Chapter 9 #2
Laughter rumbled through her chest. I took the last step, catching her chin with my finger, where the connection burned hot and relentless. Her smile faltered. Frosty gray searched my face and settled on my lips. She swallowed.
“You make me fucking insane, Vivienne.”
“Doc can check you out and recommend a treatment plan.”
“I don’t do therapy.”
Wide eyes blinked up. “What if I’m the therapist?”
I froze. All sorts of lewd thoughts raced through my mind, and she starred in every single one.
Naked. Writhing. Panting. Bleeding and broken.
A part of me didn’t care that I’d ruin the mafia princess.
When it was all over, I’d rebuild her pieces, so she was as obsessed as I was.
Until she needed me like the dark, hungry craving, scouring through my veins.
Resignation escaped my lungs in a sigh. She’d never be mine. But that also didn’t mean I’d ever be free. “You can’t cure what you create.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“I gave prior warning that I wasn’t nice. Now for the last time, what do you know about the ginger?”
“He’s harmless.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Tell me.”
“Jake’s working here to fulfill his parole obligation.”
I pivoted on my heel. She grabbed my arm, and I dragged her into the hallway. “Luca. Luca, please. Please don’t do this.”
The begging stopped me, not the audience in the cafeteria. Not Simone’s raised eyebrow and growing grin, or Damian’s glare. Not even the big black guy whose scowl was deeper than Dami’s or the lady with a wild, blonde fro. And definitely not the ginger stronzo standing next to them.
“Please, mio salvatore. We just talk. That’s all. Jake won’t hurt me.”
The thought of anyone but myself touching Vivienne sloshed around my gut like a fucking sledgehammer, and I used my fist on the wall beside her head to pound out my point. She held my stare.
“I swear to you, Vivienne, on my life and your dinner table, he won’t so much as breathe your name, or I’ll cut out his tongue and serve it to you on a platter with marinara.”
The threat slipped easily between my teeth, so loud and lethal that static air crackled around it. And now she knew. They all knew that the ghost had a pulse.
I could’ve covered up my reaction, said something snide and mean, or laughed it off to save my cold reputation. Instead, I pushed away from my weakness, stalking toward the exit.
“Luca?” Vivienne ran to catch up, past our audience, and out the door. “Hey.”
I sucked in a breath and turned.
Silver hair.
Narrowed eyes.
Frost that bit into my skin from head to toes.
“He’s not a Weasley.”
I shook my head. “What?”
“Jake’s not a Weasley. He’s a Jamie Fraser, a Sam Heughan. I wanted to clarify because there’s a difference. A big, big difference.”
What the fuck did she just say? I didn’t have time to decipher the words before she squared her shoulders and moved in front of me to poke my shoulder.
I glanced at her finger as she dared to do it again.
Under the pressure of her touch, nerve endings sizzled like a live wire jumping in the rain, and my heart jolted.
So did my dick. I blinked back to her, speechless.
“I’m going to talk to him.” Her tone was low but firm. “And you will not hurt him, you won’t do anything about it because I don’t belong to you.”
She threw me a scowl, then turned to leave. I grabbed her wrist, forcing her eyes back to mine, and the huff of her breath hit my lips.
Another spark.
Another jolt.
“You want him?”
“What if I do?” Her chin jerked up. “What if I want more than just banter?”
That fucking insolence would get her in trouble one of these days, maybe on this day if I could find a place to bend her over my knee.
Better yet, I gripped her throat, found her hammering pulse with my thumb, and pressed.
Those fucking eyes grew wide, and then her lids fluttered as I pulled her toward my mouth.
Instead of giving into temptation and pressing mine against hers, I found her ear so she would hear me clearly.
Another bad idea.
She shuddered, and the jolt to my system was maddening. “You going to be a little slut, is that it, Vivienne?”
“Maybe I already am.”
I swallowed a ball of rage and something else.
Something so deliriously intoxicating it seared through my veins and coaxed the beast from his cage.
Vivienne craved the dark—she craved me. The man who’d show her the beauty in pain, the pleasure in madness, and just how a monster played with his angel.
Damian saved her by clearing his throat. “We’ve got work, Mancini.”
It took everything in me, including dragging in several deep breaths, to release her from my hold. When I did, I sneered.
She smiled. Fucking lunatic. But my pulse thought I was the crazy one.
“If that ginger wants to speak again, he won’t do it with you.”
“I think,” she said, patting my chest. “That Jamie Fraser would meet that threat with one of his own.” Vivi turned, calling over her shoulder. “Thanks again for your help with the boxes.”
I watched her backside go, my heart thundering.
Damian ran his mouth for the next hour, spewing a million reasons about how I was fucking over everything I’d worked for. He wasn’t wrong. But I couldn’t stop—not yet. He continued on the ride to the compound while I looked that Jamie Fraser shit up on my phone.
“Well, fuck me,” I said, letting out a frustrated but amused breath.
I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted to laugh, really let loose and laugh.
Vivienne might be good for my health after all.
Little vixen. She’d make me soft if I didn’t watch myself.
Then Damian’s incessant commentary dug into my brain, and my gaze swung out the window, growing hazy with renewed fury over circumstances that couldn’t be changed.
I had a job, and it had nothing to do with owning Vivienne Cabello.
I’d still gut that bastard ginger if he were ever stupid enough to get too close.