28. Twenty-Eight #3
Stepping closer, I pressed my chest against her back, wrapping my arms around her waist. She melted into me, her head falling back against my shoulder.
“What are we doing, Arrow?” she whispered. “This isn’t what either of us expected.”
I buried my face in my hair, breathing in her scent—vanilla and amber. “No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
Her fingers found mine where they rested on her stomach, tracing the scars across my knuckles. “My father will never stop. As long as he’s alive, this—us—is just borrowed time.”
“I know.” I turned her to face me, needing to see her eyes. “Giovanni’s meeting with the Albanians.”
Something flickered in her expression, not surprise, but confirmation. “I figured he would. He always runs back to them when he’s desperate.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.” She rested her hands on my chest. “He used to brag about his Albanian connections when he was drunk. Said they were the only ones who truly understood loyalty.”
“Atlas thinks you might be part of it—that you’re playing both sides.”
She didn’t flinch.
“Of course he does.” She laughed. “And what do you think? Am I the dutiful daughter, secretly plotting with Daddy to take you down?”
Holding her gaze, I searched her eyes for deception.
“If I were going to kill you, you’d already be bleeding out.
” She placed a palm against my cheek. “I wouldn’t waste my time fucking you first. Although fucking you, then killing you, does hold a type of poetic justice, doesn’t it?
” My shirt came free of my waistband, and that grin—pure sin—spread wider as her fingers worked the buttons free.
“Besides, Giovanni beat the loyalty out of me years ago.” Her fingers traced methodically down my chest. “You think I’d ever align myself with a man who sold me like cattle? ”
I caught her wrist, stilling her movements. “I need to know, Harlowe. No games.”
Her eyes met mine, clear and unflinching. “I hate my father more than I could ever hate you, killer. And that’s saying something, considering how much I wanted to put a bullet in your brain when we first met.”
My grip loosened on her wrist. She didn’t waste the opening, pushing my shirt off my shoulders, her palms mapping the bruises and bite marks she’d left earlier.
“Do you trust me?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“No,” I answered honestly. “But I want to.”
That made her smile a real smile, softening her features and making something twist painfully in my chest.
“Smart man.” She traced the tattoo over my heart, following the intricate lines with her fingertip. “I don’t trust you either, but I think I could.”
I backed her against the window, and she gasped at the cold glass against her skin. “Your father thinks he can use you against me.”
“And your father thinks I’m making you weak,” she countered, her breath warm against my lips. “They’re both right, in a way.”
Gripping her chin, I forced her to look at me. “Are we both making each other weak, then?”
“No,” she whispered, standing on her tiptoes to brush her lips against mine. “I think we’re making each other dangerous.”
“You know what happens if we’re wrong about this,” I said. “If I’m wrong about you—”
“You die,” she finished for me. “And if I’m wrong about you, I die. Pretty simple math.”
“Nothing is simple about that.”
She slid her hands down my chest to the waistband of my pants. “Did you come back here to talk about betrayal all night, or did you come back for me?”
“Both. I need you to understand what we’re up against.”
“I understand perfectly.” She slid her hand inside my pants and gripped my hard cock. “My father wants you dead, your father wants me gone, and the entire criminal underworld is waiting to see which one of us betrays the other first.”
I groaned as she stroked me, dropping my forehead to hers. I bit my lip, resisting the primal urge to thrust into her hand. “And yet, here we are.”
“Here we are,” she echoed, her thumb circling the sensitive head of my cock. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to fuck me or are you going to worry about what everyone else thinks?”
Grabbing her wrist, I pinned it above her head against the glass, my other hand tangling in her hair. “ You know exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Show me,” she challenged, sapphire eyes glittering in the city lights.
Spinning her toward the window, I flattened her palms against the glass. Manhattan sprawled below us, a glittering carpet of lights and shadows—my kingdom, or what would be mine if we survived the week. I kicked her legs apart, one hand sliding up her thigh to find her soaking wet for me.
“You like the danger,” I growled against her ear, sliding two fingers inside her. “You get off on it.”
She arched back against me. “So do you.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The threat of death had always been an aphrodisiac in our world—the closer to the edge, the more alive you felt.
But this was different. This wasn’t just about the rush.
This was about her, about us. About whatever impossible future we might carve out of the blood and chaos.