FRANCESCA #2
He must have seen my answer on my face because a little smirk moved over his lips. “That’s what I thought.” He had a triumphant authority in his stare as he crossed his arms once more. “And if any dogs come sniffing around my property, I’ll kill them—so make sure you don’t throw them a bone.”
Was he serious?
He stared me down like he sure was. “You’re crazy.”
“Oh, I know.”
“I mean that literally.”
“That was how I took it.”
I dealt with difficult and dangerous men every single day, but Wolfe was something else. If I were smart, I would tell my father to fire him and cut this off before it went any further and got complicated and messy. But I wasn’t smart.
“I want to know about you.”
“I’m twenty-six, a lot younger than you.”
He shook his head. “What you lack in age you show in maturity. Tell me more.”
“I was born here in Caltanissetta. And like you, I was born into this.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“She was killed…by one of my father’s enemies.”
He slowly dropped his arms and leaned over the table to be closer to me. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. It still hurts.”
He stared at me with eyes that were so soft, it was hard to believe they’d been hard a minute ago. “Know his name?”
So he could kill him? “It’s been so long, I don’t remember.” But I did remember. And I was afraid that Wolfe would leave the table in the middle of dinner and run off to kill him.
He didn’t press it.
“Did you kill the man who murdered your mother?”
“Yes. It was the day I became a man—the day I took my first life.”
Bumps formed on my arms, and I reached for my glass to take a drink, to have something to calm the nerves. I swirled it as I looked into the contents.
“Tell me about him.”
My eyes lifted to his.
“The man you lost.”
“Oh…” I hadn’t expected to be put on the spot.
Hadn’t expected it to cause so much pain just to think about it.
“Well, Emilio and Leo were friends since they were kids. We all grew up together. A couple years ago, Emilio needed work, so he joined us, even though I told him it wasn’t a good idea.
His death was accidental. He was at the shipping dock when there was a drive-by.
He wasn’t supposed to be there, filling in for one of the guys who got sick, and then he was the one who got shot in the head.
My father had put him on low-profile jobs to keep him alive, but it didn’t matter in the end. ”
“How long were you together?”
“Two weeks.”
His eyebrow immediately cocked. “Two weeks?”
“Two weeks before he was killed, he told me how he felt about me. It took me about a week to process it, and I said I was willing to give it a shot…and then the next week, he was gone.”
“So, let me get this straight,” he said. “This guy had access to you for years, and he waited that long to make a move?”
“We’d been friends forever. He probably didn’t think he had a chance.”
“I’m sorry, that’s pathetic.”
My temper immediately flared. “You better tread very carefully, Wolfe.”
“No disrespect to the dead.” He made the sign of the cross from his head to his chest and then from one shoulder to the next. “May he rest in peace. But you try to keep me at a distance because of some guy you dated for a week?”
“It was a lot more traumatic than that. He was like family to me…still is.”
“But were you in love with him?”
“No, but—”
“Then I refuse to be disqualified. I wasn’t going to anyway, but now I’m really putting my foot down.”
“But I think that if we’d had time, we would have gone all the way.”
“Well, you’ll never know because he was too much of a coward to do something when he had the chance.”
“Fuck you.” I grabbed the linen from my lap then threw it in his face before I stormed out. I made my dramatic exit from the restaurant and glided in my heels like they were flats.
I knew he was right behind me. “Francesca.” He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me toward him.
I slapped him hard across the face. “Fuck off, Wolfe.”
He turned with the hit and closed his eyes. “Fuck. I usually have to pay extra for that.”
“You’re such an asshole.” I continued forward and tried to snake my phone out of my clutch.
He quickly caught up to me and blocked my path. “Francesca, listen to me.”
“Get out of my way, or I’ll slap you again.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
I raised my arm to slap him again.
He caught it and twisted it down before he kissed me.
I shoved him in the chest but only pushed myself back.
“You’re right. I’m being an asshole,” he said as he took a step closer to me. “I’m just angry that you refuse to give me a chance over a situation that’s not even comparable to what we have.”
“We don’t have anything, Wolfe.”
“We don’t?” he asked, his eyes hard. “So you just let all your one-night stands come inside you?”
I felt the ferocity burn like flames up my spine. “If I’d brought my gun, I’d shoot you right now.”
“I know the answer is no,” he said. “I’ve been with a lot of women. So many women that you would judge the fuck out of me if I gave you a number. But never once in my life have I ever felt this.”
“What?”
He pointed back and forth between us. “I don’t even fucking know, Francesca.
But whatever it is, I feel it all the time, even when we aren’t together.
I think about you when I’m not with you.
I would kill a man if he just looked at you wrong.
And it’s bullshit that you compare this to a man who waited so fucking long to be with you. ”
“He didn’t feel that way about me until then.”
“Fucking bullshit. He was always in love with you.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Trust me, I fucking know,” he snapped. “Francesca, I want a real chance. As much as I love it when we fight, and your sexy stubbornness makes me harder than steel, I want a shot. I don’t want to be compared to some guy who didn’t deserve you.
Who waited so long to be a man and tell a woman he loved her.
Because I knew I wanted you from the moment I looked at you, and I cut myself how many fucking times just to be in the room with you.
You’re going to give me a chance—because I fucking earned it. ”
I was paralyzed by his words, shocked by the way he could take my breath away with his intensity and his passion.
I’d never met another man like that, who was crazy and passionate and so expressive all at the same time.
“It doesn’t change the fact that my father will kill you if he finds out about us. ”
“I told you to let me worry about that, alright?”
I swallowed, utterly terrified and enthralled by him at the same time. I’d never met a man who came at me so hard, who’d looked at me once and didn’t stop until he had me. Men had shared their unrequited feelings for me before, but it was never as intense as this.
“Now let’s go back inside and finish our dinner.”
I glanced past him down the street, seeing a little boutique hotel about a hundred feet away. “Can we get it to go?” My eyes moved back to his intense stare. “There’s a hotel down the street.”
He stared for several heartbeats, his eyes equally maniacal and intense. Then he reached for his wallet as he moved toward me, pulling out a black credit card and placing it in my palm. “I want you naked on the bed when I walk in there.”
He let himself into the cheap hotel room with the bag of food in his hand. He tossed it on the dresser where the TV sat before he dropped his long-sleeved shirt down his arms and yanked his t-shirt over his head.
I was naked on the bed, so anxious for him I felt the slickness between my upper thighs.
He kicked off his boots as he looked at me lying there on top of the bed, his eyes hungry for my flesh. He undid his black jeans then yanked them down over his narrow hips with his boxers, revealing his steel rod for a dick.
I started to turn over so he could take me from behind, sticking my ass in the air, but he grabbed me with his big hands and forced me onto my back before he moved between my thighs.
“I want to look at my woman while I fuck her.” He pinned one of my legs back before he moved between my thighs. Then he rubbed his cock against my wet folds, lubing himself up in the fountain of my desire. He grabbed his length and directed it inside me, moaning when he sank into my tightness.
I moaned so loud, it was like I just came.
His hand dug into the back of my hair as he held himself over me, thrusting with smooth and even strokes like a machine in a factory, fucking me with precision.
Full of possession and passion, he looked at me with an intensity that could easily be mistaken for hatred.
“You’re my woman.” He slammed into me harder, fucking me as if he had unlimited power.
“Fucking mine.” He said it between his thrusts.
“You understand me?” He breathed hard because he was fucking me so vigorously.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Yes,” I said after I moaned. “I’m yours.”