Chapter Three
Vito
She does not know who I am…the boss of the most powerful Mafia syndicate in Campania.
The thought was like a shot of adrenaline, mainlining through my bloodstream as I felt Mia Taylor’s toned thigh tremble beneath my palm. The helicopter climbed towards the villa, the city laid out below us, so much of which I now owned.
This stunning creature had no idea of the things I had done to survive, and then to prosper.
She had no reason to fear me or appease me.
Excitement pulsed in my groin at the memory of her quick wit, and her innocent fury at my teasing—and the way her breath had gushed against my neck in staggered gasps.
Then her lips had moulded to mine while I devoured that provocative mouth and explored her curves.
I’d had my consigliere, Gattuso, do a background check on Mia as soon as I had spotted her amongst the other guests lining up on the dock, to ensure her appearance was not a honey trap set by the authorities or my half brother, Dante. It would be just like that bastard to use a woman to get to me.
But once Gattuso had confirmed she was a tourist from London, and a schoolteacher no less, the hunger to see those bright green eyes daze with lust, to inhale the scent of her arousal and feel her thighs wrap around my waist while I thrust into her willing body, had become impossible to ignore.
I had been patient for months, denied the pleasures I had once taken for granted, forced to focus on defeating Dante and his threat to the Rocco empire. But I had been on the hunt for a woman tonight, as living like a monk had only increased my frustration.
Gattuso, of course, had advised against a hookup with a hot tourist. But then, Gattuso had always been a killjoy—a man who had never understood the main upside of this life was to take what you wanted, whenever you wanted it.
So what if we were in a turf war with my half brother?
We were winning. And there was no purpose to fighting a war if you could not enjoy the spoils.
A heavy sigh echoed in my headphones, the staggered awe of the girl beside me like a vindication of all I had suffered and survived to get to this moment in time. In charge of my own destiny. Able to destroy any bastard who dared take it from me.
This night would be a reward for all the battles fought and won in the last six months. Dante had sensed a weakness and tried to exploit it. But he had soon discovered his mistake—that the power vacuum he had anticipated after our father’s death two years ago had never existed.
A price had been paid in good men and money while he challenged my authority. But we had victory within our grasp now. And I was ready to celebrate. But I was bored with women who threw themselves at me, drawn to the danger and power of my position.
Mia Taylor—with her spectacular breasts, the shocked awe in her eyes when our gazes had first connected tonight and her innocent awareness—was the perfect way to ease the throbbing in my cock caused by being too long without a woman.
She had also been a delightful surprise.
Provocative and seductive but also unconventional and unaware of her charms.
When was the last time I had taken a woman who saw me as a man instead of the head of a criminal empire? Never, certainly not since I had hit puberty and been declared the rightful heir and then the underboss of the Rocco Syndicate.
Tonight, I couldn’t imagine anything hotter than tasting this woman, tormenting her, taming her—as nothing more than a man.
We would part ways as soon as dawn broke. I was not in the market for anything permanent. I trusted no one entirely, not even Gattuso. But I intended to ensure, when I did let Mia go, she would never forget me.
As the helicopter circled the estate in Naples, I heard Mia’s sharp intake of breath as she absorbed the sight of the city below.
The blanket of lights which covered the headland, the terracotta rooftops and terraces stacked on the hillside, the dark lump of Capri in the distance—and a few miles to the west, Isla Donna, the island fortress I had called home ever since my father had rescued me from my stepfather at my mother’s graveside.
‘The city’s so beautiful,’ she whispered.
‘It is certainly something.’ I let out a raw laugh at her na?veté and inhaled her scent—sultry spice and fresh blooms—as the helicopter settled on the front lawn. The heat in my groin surged.
Naples and my life here hadn’t been beautiful, it had been dangerous and terrifying—the scrabble for survival harder than elsewhere because violence and death lurked around every corner when you knew where to look. And if you didn’t have power, you had nothing.
I had once been powerless, which was why I would stop at nothing to ensure I was never powerless again.
But nothing could make you feel more alive than winning that fight. Except maybe the moment of climax inside a woman, which the French called la petite mort.
I was too hard, too volatile, too dominant to want more than sex from a woman like her—who for all her courage was gullible and naive—but I knew how to make her come until she screamed.
She had taken a risk tonight, not knowing who I was. A man who commanded an empire and could have any woman he wanted with the snap of his fingers. But tonight, I wanted her, with a fever that surprised me.
It wasn’t about this girl. However stunning and unusual she was, she wasn’t special.
How could she be, when she wasn’t even Italian—and knew nothing of my world?
But the thought of seducing her, a sweet, ordinary schoolteacher—when I had been the worst student imaginable—added a layer of irony that only made me want her more.
I had seen the naked hunger she couldn’t disguise—felt the attraction spark between us when our gazes had locked—and enjoyed immensely her attempts to hold her own against me.
And the way she responded to me—without holding anything back—only added more potential to a night which was already as hot as it was intriguing.
Mia would be my gift to myself for six months of frustration and provocation. One long, hot night of pleasure, while I made my stunning little English schoolteacher beg for release.