Page 42 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
My mouth goes dry. My stomach knots. I’m sure he can hear my knees knocking.
He leans closer, inhaling deeply against my neck, raising all the tiny hairs on my body. The tip of his nose nudges my earlobe as he breathes hotly into my ear. “I’d like to beat it out of you.”
Then he releases me abruptly. “Now sit your ass down on the fucking sofa!” he snarls.
He shoves me so hard, I stumble and fall to my knees. A hand grips my hair and yanks my head back. I look up into a handsome, unsmiling face.
Capo makes a clucking noise and chides, “Clumsy.”
He drags me to my feet by my hair. I suck in a sharp breath from the pain but don’t scream. I won’t give the bastard the satisfaction. He pushes me onto the sofa, then stands glaring down at me while I wait, heart hammering, for him to pull out a gun and shoot me in the face.
But he only runs a hand over his hair and adjusts his tie, smooths a wrinkle in his beautiful jacket.
“You always manage to disrupt my equilibrium.”
There’s an edge like a knife in his voice. He sits next to me and pours champagne into both glasses. An acrid coil of smoke wafts up from the carpet beneath the coffee table where he abandoned his cigar.
I take the champagne he offers, ashamed to see how hard my hand shakes. Unsure if it will be the last taste of champagne I’ll ever have, I swallow it in one gulp.
One of the fighters hits the other with a vicious undercut to the jaw. It sends him flying. As the soprano hits a high note, his body lands on the carpet with a dull thud. A tremor shakes the floor under my feet.
Get up. Keep fighting. Please don’t die in front of me. Please don’t die and leave me here alone with him and his soldiers and nothing else to hold their attention.
“I told you to take off your coat.”
Capo has leaned back against the sofa, and is watching me from the corner of his eye. I do as he orders, my gaze averted. When I try to drape my coat over my legs, he warns softly, “Mariana.”
I place the coat on the arm of the sofa and fold my hands in my lap. I’m sitting ramrod-straight, staring at nothing, when I feel his hand settle onto my thigh.
I flinch. He squeezes my leg. I grit my teeth and close my eyes. “So you know I finished the job.”
“Speak again without permission,” he says casually, “and you won’t walk for a week.”
“Who told you you could speak, you bad girl?”
Why, why is the American in my head? Why can’t I get him out? Why am I thinking of him as I’m sitting here with this savage of a man, my life in danger, my heart exploding in fear?
Even as I’m asking myself those questions, I know the answer.
Because the further away I get from that beautiful night, the more clearly I can see what I was given.
“Why are you smiling?” Capo asks sharply.
My eyes snap open. The fighter who was knocked out has rolled onto his side and is struggling to stand. It seems like a sign, so I decide to tell him the truth. “You remind me of the things I’m grateful for.”
My honesty surprises him. Something like amusement flashes across his expression, but of course it can’t be amusement because he doesn’t have a sense of humor—because he doesn’t have a soul.
“How interesting. That almost sounded like a compliment. If you’re not careful, I’ll start to
think you’re sweet on me.” After a beat, he adds, “Although those murderous eyes tell a different story.”
We stare at each other. My fingers itch to claw into his eye sockets, to dig out his eyeballs and crush them under my feet, to feel vitreous liquid, warm and gelatinous, ooze between my bare toes.
I wonder if evil is contagious.
“May I please have permission to speak?” I ask politely.
His grin is unexpected. It’s also terrifying.
