Page 58 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

“Hey.”

She turns when I speak.

Unspeakably beautiful.

“Hey.” I don’t know what she sees on my face that makes her smile fade, but she’s frowning now. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. We’re ready to get working.”

She nods, solemn, and turns from the information desk. “I arranged for your men to have badges inside the building. I thought …” She shakes her head. “This is so crazy.”

It isn’t until we’re inside the elevator that I touch her, or more that she throws herself into my arms and breathes in deep. She’s trembling.

“Are you alright?”

“I wasn’t nervous until I got here. Now I see strangers everywhere. People who probably just work in the building, but I don’t know them, and for all I do know, they could be Italian Mafia hitmen coming for me.”

I’m glad she’s cautious and, bastard or not, I’m not telling her she’s imagining things. I want her to see danger in every corner and shadow, and I want her to not take unnecessary chances. Fear will make her cautious.

By the time the elevator doors open, she’s pulled herself together and is standing beside me, her hands still, her half-smile serene. She shows me around the office. There are six access points. Two stairwells, an elevator, and three doors from the balcony. And while the balcony would be harder to access directly from the street, there are floors with balconies above and below this one. All it would take is climbing rope, a grapple hook, a collapsible ladder. It’s feasible, if the Italians want to try that route.

I station men at each door. Two outside. One inside.

She smiles and leans in. “I have to get to work.”

Not only does she look like a goddess—flowing blonde hair, those glistening eyes that turn amber or mahogany depending on her mood, a body with curves and planes that I need to touch—but she smells like one, too. So sweet. Flowery.

Corinne’s gaze flits over my shoulder. Her face sours.

I follow where she’s looking to see a cluster of female Sentinel Security employees staring right at me. They’ve been ogling me since the second I entered the building.

I would’ve preferred to clear the office of everyone except for Peyton, Leila, and Corinne, but the conspicuous absence might’ve tipped off the Italians that something was wrong with their operation here. So I’ve had to pretend to ignore that every woman on the floor is picturing me naked.

It’s par for the course in my life. Women like dangerous men. They see it written all over me like it’s tattooed on my face, and they respond in kind. Normally, I just brush it off. I’m used to it.

But Corinne isn’t.

She isn’t glaring or scowling, but neither is she smiling. I’ve known Corinne longer than I haven’t known her and I’ve never seen this expression. Blank but with an underlying hint of … something.

How can she not see that I don’t give a fuck about these anonymous women? They’re nothing to me. She’s my everything. But I can still sense the jealousy bubbling up in her.

Fine. I’ll just show her then.

I grab her by the arm, drag her into a nearby conference room, and slam the door shut. Inside, there’s a long oval table, twenty chairs, and a drink cart with a coffee machine next to a mini-fridge.

“What are you doing?” Her voice is low, but there’s a tone … anger. It’s sexy as fuck and I want to put her up on that table, strip off her panties, and lick her pussy until she’s screaming for me to let her come.

“What does it look like?” I rumble.

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. Her eyes keep flitting up, out to the main office space where the ogling women are still clustered. “It looks like you have some very misguided ideas about what’s going to take place in this conference room, as a matter of fact.”

She’s not wrong about that. I’m pressing her back against the wall, my breath hot on her throat.

With a low growl in my chest, I seize a handful of the pencil skirt fabric at her hip, pawing her towards me. My cock is a steel rod in my pants. It wants her. Every cell in me wants every cell in her.

She’s still angry, jealous—but when her lips part and a subtle gasp escapes, I know that her body is responding to mine. Just like it always does. Just like it always has.

“I can’t lose you again, Tommy,” she whispers, so quiet I can barely hear it. It’s like she doesn’t want to admit it to herself. “One day you were there, the next you weren’t. And I came back from college thinking you might have come home, but… I called. You never called back.”

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