2. The First Day, pt I
two
Felicity’s mouth fell open as the man’s words echoed in her head. The man she still couldn’t properly see. The man who’d abducted her. “The … the what?” When had her mouth gone dry? It was so hard to talk. She sounded so weak.
He stood, and it was as if his shadow got sucked into the ceiling. His figure obscured nearly all of the light from the lamp, until only the widest reaching beams flanked his sides. Then, finally, it clicked in her mind where she’d heard that deep, slightly roughened timbre before.
The sexy stranger from the store…It was like being kicked in the stomach. So much for that fantasy.
“From today forward,” he said, speaking calmly as his shadowy figure moved further out of sight, “your life belongs to me.” More light poured into the room, this time from overhead, illuminating everything. “You won’t be going back to that grocery store. You won’t need to worry about that low-rent apartment, or paying your phone bill, or rushing out to catch a cab.” He dropped to a crouch next to the bed, probably as close to her as he’d been at the grocery store but in an intensely different way. Those blue eyes she remembered wanting to drown in bore into her. “The only thing you need to worry about now is whether or not you’re being honest with me.”
Her head spun. Felicity scooted a couple of inches away, too unsettled to really look around the room now that she could see it. “What?” She shook her head. “You can’t be serious. This isn’t real, right? This is some … some crazy prank, right?” She could feel her hysteria building as her breathing became unstable. “I’m just dreaming. Even my shit life isn’t this—”
She didn’t consciously see him move. One moment he was crouching outside the bed, watching her almost stoically. The next moment she was flat on her back, her head pressed into a pillow that definitely wasn’t her own and the man who might have kidnapped her in her sleep seemingly planked above her. On top of her.
His arms were braced outside her shoulders, his face directly over hers and close enough that she felt his soundless exhales against her skin. His whole body was close, despite that it wasn’t technically resting on hers. She could feel his chest against her breasts and her body tingled with the awareness of his nearness all down her legs to where her feet were pinned together between his legs.
Her eyes widened as a fresh wave of panic surged inside her.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, still speaking calmly. “I only need you to accept that this is real.”
His words did very little to calm her. “You just— How am I supposed to— Get off me!”
His lips twitched, warmth brightening his eyes faintly. “Raise your voice all you want. We don’t have neighbors. No one will hear you.” He paused for a heartbeat and his expression settled again. “Now, touch me.”
Her stomach rolled and something else coiled rebelliously. “Excuse me?” Her voice definitely sharpened with that one. They were still touching in too many places, so she felt the chuckle vibrate through him. She shouldn’t have enjoyed it, and she certainly shouldn’t have wished she could hear it, too.
“Put your hand on my body. Anywhere you like is fine. Pinch, scratch, punch if it makes you feel better—do what you have to do to convince yourself.”
Felicity swallowed hard. “Convince myself…?”
His voice dropped an octave, though his expression never wavered. “That I’m real. That this is real.”
Hand shaking, Felicity slowly reached up until her fingers were pressing into abdominal muscle. Tight, toned, masculine abdominal muscle. She dragged in a breath and pulled her hand higher, toward his shoulder. He was all muscle. So big, so strong, and so infuriatingly her type—aside from the kidnapping thing—that she was struggling to keep her priorities straight. If she knew the first damn thing about pressure points, maybe she could have used this opportunity to knock him out and escape. Then again, he was directly above her, so if he suddenly collapsed, she’d be crushed.
She didn’t realize her nails had dug into his shoulder through his shirt until he let out a low, almost strained groan. Her vision cleared in an instant and she caught the way his eyes seemed to glaze over as the rhythm of his breathing changed, becoming heavier. She immediately pulled her hand away, awkwardly tucking it up along her side.
He smirked. “Didn’t expect you to get flirty. You like pain?”
Heat seared her cheeks. She had to fight the instinct to shake her head. “N-no, I do not.” She didn’t think she did, anyway.
“You get cuter when you blush like that,” he said. “But we have plenty of time to talk about what each other likes.”
It was all she could do to keep dragging in breaths—breaths that smelled very much like the man who hadn’t yet let her up—as she attempted to unpack his words.
“Do you believe me now, sweet Felicity?”
Tears pricked her eyes. She’d liked when he’d called her that at the store. Now it felt … like a lie. “Yes,” she whispered. “But I don’t understand. What’s so special about me?” It was only a portion of the question she wanted to ask, but she figured that it did the job well enough. Or she hoped it did.
He sat up and twisted to the side, putting distance between them. Instead of completely standing from the bed, however, he slipped her nearest hand into his with a gentle touch and bent forward as he raised her arm. She watched as if having an out of body experience when his lips pressed warmly into the skin over her fingers, all while his stare remained locked with hers.
She should have yanked her hand away. She should have tested his claim that no one would hear them. She should have leapt from the bed and bolted for the door she could finally see. But she was frozen, her heart pounding hard against her ribs and beating like a war drum in her ears.
“Everything,” he said as he retreated, letting her arm return to her side. “Everything is special about you, Felicity.” He stood then and indicated another door, which she hadn’t seen beyond his massive frame. “The bathroom and walk-in closet are through that door. Help yourself to anything you find. I’ll get some breakfast started.” He turned toward the door she’d been eyeing. “You have about half an hour.”
Felicity shot up again, urgency and fresh confusion rushing through her. “Wait! I—” She cut off the question she doubted he’d answer. “At least … at least tell me what I can call you. I don’t have a clue what your name is.”
He stopped at the door and met her gaze again. “Cristiano De Salvo.”
Her eyes bulged even as he slipped out the door. She barely heard the door lock. Holy shit. The De Salvos weren’t celebrities in the traditional sense, but anyone who’d grown up in Newark, or probably anywhere in New Jersey, knew the name. The De Salvos were not men to be messed with. How the hell had she landed on the radar of one of those men?
She clutched hard at the sheet beneath her. More importantly, what did he really want with her?
Cristiano allowed himself a second to drag in a breath before starting down the hall to the kitchen. He was definitely committed now. He’d been fighting the urge to steal curvy little Felicity Garcia away from her shitty life from the first time he’d laid eyes on her, nearly two weeks earlier. She was too fucking young for him, at twenty-three-years-old to his thirty-seven, but he’d only cared about their age difference for about an hour. The singular hour during which he’d actively tried to talk himself off the ledge of obsession once he’d realized he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Then he’d found himself spending more time than he should keeping tabs on her. Memorizing her routine. Identifying the people in her life—and the ones who should have been but weren’t. He had a fucking list of infractions he could slap against her landlord, the least of which was how easy it had been to break into her actual apartment. That at least was one of his specialties.
The woman had embedded herself in his brain before they’d ever said a word to each other, or even made eye-contact. He’d surpassed merely wanting a taste of her. It had taken all of his strength of will not to pop that punk teenager in the grocery store for mouthing off at her, right there in front of all the other patrons. He hadn’t meant to leave an impression when he’d made the arguably stupid decision to shop in her lane, but the moment he’d heard what she was putting up with, it had been unavoidable. He’d have much preferred to scoop her up right then and there and take her away from that place.
Cristiano pulled out the ingredients he needed for the comfort food breakfast he’d chosen to make her. It would be a weak apology for what he’d done to her, he knew. But he couldn’t allow her to go home. In part because he was selfish and he’d never met a woman who fascinated him more. Mostly because, if he didn’t keep her close and under his immediate protection, she’d wind up dead.
As she was supposed to.
Dante was going to go through the roof when he inevitably found out that Cristiano had disobeyed an order.
The shock had long worn off by the time Cristiano De Salvo returned to the masculine-lux bedroom he’d trapped her in. Felicity had availed herself of the bathroom, and been horrified to discover more than half a closet full of beautiful, designer clothes for women that seemed to all be in her sizes. Still, though it made her uncomfortable to think about, she’d taken the opportunity to slip into something more acceptable than pajamas.
With her bladder emptied, hands washed and teeth brushed, and her body sheathed in more appropriate clothing, Felicity had stepped back into the room and allowed herself to really look at it.
She wasn’t so surprised to see it was gorgeous, in a sleek and handsome way. Heated tile floors kept her bare toes from freezing. Dark gray walls held the space together in a way that felt more like a den than a claustrophobic box, though that was probably helped by the height of the off-white ceiling. The wall behind the king-sized mattress had an attached headboard, the likes of which she’d only seen on television. Even the furniture in the room was tasteful. Dark mahogany with smooth surfaces. There was even a ceiling fan centered over the bed.
What had surprised her, after she finished determining which drawers of the side table and small in-room desk she could access and which she could not, was that she’d been a little bit wrong about the window theory. The far wall did not contain a window behind floor-to-ceiling drapery. It was a window, from corner to corner, floor to ceiling. Her stomach heaved when she pushed the heavy drape aside to look out.
“Holy shit.”
She was standing in an actual, honest-to-goodness high-end penthouse suite. She could practically see New York from the window. It would have been exciting if the prospect of how trapped she truly was didn’t immediately follow. This was why they didn’t have neighbors. More than likely, Cristiano’s space extended to whatever was beneath the bedroom, too. That was assuming the De Salvos didn’t own the entire freaking building.
Felicity yanked the drape back over the undoubtedly reinforced glass, not in the mood to appreciate the view, and stumbled backward until she hit the bed. She toppled onto the mattress, breathing hard. Seconds passed before she scooted herself up again to put her back to the headboard.
I’ve been kidnapped. By the De Salvos. By the sexiest freaking man I’ve ever seen, who happens to be a De Salvo. And he’s holding me in a fucking penthouse like this is some kind of movie plot! No. Obviously there was a catch. Obviously, this wasn’t really about her at all. She was a pawn. At best, she was being manipulated to roll over on her own family, and they were trying to both scare and bribe her at the same time. In which case, it was really a shame no one had just asked first.
Her fingers clawed at the denim of the jeans she’d chosen to wear. “If this is Tristán’s fault, I swear…” She wasn’t a violent person. In her heart, angry or not, she knew she’d never truly assault her own brother. Despite the kind of person he was. But she was absolutely angry enough to stop listening to all the begging and fake tears.
She never should have come back from California.
She didn’t hear the lock roll back on the door, so when it swung open, she startled again. She sat up straight and clutched a pillow to her chest defensively. There hadn’t been anything she could use in the drawers as a weapon, and all of the coat hangers were attached to the closet rod. Only as Cristiano entered the room did it occur to Felicity that she could have—possibly—unplugged and removed the small desk lamp he’d originally turned on before. She felt like an idiot for not at least checking.
Then her gaze dropped to the large tray of food he was balancing on his arm and her stomach rumbled, suddenly over the panic from looking out the window or worrying about what her family had dragged her into. The dinner she’d made for herself the night before had been fine. But apparently Cristiano De Salvo could cook.
Damn him.
He set two cups of steaming coffee on the desk, then lowered the tray itself. “I thought we’d eat together before I leave for work. We won’t have many chances to talk today after this.”
Felicity eyed the plates of food. French toast, her favorite brand-name syrup, two plates with what looked like two fried eggs a piece and a pile of hashbrowns, and a smaller plate with sausage links. It was a feast. She wanted it. It looked good. It smelled good. But she didn’t trust him.
He motioned to the spread. “It’s all the same,” he said. “I’ll let you pick first, and take whatever you leave behind. Nothing’s drugged, poisoned, or otherwise tampered with.”
She held fast. “Obviously you’re not above drugging me. There’s no way I slept through whatever you did to get me here. Why can’t you just tell me what you really want? This is Tristán’s fault somehow, right? I don’t know where he is, but I have his phone number. I’ll give it to you. I’ll tell you where he’s living now, not that I think he’s hiding there. But you might find one or two of his druggie friends hanging around.”
Cristiano lowered his arm and stepped closer, up to the foot of the bed. “I won’t tell you your brother’s not involved—”
“Half-brother,” Felicity said fiercely. Indignation flashed through her chest and she leaned forward, onto her knees, as if making herself taller would make her louder or stronger. “That jerk is my half-brother, and I make a concerted effort to stay as far away from him and his— his— shit as I possibly can. So whatever he’s done, while I’m sorry for it, it’s not my fault.”
Something like a smile lifted Cristiano’s lips. “That’s good to hear. Still, it doesn’t mean I can just take you home with an apology and disappear.”
She frowned, her stomach rumbling again as she dragged in another breath of the hot breakfast. “Why not?”
He stepped aside and again indicated the breakfast. “Why don’t we talk about that while we eat? I promise, I won’t bite.”
“You’ve given me no reason to trust your promises.”
He arched a brow. “Haven’t I?”
She opened her mouth as her brain flashed through their limited history. Him stepping in out of nowhere to scare some manners into that boy at the store, then talking to her and sending her hormones out of whack for the rest of the day. Him kidnapping her in her sleep. Him being there when she woke up, having watched her sleep for who-knew-how-long, and patiently reacting to her frazzled freak-out. Him pinning her to the bed and yet barely touching her. The heat in his eyes that said he had wanted to when all he ultimately did was kiss her hand.
She swallowed. “So you didn’t rape me. Does that count as a good reason to trust your word?” She had to spit the question, because she hated the way it felt in her mouth, but it was also too valid not to put into words.
His expression hardened, becoming serious, the way it had in the grocery store. “My desire for you does not give me the right to use your body like some kind of toy. Nothing like that will happen between us unless, or until, I’m certain it’s something you want as well.”
The absolute earnestness of his voice and the way it matched the look in his eyes finally propelled her to slide to her feet. She was hungry, and she would think better with food in her belly. This is why I’m fat. But that was a problem for another day. She did her best to keep a little distance between herself and Cristiano as she rounded the bed and made her way to the table, examining the offerings up close.
It all smelled so good, she thought she could eat the whole damn platter. She’d regret it later, for sure, but she was an emotional eater. It tended to cloud her self-awareness. She glanced over her shoulder toward her captor. “I can choose what servings I eat?”
He nodded. “It’s all up to you.”
She looked back at the food. Fuck it. If she got herself killed, this was a way better way to go than pretty much all the ones she’d feared would find her. So she grabbed one of the forks and started dividing the portions, making sure to leave a slice of the fluffy French toast for Mr. Muscles. “If you really want to prove something to me,” she said as she finally reached for the syrup, “let me see you eat that.” She indicated the remaining slice with the syrup bottle.
Cristiano chuckled. She almost missed it, the sound was so low, but he actually chuckled.
She sat herself down in the chair in an effort to hide the way her body responded. If her body could make up its mind on whether it was hungry, horny, or petrified, that would be amazingly helpful.
Cristiano stepped up to the outer side of the desk, leaving a few feet of space between them, and took the syrup as soon as she set it down. He drizzled some over the top of the remaining slice, picked up the plate and second fork, and lifted it without pulling up another chair. “As you wish,” he said, meeting her stare again before stabbing the fork into the bread.
She bit back a groan and watched, irrationally riveted, as he pushed it into his mouth. She stared unabashedly as his lips closed around the fork and his jaw began to work, the fork sliding out again and bringing a thin, sparkly trail of syrup with it. She knew he knew she was staring, but she couldn’t look away. She rolled her lips between her teeth as his tongue darted out to catch the sticky syrup at the corner of his mouth and she swallowed heavily when she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he took it down.
French toast had never been so sexy.
If he just stood in front of her and ate that whole slice, she would surely spontaneously combust. Never mind that it had been her idea.
Nearly fumbling her loaded plate entirely off her lap, Felicity reached out and grabbed hold of the nearest coffee. Maybe a shot of caffeine would clear her mind. Even if only enough to eat her damn breakfast. She wanted a bite of her own French toast … almost as badly as she wanted to know what Cristiano’s mouth could do to her.
He ate the whole slice before he bothered pulling the other chair in the room up to the table. And when he did, he settled it close enough that his knee bumped hers. There was no way that was not a deliberate positioning, but after the way she’d gotten so hot and bothered simply watching him eat, Felicity held back any rational complaint.
“So,” he said as he cut into his eggs, “if the food’s agreeing with you, did you want to talk?”
Talk. Talking was good. Talking was smart. If she could trust herself not to say anything humiliating. Felicity choked down the last bite of her sausage and lowered her fork, allowing herself a moment. The food was delicious. She doubted he needed to be told that. Her people-pleasing instincts made it hard to keep the compliment inside. She chased it back with a gulp of coffee and finally noticed his own. “Do you really drink your coffee like this?” She liked hers with sugar and cream, enough to turn the black liquid a rich brown color. Both drinks looked exactly the same.
His lips kicked up at the corner. “No,” he said. “I prefer it black. But I wanted you to have the choice, for whatever comfort it might offer. It won’t kill me to drink it this way once in a while.”
She felt her expression soften. “I should be raving mad and terrified right now,” she said quietly. “A smarter woman would probably be at least trying to contemplate ways to turn this fork into a weapon. And I won’t say I wasn’t scared for a minute, but … it’s more like, I’m trying to be scared, rather than I’m actually feeling that way.”
He lowered his own fork and leaned back in his chair, studying her. “You’re saying you’re not afraid of me?”
She snorted before she could stop herself. “I’m born and raised in this city,” she said. “I know the De Salvos are dangerous. But something being dangerous doesn’t mean I have to be shaking in fear of it all the time, right? That’s kind of where I’m at.”
He pulled a napkin from beneath the sausage plate and offered it to her. “You wanted to know what this had to do with your brother.”
Her fingers curled a little too tightly around the napkin as she took it from him. “Half.”
“Tristán’s gotten mixed up in a new gang,” Cristiano said. “Do you know anything about the Ink Blots? Who runs them, maybe what their objective is? We know they have a benefactor, but Tristán’s managed to keep his mouth shut on who that actually is.”
Felicity set her coffee on the desktop beside her plate as her hands started to shake. “Ink Blots?” She brought the napkin to her face, as much in an attempt to get herself composed as to clean her mouth. Again, it crumpled in her grip as her unpredictable half-brother’s taunting sneer flitted across her mind. “I … think I’ve heard the name recently,” she said, trying to think beyond her fear.
Cristiano reached out and gently pulled her hands from her face. His thumb stroked the back of her hand. “Did they hurt you, Felicity?” His voice was tighter, firmer. As if his temper were fraying. But his touch remained light and non-restrictive.
She hesitated. “There are some things I’m not comfortable talking about,” she said in a whisper. She swallowed. “But, no, they haven’t hurt me.” Why did I even tell him that?
He let his hand fall away. “So you don’t know anything about their infrastructure?”
She shook her head. “Definitely not. Tristán’s an asshole, but he’s not a complete idiot. If he’d shared something like that with me, I’d have reported him.” She dragged in another breath. “If you’re looking for inside information on his gang life, the only person he might have told is Manny. I’m useless to you.”
Cristiano met her gaze again. “No, sweet Felicity, you’re not useless at all.”