Page 24 of Falling for Carla

Astonished, I met his eyes and saw the steel in his, the fact that he would be damned if he let me go back to Brooklyn in the middle of the biggest Mob power upheaval in living memory. He was being protective and arrogant and demanding. I sucked in a long breath in reaction to that, trying to cool my heated skin and the way my nipples had tightened in response and the lick of arousal that stole through me.

“Who’s going to stop me?” I asked. I realized with only a twinge of mortification that I was flirting with him. I saw in the tightening of his jaw that he was feeling the sparks between us too. The air was heavy with tension.

He reached out and caught a curl that had escaped from my bun and twisted it around his finger as if it were normal for him to take that intimacy, to have his hand in my hair.

“I’m going to stop you,” he said, his face close to mine. I could feel his breath on my lips, the way my pulse kicked up and pounded furiously. Heat in my belly and a feeling of tingling awareness right down to my fingertips rolled across my body. I felt so attuned to him, responsive and fiercely wanting.

“If I wanted to get away, you couldn’t stop me,” I argued.

“I’d like to see you try,” he said, his eyes hot on mine.

I licked my lips, testing him. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard and released the curl he was stroking. He sat back, almost forcibly keeping himself away from me. I know I frowned when he moved away. The only thing I wanted right then was his tongue in my mouth and his hands hot on me, reminding me I was alive and showing me just how much we wanted each other even though it was forbidden.

CHAPTER 19

DRAKE

“Look,” I said, trying to get my mind off my dick and back on the problem at hand, “those guys have come after you twice today and I can’t help thinking the one in the alley by the bar was linked to them as well. It’s not safe for you to travel right now.”

Carla looked defiant; her dark eyes heated. My heart was still hammering so hard I couldn’t even hear because I had touched her hair and she had leaned in closer to me.

I could have had her.

Never.

Not like this. When she was shocked and confused and emotional. She’d been in severe danger, had just lost her father, and was hiding out from Mob assassins. If there were an appropriate time to cross the boundary with a student—which wasn’t convinced there could be—it wasn’t this moment of extreme distress for her.

Never mind the flashes in my mind, the ones that played before my eyes taunting me. A vision of yanking her t-shirt down off her shoulder and putting my mouth on the bare skin there. Another vision, this time of Carla taking her hair down so it spilled into my open hands, and then the way she would catch her breath as I drove my cock home, her thighs clutched around me. I shut my eyes and swallowed hard. It wasn’t something I should be thinking of at all, but especially not right now.

She had wanted me to kiss her. I could read the signs and the air between us was thick with sex. I watched her chest rise and fall with heavy breaths, the feverish brightness in her eyes still there. If she asked me, I wouldn’t be able to refuse her. I prided myself on being one of the good guys, but virtue only went so far.

I decided to explain myself to her; why I didn’t want her to travel.

“The guy I called on the way here was Brent, my old partner on the force. He told me today that there’s a war brewing with the Lombardi family. You can’t risk going to an airport or a train station in the middle of that,” I said.

“Did you say Lombardi?” she asked, her voice suddenly lower and ragged.

“Yes.”

“They killed my mom,” she said, shutting her eyes. One tear slid from the corner of her eye down her cheek. She rolled her lips under and with a shaky breath swiped it away.

“That’s even more reason for you to stay out here,” I said, “where I can keep you safe.”

That tear on her face, that brave, tremulous breath might as well have been serrated blades going into my gut. It was that painful. A swell of protectiveness, of possessiveness tore through me. I wanted to drag her into my arms and hold her, kiss her hair and pull her into my lap, tell her I’d take care of her. That I was going to take care of her starting right now, and then I wanted to bring my mouth down over hers and use my tongue to tell her all of the things that words couldn’t.

That I protect what’s mine. That I was about to make her mine. Her arms going around my neck, her wordless trust, her need—all of it would have been a drug I couldn’t resist. I fisted my hands to my sides and flicked my eyes up to the ceiling, took a quick breath in to remind myself that she was in danger and grieving. I had to forget myself, my desires, and think of her.

“How do you plan to do that?” she asked at last.

“You’ll stay right here with me.”

“I couldn’t,” she protested. “You’ve already done more than enough. I’m not going to disrupt your entire life and move in with you. I can go back to New York. Dom has men that can watch out for me. Just like the old days.”

“Maybe that’s true about his men, if you could get to Brooklyn in one piece. That’s a big if. The logistics of it—even if you could charter a jet for a direct flight, you couldn’t be sure of the crew. There are too many variables at work,” I argued. “And as for disrupting my life, I don’t even have a cat. I work, I see my friends a couple times a month, and I go to the gym. You’re not interrupting my busy social life.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she said, looking at me appraisingly.

“What?”

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