Page 47 of Corrupted Deception

“Let me guess, this is the part where you remind me you’re a big, scary mafia man, and I should be spilling all my secrets and quaking in my shoes. Oh, and definitely dropping my panties.”

My lips twitched even as my fingers curled. Fuck. The woman was infuriating. There wasn’t a woman in the world who could push my buttons like Charlotte Santoro.

“You’ve always got to fight me,” I said, shaking my head, not sure if I wanted to fuck her or wring her neck more. Wrap my fingers around her neck to control her breathing while I fucked her, maybe. I was all about compromises.

She shrugged. “Well, it’s either that or I’ve got to start arguing with myself, and trust me, that’s a whole new level of crazy.”

Christ, the womanwouldstart fighting herself if she ran out of opponents.

“You might like to fight, Charlotte, but I like to win. So, no matter how much you fight me, I’m always going to come out the victor.”

“You’re right,” she said, which brought me up short, like I’d been running headlong at my goal and the ground just fell away.

No part of me had been expecting her to acquiesce so easily.

“You’re used to winning, Cielo, and since I have no intention of backing down to you or cowering at your feet,” she said as my brain conjured an image of the woman naked, on her knees at my feet, her silky hair twisted up in my hand and her swollen lips wrapped around my cock.

“I think it’d be best if I just leave. Right now,” she continued.

She sidestepped me and headed for the door.

“This isn’t finished,” I said, laying it out plainly instead.

She turned back to face me, her hand on the doorknob and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. The wheels were turning behind her eyes, but fuck only knew what she was thinking.

“I appreciated your help tonight—even if you were a lousy wingman—but it’s done now. ‘This’ is done,” she said, her hand motioning between the two of us.

“This is done when I say it’s done, Charlotte,” I persisted, fighting the urge to drag her back and strip her naked. To tie her up and fuck her senseless. To make her scream and beg and come harder than ever before in her life.

She opened her mouth like she was going to argue, but then shook her head.

“Ciao, Cielo.”

And then the god damned woman left the room without another word.

I could have stopped her. As much as she liked to fight, she wasn’t really any match for me, and that thin line I never crossed was getting really damn blurry. But I stood there, hands curled into fists, and let her go.

Not that I had any intention of letting Charlotte Santoro disappear, not this time.

So, I waited for her to get on the elevator, then followed her out and down to the parking lot, keeping my distance as she got into her silver Audi and took off out of the underground lot.

I followed at a distance through the congested city streets, all the way to the warehouse where I was beginning to suspect she lived. She’d said she was going home—true enough, it seemed—but there was more to it, more pieces to this puzzle. I could feel it bone-deep.

She parked near the front of the warehouse as I pulled off to the side of the road to watch. I’d only just shifted my car into park when my phone rang. I pulled it out, but the number was ‘unknown’.

I swiped the screen to answer it and put it to my ear.

“I’ve spent nine years learning how to track people and to recognize when I’m being tracked, Cielo,” Charlotte’s voice spoke through the phone. “Do you maybe feel like coming out here?”

I smiled. Actually fucking smiled. The woman was good, very intuitive. But I’d have to remember that from now on. I’d been lazy, blowing my cover far too easily.

Disconnecting the call, I drove down the street and into the warehouse’s lot, parking next to her car. The pot lights in the building’s fascia cast a faint glow across the lot and glinted off the diamond in the hollow of Charlotte’s throat. She had her arms crossed over her chest and one hip against her driver’s side door as I got out of my car.

“What are you doing here, Cielo?”

“I don’t know what that phone call was about earlier, but it sure had you moving your ass. Whatever it is you’re planning to—”

“I’m not sure how that’s any of your business,” she snapped, then appeared to rein herself in. “Look, I told you I appreciated your help with Mendoza. I’m even willing to admit that maybe you were right, and the way it played out was the only way it could have gone. But,” she said, holding up one hand, “this isn’t a game to me. It isn’t a puzzle to amuse my brain like it is to you. It’s my father’s life and—”

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