Page 96 of SINS & Riley
“No?” My laugh is sharp, bitter. “You’re just going to sell me.”
His brows slash together. “What?”
“I heard all about your arrangement.” I lift my fingers in air quotes.
“You mean you overheard.” He rolls his eyes. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you eavesdropping is a very bad habit?”
Is he seriously lecturing me right now?
I blink up at him. “Yeah. It ranks right up there with kidnapping and killing people.”
I drag in a long, meditative breath.
Ironically, he does the same.
And just like that, we’ve formed the worst yoga class ever.
Then he’s closer.
Too close.
Heat rolls off him in waves, the kind that makes me want to lean in and curl up against him like a warm fire.
I hate myself for it.
His cologne cuts through the air. It’s clean and leathery, masculine and intoxicating.
Before I can stop myself, I lean in and take a long, greedy whiff. Like he’s fucking oxygen.
Hello, Therapy? Yeah, me again. Table for one.
And when did he even have time to shower, let alone change into fresh clothes and splash on cologne?
Slowly, deliberately, he plucks one of the roses resting on Dante’s sarcophagus. He frowns and studies it.
Of course he recognizes them. Why shouldn’t he? They’re from his garden.
They’re the very same ones he drowns me in morning, noon, and night.
And the same ones I’ve been laying at Dante’s tomb since day one.
The fresh bloom spins between his fingers as he clears his throat. For half a second, I brace for him to say something kind. Maybe even sentimental.
Wrong again.
“So let me get this straight. You think I’m going to sell you. Or kill you. And your brilliant plan is to run here? Grab a vase of roses and lay them at the feet of Dante D’Angelo’s corpse.”
He plucks a single petal from the bloom and lets it flutter to the ground.
“The man treated you like shit.”
A humorless laugh claws up my throat. “As shitty as the man who strapped a tracker around my neck?”
His mouth curves, sharp and merciless. “Touché.”
The silence stretches between us, long and sticky, like warm taffy pulled to its breaking point… until it finally snaps.
He brushes the rose across my lips, ghosting over my cheek, before lowering them to rest between my breasts. His fingers follow, curling with terrifying tenderness around the base of my throat.
