Page 88 of Captured Fantasy

“How do you know I’ll say yes?” I shot back.

“You will.”

His fixed his dark gaze on me over the rim of his glass and a shiver moved through my body.

He took me back to my house and fucked me hard in my bed like he owned me. There was a new tattoo on his body, a snake coiled over his lower abdominal muscles with its head resting just above his cock.

We fucked slowly until he came with a quiet groan against my neck. Then he took me into the shower and whispered the dirtiest things to the insides of my thighs as he made me come on his tongue.

I was in love with him and it felt so real and natural.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

COSIMO

I stood before the mirror in my bathroom. It was New Year’s Eve and the world was strangely still. Like everyone had collectively taken a great breath and now they held it. Waiting, watching. It made me fucking rigid and my body was drawn so tight I had a tension headache. I ran a hand over my collar, sliding my jacket over my shoulders, and adjusted my tie.

I’d leaned out a bit in the last month or two, perhaps from the late nights trying to work off my stress in the gym. Or perhaps because my body was restless and on fire. Nightly, I woke soaked in sweat to the painted image of Lorenza’s naked body hovering over the bed.

It was a sweet torture that only the taste of her skin on my tongue could relieve.

I went back to the bedroom and opened the top drawer of the dresser. The day after Lucien had taken me out on horseback to tell me he was becoming the new head of the organization, I had made a choice. After I’d made that choice, I’d taken the Triumph into the city and gone directly to the jewelers.

I was done for when it came to Enza Russo. If I hadn’t known it the first time I’d laid eyes on her, I knew it now. We were fucking dust to dust, ashes to ashes. I didn’t care what anyone said or did, I was going to make damn sure she became my wife. Whatever it took.

I wanted Gino’s ring off her finger because that space belonged to me. Just like the rest of her body and mind.

The black, velvet box sat nestled among my ties and pocket squares. I picked it up and flipped the lid. Inside was a set of gold rings, the engagement band adorned with a single oval diamond. Bigger than the stone she currently wore—that was important to me. It didn’t matter the price, I’d blindly swiped my card. If Lucien’s plan worked, I was about to get an enormous raise.

It bothered me that Lucien didn’t want me involved with the actual coup. I wondered if Olivia had begged him not to let me help and that annoyed me.

But there was nothing to do but wait and trust him.

I took the truck out to the suburbs and pulled up in front of Lorenza’s house. She stood there in a black dress that hugged her perfect body and showed just a trace of her breasts. As always, I did a double take, hardly able to believe she was real.

She locked her door and walked carefully down the stairs, her skirt shifting to give me a glimpse of her naked thighs.

“You’re stunning,” I murmured, kissing her neck.

“Should we go together?” she asked, her brows creased.

“We’re doing this my way, remember?”

She nodded. “Alright. I trust you.”

“Good girl.”

She flushed and I slipped my arm around her, guiding her to the truck. She waited for me to lift her up into the cab. I noticed her fingers clutching anxiously at her purse as she settled into her seat. Did she feel it too, the great, collective breath that seemed to have settled over the city?

I parked at the end of the private drive, hidden by the trees stretching over the road. I didn’t have a plan in mind for when I was going to give her the ring and I wondered if now was that time.

One look at her wide, anxious eyes and I knew she wasn’t in the mood. Telling her I wanted her to wear my ring while she was almost shaking with nerves struck me as a colossally bad idea.

No, I would take her back to my condo and work all that anxiety out of her body. Turn her into a warm, satisfied, compliant thing so I could slip that ring on her finger and make her mine.

I glanced over and caught my gaze in the rearview mirror. My eyes were harsher, more calculating.

My God, I really had become one of them.

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