Chapter 14 #3
“No!” I protest. “You can’t kill him. You have to take him outside.”
“Him?” His head pops around the corner of the shower door. “Let me get this straight. You were screaming like you were being attacked because of the spider in the shower, and now you want me to carry him…where exactly? Into the concrete wilderness of the street?”
Well, when he puts it that way, my idea does sound like it could use some work.
“Isn’t there somewhere you can take him to give him a fighting chance?”
“Are you insane?”
The steamy water is pouring down, I’m naked, and I’m arguing with a mobster about saving the life of a spider. I guess his question is kind of reasonable, even if it is insulting.
“Just take him somewhere else, please. And promise you won’t kill him.”
He shakes his head and disappears. He’s gone for a minute, and I think he abandoned me here in the shower with Mr. Spider. But then Alessio is back, holding a glass in one hand and a rubber scraper in the other.
Without glancing in my direction, he reaches in and gently taps the spider into the empty glass. The spider doesn’t appreciate his sudden rehoming, and he starts scrambling up the side of the glass, so Alessio slams his hand over the top, keeping him from escaping.
With a sigh, he disappears, carrying the trapped spider like an unwanted offering.
I wait for Alessio to push the damaged door closed behind him, even though it no longer latches, and then I get back to my shower, trying to ignore the fact that he was just standing here while I was naked and dripping wet.
My body is having a difficult time doing that, though.
My nipples are hard, and there’s a persistent ache deep inside me that can only be answered one way.
Resting my forehead against the cool tiles, I make quick work of giving myself an orgasm because rubbing one out with Cid curled up next to me later is out of the question.
I come silently to the thought of Alessio sucking my clit as he finger-fucks me, biting my lip to stave off any potential noise.
As the hot spray of water falls down around me in the aftermath, I’m ashamed of myself for still thinking about him this way.
I hate that memories of our night together haunt me, even though I know exactly who and what he is.
With a groan of annoyance at myself, I hastily finish washing.
After I towel off, I dress in cozy pj’s and comb out my wet hair before venturing out of the bathroom in search of him.
Alessio is reclining on a couch with Cid curled up in his lap, his bare feet crossed at the ankles, a lowball of what’s probably whiskey on ice dangling from his long, tatted fingers, looking unfairly sexy.
There’s something about a hot-as-fuck mobster with a cat in his lap, apparently. Or maybe it’s just this particular hot-as-fuck mobster that I can’t resist.
“Hey,” I say, feeling awkward and doing my best not to think about the fact that I just relived a highlight of our night together when I was alone in the shower.
His eyes travel over me. “I take it the rest of the shower was uneventful?”
“Yeah.” I feel awkward standing here, hovering over him. “Thanks for rescuing the spider. What did you do with him?”
“I fed him to Cid.”
My heart drops. “What?”
His mouth kicks up into a cocky grin. “Kidding. I took him to the rooftop garden and let him loose in a patch of spinach.”
He takes a slow sip of his drink.
Relief washes over me. “Thanks.”
“It was better than listening to you screaming in there about a little spider.”
“He was kind of big,” I defend myself. “Sorry for screaming.”
I’ve been afraid of spiders since I was a kid. I know it’s an irrational fear, but that doesn’t keep me from reacting viscerally every time I see one.
“Don’t be. It gave me an excuse to see you naked again.”
I swallow hard, my pulse speeding up. As if sensing the tension in the room that’s suddenly thick enough to cut with a knife, Cid leaps off his lap and pads away. Alessio just keeps sitting there watching me, his ocean-blue eyes eating me up.
“I hope you looked your fill,” I force out. “Because it’s the last one you’ll be getting.”
He rests an arm along the back of the couch, totally calm and absolutely devastating, all at the same time. “Don’t lie to yourself.”
“I’m not.” I point emphatically between him and me, needing to clear the air for him as much as for myself. “You and I are not happening again. Ever. What happened in St. Thomas was a huge mistake. A one-off. That’s all.”
He holds my stare, luring me in, holding me. Keeping me. I feel like he’s peering into the darkest places inside me, the desires I didn’t know existed until him. He can see it all. He knows the truth I keep hiding from myself.
“You want me,” he says.
And all the breath seeps out of my lungs. I can’t take in any air. He’s stolen it. He’s everything, watching me like a jaded ruler on the dais in his empire of sin.
“I don’t,” I manage. “You can keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, mobster.”
My bravado is all a show. I do want him. Every molecule of my body is hyperaware of him in a way that is one hundred percent alarming. But I can’t afford to allow this smug, dangerous Mafia sex god to know it.
He lifts one cocky brow. “Prove it, then.”
Alessio takes another slow, steady drink from his glass, holding my stare as he does. No way. This is a trap I’m not falling into.
“I don’t have to prove anything to you. Thanks for saving the spider. I should get to bed. Night.”
I turn and start walking away, knowing that the longer I linger, the less likely I’ll be to leave without doing something incredibly stupid.
Like throwing myself into his lap and begging him to fuck me again just one more time.
So not doing that. I’ve just escaped from one toxic relationship, and the last thing I need is to get tangled up with a ruthless criminal.
“That’s what I thought.”
I’m almost out the door when his smug voice cuts through me, stopping me in my tracks.
I turn back to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t prove it because it’s true. You do want me.” Calmly, like he isn’t tearing me apart with his words, he drinks from his glass.
Like he has all the time in the world to dissect me and play with me. Like he’s enjoying this. And maybe he is.
Maybe I am too.
What does that say about me?
“I don’t have to prove anything to you. I’m not playing your games, Alessio. I’m here because I don’t have a choice, not because I want to be.”
He bites his lower lip and tucks his head down, a sexy half grin curving the lips that I can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try. “We both know why you’re here. That doesn’t change the fact that you want me. Just admit it. Your nipples have been hard all night long.”
And they’re still hard. Damn him.
“Maybe they’re always that way,” I defend, crossing my arms over my chest.
This is a ridiculous conversation to be having. I should go. But for some reason, I’m still standing here. I can’t leave. Or maybe it’s that I don’t want to leave.
What’s wrong with me?
“They’re not always that way.”
It’s my turn to be cocky now. “Are you saying you’ve been looking?”
“It’s impossible to not look at you.”
We stare at each other, the air between us crackling like live electric wires downed in a storm. My heart pounds hard. There’s nothing I want more than to close the distance between us. To kiss him. To get him out of my blood like the poison he is.
It takes all the self-possession I have not to.
I force a smile I don’t feel. “Guess you’ll just have to keep looking. Good night, Alessio.”
This time, I don’t stop when I walk away.