I’m grinning, claiming victory with his panting. I can tell he’s stopping himself from coming down my throat as he leads me to the bed, pushing me so I’m on all fours on the mattress.

He leaves me there for a moment, yanking open the drawer of his night stand and digging out a foil packet. When he returns, he slides the rubber up the length of his cock before bringing himself to my entrance. He drags the head of his cock through my wetness, coating himself. “You ready, baby?” he asks, and I peek over my shoulder to see the cocky grin rising on his cheeks.

With slow movements, he eases inside me, stretching me to accommodate his width. Once he’s in, he’s ruthless in his pounding. His name leaves my lips with a curse followed by a moan. Tattooed fingers reach around, finding my sensitive nub and drawing quick circles, making me scream out.

“That’s right, baby,” he groans above me. “Scream my name. Yell it as loud as possible so everyone knows who’s fucking you right now.”

His words send me over the edge, his name leaving my lips like a prayer with every thrust. When he’s close, he pulls out of me ripping the condom off and spilling his cum onto my back.

We lay there like that, panting and sticky with cum and sweat. Our hearts light and our minds free from all expectations and obligations.

Hours later, we do it again and again, until we’re drunk on orgasms, exhausted and fully sated.

Within the four walls of his apartment we shed our identities, no longer the princess and the dealer.

Just Lana and Naz.

Chapter Six

THERE’S A WARM BODY CURLEDinto my chest when I stir awake. It’s eight am, late for me as I normally rise before seven. Lana is still asleep, her small frame tucked neatly into my side, her breathing even.

I trace my fingers over her smooth, pale skin. Her skin is soft and clear, not a tattoo or flaw in sight save for the freckles that cover her cheekbones, but those are far from imperfect.

I’m beginning to think that she’s flawless until I shift the sheet covering her, lowering it slightly so I can get a better view of her when my eyes are met with a dark bruise on her arm. I trace the outline of it, the dark coloring wraps around her upper arm as if someone had gripped her arm there. I think back to the night before, wondering if it was me who had bruised her.

I was rough, sure, not that she seemed to complain, but I can’t imagine I marked her flesh like this.

As if sensing my concern, she stirs awake, deep hazel eyes looking up at me. “It wasn’t you,” she mumbles through her sleepy gaze. She closes her eyes, as if the memory of whoever bruised her is painful.

“Lana,” I whisper, willing myself to muffle the anger that’s rising in my chest. “Who did this?”

She turns away from me quickly, covering the offending arm. “No one,” she mutters.

It’s a knife to my heart.

There’s a code of silence that goes hand-in-hand with this thing of ours. Even those not directly in the mafia know not to speak of it, nor speak ill of its members. As she turns from me, lifting off the bed and attempting to find her dress, dread builds in my heart.

Because I know that whoever hurt her is protected. No one would lay a hand on aprincipessaunless they knew that no harm would come to them. Like her father, or worse.

“Lana,” I repeat her name, this time louder, more stern. “Just tell me. Maybe I can help you?” I’m pleading, and from the look on her face when she spins around, she knows as well as I do that neither of us can help her.

“Yeah?” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice I haven’t heard before. Disdain, I think. “You want to help me, Naz?” She tosses her hands up in the air. “How? What are you going to do?”

“I can talk to them,” I say, but even I know how stupid that sounds.

“To whom? Marcus?”

I run a hand through my hair, fighting to think of a less stupid plan. Marcus won’t care. He would marry off his own sister in a heartbeat. He doesn’t give a damn about the women in his family, he only cares about power. And the alliance they’re solidifying with Lana’s marriage is for him as much as it is for her parents.

“Let me think!” I growl, swiping my hand across my night stand and knocking the lamp to the ground. It shatters into pieces, causing Lana to flinch.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says softly. “It’s a done deal.”

I cross the bed, my knees hitting the soft mattress as I go to her, pulling her hand and spinning her back to me. “Please,” I add, “let me figure something out.”

She shakes her head, dark hair spilling over her shoulders while she laughs lightly. A small hopeless smile gracing her lips. “It’s useless,” she tells me, and at the same time I can see the fight has drained from her. She came to me last night as a last hurrah, a last fuck-you to the establishment that is the CostelloFamiglia.But now, now that it’s over, she resigned herself to the fate of her impending marriage.

The stupidity of my actions falls over me like a wave, dragging me under the surface as I realize how much I jeopardized by bringing her here, knowing her family’s plan for her. I scrub a hand over my jaw as I let her go.

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