Page 23 of Sin City Obsession

Alessa let her head drop sideways against the sofa cushion, a self-loathing sigh escaping her.I’m stronger than this, dammit!But all it had taken was one vehicular shootout, one time of being still in the car when it swayed—from Ignazio collapsing into the wall of the SUV, she’d learned—for her to succumb to her guilt and every suppressed fear she’d developed.

It never would have been her in that SUV four months previously, chauffeuring Grace anywhere. If Alessa had been in town that day she would have been on a different job, because she had never for a singular moment been assigned to the underboss’s private security detail. Romeo had, of course, pulled from his own detail when he’d assigned his future wife a driver. And Al was, objectively, a good choice. Al had been an excellent defensive driver.

He’d always been a little too personable for the kind of field work Alessa did, but that was part of what made him a good candidate for Romeo’s detail. Romeo’s detail involved the protection of a young girl who would need to know and feel comfortable around her guards. And Al had been so proud of that promotion.

Her throat clogged and she dug her nails a little harder into her calves. Survivor’s guilt was a stupid thing. She’d always thought a person had to at least be directly involved in the traumatic incident to develop it, but it turned out she had been wrong. Because it would never have been her in that SUV, butshe still felt like it would be better if she were the one who had died that day instead of her brother.

All she did was hunt and kill people for a living.

His job had been to protect.

Yet she was the one still breathing.

Alessa jerked upright when someone pounded suddenly on the door. Her gaze dropped to the phone she’d abandoned on the coffee table, but she saw no sign of having missed any messages. For a brief moment, she debated ignoring her visitor. But she was pretty sure she knew who it was. More than likely, he had a key.

She released her death grip on her legs as the knocking resumed, winced a little when her arm shifted wrong, and crossed quietly to the door. She didn’t bother turning off the television or grabbing her phone. If they’d already snatched Gwathney off the streets, he could stew overnight. She wasn’t in the headspace for work.

As she’d suspected, Rocco stood on the other side of the door.

The sight of him made her chest burn. It wasn’t a sensation she was familiar with, let alone something she had the mental energy to analyze. So she ignored it and frowned. “I asked to be alone.”

“You did.” His gaze drifted past her for a beat before resettling on hers. “Funny thing about that,” he said. “I never actually agreed.”

Her brows leapt up her forehead and she opened her mouth to question his absurdity, but it was already too late.

Rocco moved forward, using his larger size and stubborn force of will to push the door wider and make entry. He stepped entirely inside, grabbed the door, and snapped it shut behind him.

The burning in her chest grew hotter as her mouth went dry. Alessa was just off her game enough that she couldn’t decide whether to smack him, yell at him, or collapse against him. He’d encroached on her personal space so thoroughly, she could easily do whichever she chose.

Rocco caught her by the hips and tugged her even closer. “I want to know what happened out there,” he said, his voice momentarily gentled, “but I’m not going to push. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”

Alessa swallowed and laid her palms bracingly on his chest. “What makes you think I want to talk at all?”

“I’m not assuming that.” He bent down and pressed a brief kiss to the top of her shoulder, on the inside edge of the gauze wrapping. With his lips still close enough to graze her skin, he murmured, “I don’t ever want to see you getting shot again.”

She tried to laugh at the absurdity of his statement, but something had taken flight in her belly and the sound that escaped her was little more than a puff of air. “I don’t think you understand the line of work I’m in, Rocco.”

He rumbled, tilted his head, and his lips made contact with the side of her throat. His fingers pressed into her hips, squeezing.

Alessa gasped, clutching fistfuls of his shirt. She knew she shouldn’t. But this was so much better than crying into an empty hotel suite while reruns of some Food Network showplayed in the background. So when his lips opened and he trailed his tongue up the side of her throat, she closed her eyes and decided—at least for the night—to just let go.

He teased the underside of her jaw with his teeth and she moved her hands to start working on the buttons of his shirt. He moved a hand up, tangling it into her hair, and tugged her head back a heartbeat before his teasing lips sealed over hers.

The heat that had been thrumming in her chest burst inside her, rushing through her blood and making her head fuzzy. Her fingers fumbled and she pushed up on her toes as their tongues slid together. She felt him lower a hand to her ass, squeezing firmly over the fitted, practically spandex material of the yoga shorts she’d changed into. Normally they were comfortable. At the moment they were more restrictive than chains.

Rocco broke the kiss with a low rumble. The tight grip he had on her hair held her still as he met her lidded gaze. “Forget about work tonight.” He leaned in so that his lips grazed hers as he spoke, his stare unwavering. “Tonight, you belong to me.”

His words sizzled down her spine and Alessa dropped her fingers down to the belted waistband of his slacks. “My safe word is wheelchair,” she said breathlessly. “Because that’s where I’ll put the man who doesn’t stop when I say to.”

Rocco’s lips lifted in a dimple-popping grin that was in no way innocent. “That shouldn’t be hot,” he said, “and I sincerely hope you’ve never had to follow through on it. But I like it.”

She smiled, just a bit, and curled her fingers. “No one’s pushed that far.” She’d had a man tell her it was tooaggressive and a mood killer, though. She figured that guy had probably spared himself worse pain by walking away, so she didn’t feel bad about sticking to her guns.

“Good,” Rocco said with a grunt. Then he pushed his tongue into her mouth again, sweeping wide and swirling around her own.

She barely paid attention to anything as he ravished her mouth, her hands busy trying to make a path to his skin and his erection grinding against her through their layers. She moaned into his kiss at the feel of his hot, taut abdomen beneath her fingers some seconds later. Then the backs of her knees hit the chaise edge of the sofa and she tumbled down, Rocco’s supportive grip suddenly gone.

Alessa gasped, startled just enough to blink around, and she saw him ripping his belt free. He let the leather fall to the floor, toed off his polished shoes, and took hold of her knees. He was shirtless from the waist up and Alessa had never felt more out of her league. The man was perfection.

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