Page 7 of Corrupted Deception

Dear fate, you really are a cruel bitch, aren’t you?

Chapter Two

Cielo Luciano

I’d seen a lot in my life thus far, but I’d never seen a drop-fucking-dead gorgeous woman making a mad dash across a lamplight-lit hotel parking lot in lingerie, her tits bouncing, precariously contained within a black lace corset.

I had to admit, it was one hell of a sight. I would have put it on my bucket list sooner had I known.

But Charlotte Santoro?

I scrubbed my hand over the short hair at the back of my neck as I watched her.

Her long, bare legs were steady on her five-inch heels. Her body moved like a well-conditioned athlete, not a working girl on a chaotic flight from danger.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go after her,signor?” Vito Agossi, one of my family’s most trusted men, asked, standing next to me as his bald head leaned closer to the glass for a better look.

“No,” I said. We had a job to do. Not that I had any intention of letting the woman vanish into thin air.

I retrieved my phone from my jacket to make a call.

“Follow her,per favore,” I said the moment Matteo answered.

He was parked in a black Mercedes at the edge of the lot, thirty feet from where she slipped inside a silver Audi, disappearing into the dark interior.

He laughed. “You got it,fratello.What do you want me to do with her when I catch her?” he asked, though the tone of his voice said he already had plenty of ideas.

“That’s Charlotte Santoro. Hands off,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Whoa. Charlotte? As in—”

“Sì.As in the girl who upped and disappeared ten years ago.”

Eleventh grade, that’s the year she’d come to my school. She’d looked too young for the rumors that had circulated about the reason for her transfer. Her eyes, though? Christ, those perceptive silver-gray eyes had lived three lifetimes in her fifteen years.

“You don’t like people very much, do you?” I’d asked her after a month of watching her. Always on her own. Always keeping people at a distance.

“When they give me a reason to like them, I will,”she’d answered, glaring at me.

She’d dressed in faded jeans and old band T-shirts back then, but she could have shown up in a potato sack and still been the hottest girl in school. Her long, dark hair framed a face that was equal parts enchanting and challenging. She had a light sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her pink lips were so plump, they’d had every guy fantasizing about shoving his cock between them. But fantasize was all they’d ever done; I’d made sure of it.

“Well, damn, time has certainly been kind to her,” Matteo said, laughter and something I didn’t much care for in his voice.

I could picture his eyes narrowed, trying to get a better look at her, at her mile-long legs and the black jewelry that glimmered in the center of her toned abdomen.

My cock jerked as I imagined getting a taste of all that tanned flesh, sinking my teeth in and making her squirm.

Ten years.

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to wring her neck, fuck her, or take a page out of her book and forget all about her.

All right, that was a lie. Fucking her was clearly at the top of the list.

I’d pin her down against the bed, just the way I’d had her minutes ago, her face pressed against the mattress, her ass at perfect height. Then I’d rip off her black lace panties and shove my cock so deep inside her, she wouldn’t be able to walk straight for days. Not a problem, though, since I’d keep her tied up, using her body again and again until I’d gotten my fill.

On the plus side, there’d be plenty of time in between fucking her to find out what the hell she’d been doing in one of my contacts’ hotel room. A traitorous contact, no less.

The Audi’s headlights turned on, and the sleek car shot back and out of the parking space with flawless precision.

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