Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
ENZO
Iglare at her, feeling like this conversation is getting us nowhere. We’re just going around in circles, and she’s definitely not being entirely truthful. “You’re still hiding something, Rayne. I know you too well.”
She scoffs. “You know nothing about me, Enzo.”
Wrong. I know how you smell. How you taste. The sounds you make when you fall apart. I mentally shake those thoughts from my head. “What do you know about Carmine and the Bertellis?”
“Nothing more than you know. That Oscar and Carmine hated each other almost as much as I hate you.”
All I can do is stare at her, wishing I could force her to talk but knowing I can’t.
Because despite everything—every lie, every sleepless night and every single memory I’ve tried so hard to bury—she is still the only woman I have ever loved.
The only one I have ever wanted so badly that I would have done anything for her.
Bleed, kill, die. I look at her and remember every single time we made love, every argument we ever had.
All the times she challenged me, pushed me to be better.
Every single time she looked at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered to her.
Memories that I have no time or space for now. They only fuel my anger, and to dangerous levels. “You really have the nerve to hate me?”
She rolls her eyes. Fuck me, I want to put her over my knee and spank her ass so hard she won’t sit down for a week. “I have every right to hate you, Enzo.”
“Why? Because I killed Tommy?”
“That’s one of the reasons,” she snarls. Then she gets up and storms out of the room, daring to walk away from me.
Bitch! The image of her in his arms is burned into my brain like an x-ray and it only stokes the vicious rage already simmering directly beneath my skin. If she wants reasons to hate me, I can give her plenty more.
I follow her into the hallway, backing her up against the wall and stopping her from going any farther. “You’re a lying, cheating slut, and you have the fucking audacity to look at me like that for killing him. My best friend. The man you fucked in our bed,” I accuse, my voice vibrating with fury.
Her eyes narrow to thin slits, and I’m pretty sure she’s wishing me dead right now. “You’re wrong, Enzo.”
Just what fucking mind games is she trying to play here? “I know what I saw, Rayne.”
“You have no goddamn idea what you saw.”
I know what I fucking saw. Believing otherwise would mean every certainty I have built my life around was a lie, and I have survived on those certainties for six fucking years.
Tommy was there. I saw him. I saw enough.
I remember all of it. So why does the look in her eyes make the truth feel less like stone and more like sand slipping through my fingers?
I slam my fist on the wall beside her. She doesn’t even flinch, just goes on glaring at me like I’m the problem.
Like I’m the one who broke us. Like she truly does hate me just as much as I hate her.
Except that I don’t, do I? I sure as fuck want to.
But if I actually hated her, this would be easy.
I wouldn’t be standing here with my pulse jackhammering in my throat, wondering what it would feel like if I closed the last inch between us.
What she’d taste like if I kissed her. What her skin would feel like if I touched her.
How wet she’d be for me if I slid my hand into her panties.
Arguing always used to get my girl all riled up, so wet and needy for me that I’d fuck her for hours afterward.
I doubt that’s changed these past six years.
“You don’t get to stand in my fucking house and act like you’re the victim. ”
“Then let me go, and I won’t ever have to stand in your house again.”
A bitter laugh bubbles up in me. “You really think I’m that stupid?”
“I think you’re as dumb as a bag of rocks, but not for the reasons you think.”
I growl, hyperaware of every single thing about her.
The way her breathing has grown increasingly shallow, making her tits rise and fall beneath that goddam barely-there cami.
I recall all too well how good they felt in my hands, how crazy it used to make her when I toyed with her nipples.
Our bodies were so in tune, I could make her come just from that alone.
She was fucking perfect for me. Until she screwed my best friend.
“You should really watch your mouth,” I warn her.
“Or what? There is nothing you can do to me that would be worse than what you already did, Enzo. Nothing.”
Is she talking about me killing Tommy again? Possessive jealousy burns a hole in my heart. “You really loved him that much? More than me?”
She blinks now, like she’s confused. “I have never loved anyone more than I loved you.” It’s an instinctive response. I can tell by the way she immediately regrets it.
“You had a real funny fucking way of showing it.”
She rolls her eyes again, and I’m the one reacting on instinct now, wrapping one hand around her throat as I pin her to the wall.
Her eyelashes flutter against her pink cheeks.
I want her gone and out of my life for good.
I want to forget she ever existed. But more than that, I want to carry her to my bed and fuck her until she begs for my forgiveness.
Six years and she still consumes me. Has she thought about me at all these past six years?
Missed me? Has she been suffering the way that I have? Living only a shadow of a life?
My gaze drops to her mouth and those parted pink lips begging to be kissed. My eyes linger there for less than a second, but it’s enough for her to notice. Her breath catches, throat thickening beneath my palm as she swallows.
I should back away. Instead, I inch closer, pressing my body against hers, feeling the heat of her skin through my shirt.
The tension between us grows charged, violent.
Like the seconds before a storm breaks. Her eyes are locked onto mine, neither of us looking away.
The moment stretches out between us, close to breaking.
I’m fucking close to breaking. Every instinct I have tells me to walk away.
To take my goddamn hands off her and stop staring into her soulful hazel eyes. So why can’t I fucking move?
Her jaw is set. Defiant. Fucking infuriating.
This woman destroyed me, yet she’s still capable of making my heart slam against my ribs.
I hate that some weak, treacherous part of me still remembers how good it felt to hold her.
To kiss her. Fuck her. Most of all, I hate that she fucking knows it too.
“Stop looking at me like that, Enzo.” She says the words with no conviction, her voice sinful and seductive.
I inch closer until there’s no space left between us. “Like what?”
“Like you want to kill me.”
A humorless smile lifts the corners of my mouth. “I think we both know that’s not the look you’re worried about, Rayne.”
“Oh, yeah? Then what am I worried about?”
I dip my head, bringing my mouth close to her ear. The way she shivers at my breath on her skin makes my cock leak in my boxers. I’m harder than titanium. “That I’m going to fuck you against this wall and you’re going to fucking love it.”
“You’re unbelievable,” she pants, almost breathless.
My grip on her throat tightens slightly, not enough to hurt her. That’s not the kind of suffering I want her to endure. The silence is loud enough for me to hear a heartbeat. Mine, hers, or maybe both.
“I hate you,” she whispers.
The words should deter me. Instead, they sound like a plea. Or maybe a confession.
All the anger, all the resentment and betrayal, the far too many long nights I’ve spent alone thinking about her, collapse into a single unbearable moment.
I crash my mouth to hers, a bruising claiming of the lips that will always belong to me.
For a blissful moment, she kisses me back, all passion and fire and longing.
But then she bites down on my lip, hard enough to break the skin.
I snarl, licking the sliver of blood from my skin, and she takes the opportunity to wrench her mouth away from me.
Right before she delivers a swift knee to my balls.
White-hot pain sears in my groin and I double over, fighting for a breath that won’t come. Fucking bitch. “You might be keeping me prisoner here, Enzo, but I’m not your damn property.” She spits out the words. “Don’t ever touch me again. You lost any right to do that six years ago.”
She stalks off down the hallway, and I grit my teeth together and stand upright, finally sucking some air into my lungs. “You couldn’t beg me enough to fucking touch you again, Rayne.”
She flips me the bird. A second later, she turns the corner, and then the door to her room slams shut.
Fuck! Why the hell did I touch her, and what in god’s name possessed me to kiss her? Now I have the taste of her on my tongue, an aching dick, and nothing but my hand for relief.