Page 45 of Runaway in the Mafia
Agitation brewed along my stiff spine. The air sizzled with a heat burning behind me. For a hot second, I contemplated ignoring him, but like a moth to a flame, I rolled around to face the heat.
Insanity draped on the armchair. Hidden behind a cloud of tobacco, dressed in a sage dress pant, white button-down, anddamn it.He’d rolled the sleeves up to show off those brawny forearms. My eyes had a will of their own. They ran along his right arm, the one that had wrapped around me the last time, carrying inked words of doom. His hands were clasped, holding the cigar in between. A wrist clad with a black leather wristband and rosary beads. All of it had been on my naked skin just the night before.
I pulled my eyes and ran them up, past the devil’s head of his tie pin, to find his gaze on me. His burned. Glittered in bottle green. It was all dark, edgy, and full of self-righteousness. Like I was in his room instead of him in mine.
“This stalker thing… a born trait or a talent acquired?”
His lips tilted up. Lazy. Slow. I shouldn’t like it as much as I did. “A talent, huh?”
I frowned.Not.“My bad.”
“I’ve heard.”
Something told me we were talking about two different things. “I don’t think I even want to know what’s going on inside that crazy head of yours.”
His gaze rolled along the crisp cotton sheets covering me. “Most days, there’s only one thought in there,” he said, eyes blazing at me, leaving me in no doubt as to what those thoughts could be.
“World peace?” I asked innocently, and he laughed. It was so rough and full of ill thought that it sent goosebumps rushing through my skin.
“Something like that. But today, a little bird’s told me something disturbing…” his laugh morphed into a twisted glare, and I already knew it could have no good ending for me. “A weekend away? With fucking Romeo?”
For God’s sake, Lia. Could she not have told her demon brother this?
“And Lia.”
His tone was tight. “Cancel it.”
“No.” I was actually looking forward to it. A distraction from him. But most importantly, a distraction from another call from Rajesh to Papa.
His gaze was all black. “Ahana, don’t make me fucking ask you again.”
“Don’t then.” I was so done with men ordering me around.
His gaze dropped to the floor like he was trying to rein in his anger. A beat passed. Two. And failed. The tick in his jaw was a dead giveaway. The man was insane, but good God, he could kiss. If he kissed as well as he—Do. Not. Go. There.
“This disobedience…” he pulled his gaze off the floor and directed it to me. “Does it get you off?”
I couldn’t say I saw that coming. My mouth popped open and closed. I couldn’t even find a comeback for that.
“Or is it me?”
I was in such a rush to be the last one to close off that I blurted words without thinking of the consequences. “Of course it is.”
His gaze sparked.
I sat up and put my hands on my hips. “I’ll negate you at every turn.” I shouldn’t have said that. Childish. Just a tad.
He was up and across the room in a few heartbeats. The room shrank to half its size, with him towering next to me. His hands fisted in his pockets and one knee came to rest on the bed. Right next to me.What am I doing? I should have kicked him out the moment I felt his presence.My nipples puckered behind the thin silk top. I felt it, and he saw it. His gaze followed it, and when he put his tongue to trace his teeth, it almost felt like he’d put it on them and outlined them. “Bet it makes you wet,” he rasped.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t have found one in a million years.
He took my silence as an invitation and leaned towards me. His gaze said he only had one intention, and it had nothing to do with world peace.I should stop him. I really, really should.His breath was deep, soft, and warm. It fanned my face, and my eyes fluttered under its weight. “I’ll give you an incentive to listen.” His rough hand fell on my neck. My skin combusted, and a slow, needy moan slipped out of me. He put me so on edge I could have come with the first lick of his lips on mine. But all I felt was a sharp tug and cold air. I gasped and blinked to find my chain with the locket in his hands.
He pushed off the bed entirely and pocketed it in his pants with an evil grin. “You go away with any man other than me, you’ll never see that again.”
Papa’s pictureand that locket had been a birthday gift when I had turned eighteen, and it had rested in the dip between my breasts ever since. I would have fought Rajesh tooth and nail for that tiny thing. The only luck I had was that he never figured out the importance of it. How Vitale saw through it when Rajesh hadn’t was beyond me.
He was smart. But not so smart. Because I loved that locket. But more than that, I hated an arrogant man. One who thought he could control my actions. Rajesh had pushed me past that. So I ignored him.
