Page 117 of Scarlet Angel

He lifts his head to take in the screen. “That’s a tidy sum. Yes, I’d say we’re going to need to lie low. The Greeks might not be on the syndicate payroll, but there will be some of them who won’t care what they’re hunting with a fee of that size.”

“Who offered that?” The Grigi’s funds are tied up.

“The syndicate.”

“But they’re your friends.”

“Some are, some aren’t.”

“They don’t operate as a family?”

“Possibly a lone wolf.”The Prophet.

“All right, so what do we do?”

He pauses and looks up at me. There’s concern in his eyes. The same concern I’ve too frequently seen these past few days.

“It’s best if you stay back, love. This bounty, it’s a game changer.”

“I don’t understand why someone would want you dead. Is it loyalty to the Grigi?”

“They don’t give a fuck about one mafia clan. Might be a lesson. Might be a piece in a bigger play. The dynamics within the syndicate are shifting.” He taps away. “If it was only you…if the goal was to have a witness eliminated, the exorbitant bounty would be on your head.”

He taps away on the keyboard.

A response comes back in the same eerie green text.

Nightfall.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we have some time to kill.”

He pulls me onto his lap, and I rock into him as he kisses me, hands tangled in my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me.

Trained assassins the world over are hunting the man in my arms. Morning may not come, but I can’t find it in myself to care.

His teeth drag across my lower lip, lazily, as if forever is ours. The rough pads of his fingers press between the gaps in my shirt. I gasp. Tingling and pleasure flood my body.

Our movements are at once frantic and slow. His beard scrapes the tender skin of my neck and jaw. We fumble with clothes, then slow to appreciate touch.

“Fuck, I want you,” he mumbles against my lips and throat. His hips thrust upwards, and I ride the ridge of his cock.

The chair jerks, and he’s up. His belt flaps in the air, undone by my fingers, as are his trousers. With one shove, his trousers drop to his ankles, and he sits back on the chair. He grasps my hips and pulls me forward, shoves my skirt and panties down, and plants his face against me, lapping at my seam.

“Oh. That feels so good.”

My fingers tousle his hair.

His tongue splits me. His large hands knead my ass. I shift my leg, giving him more room, and he takes the hint, closing his mouth around the sensitized bundle of nerves that have been aroused since he entered the safe space. He thrusts a finger inside me, roughly sucking my clit. It’s perfect, but it’s not what I need.

I push his head away. He looks up at me, lips glistening with my arousal, questioning.

“I want you. Inside me.”

“I’m yours,” he says, a smirk playing across his lips as his hand fists his cock.

“’Bout time you realized that.”

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