54. Allie
Allie
Vinnie pulled into the garage, and I sat there, staring at the dashboard like it was about to give me life-altering advice. It didn’t. Not even with a little alcohol in my veins to push that along.
With a sigh, I forced myself out of the car. Half of me wanted to march straight to Dom and Sienna’s, but the thought of dealing with teething babies at this hour? Hard pass. I needed sleep, not the soundtrack of newborns wailing like they’d just been evicted from the womb.
Instead, I settled on a plan. A real plan. I was sleeping in my damn room tonight. And I was staying there.
Except… I groaned, rubbing my temples. That meant moving all of my stuff back upstairs.
Again. It had taken an effort to move my things into Rico’s closet, my toiletries into his bathroom, my entire existence into his space—purely out of spite.
And now, I was about to drag it all back like a prisoner of war waving a white flag.
And somehow, that felt worse.
Muttering under my breath, I stepped inside, shutting the door with a little too much force.
The house was dark. Not a single light. Not even the low, traitorous glow from under his home office door.
If he was in there, I might have actually lost it.
Would’ve stormed in, ripped those ridiculous monitors out of the wall, and yeeted them into oblivion.
But no. No office glow. No Rico.
I stomped toward the bedroom hallway, tossing my shoes off at the bottom of the stairs. Only when I hit the fourth step did reality smack me upside the head.
All. My. Stuff.
It was still in his room. My clothes. My toiletries.
With the grace of a sleep-deprived zombie, I turned around, shuffled back through the kitchen, past the living room, and down the hall toward Rico’s room. I pushed open the door, ready to grab my essentials and flee—only to freeze in my tracks.
A sliver of golden light spilled out from beneath the bathroom door.
That motherfucker.
Apparently, my exhaustion had lied to me because suddenly, energy surged back into my body like I’d been hooked up to an IV of pure violence.
He didn’t call. Didn’t text. Didn’t show up to my debut.
But oh, he had time to come home, kick back, and take a shower?
Over. My. Dead. Body.
Or his.
Sicilian. Daughter of a mob boss. Raised to know at least six ways to kill a man without getting blood on my shoes. If Rico thought I didn’t know exactly where to stab to make it hurt, he had another thing coming.
I launched across the room, yanking the bathroom door open so hard it nearly came off the hinges. Steam billowed around me, heavy and humid, like a personal fog machine created solely to mock me.
And then, through the mist, I saw him.
Standing there.
Dripping.
Shirtless.
Towel slung low on his hips.
I’d love to say that I stayed laser-focused on my righteous fury.
That I didn’t immediately zero in on the taut, olive skin stretched over perfectly sculpted muscles.
That my eyes didn’t betray me by drinking in every inch of his broad chest and the flames inked into his back, licking up his shoulders like they belonged there.
But that would be a lie.
And I’m a lot of things—dramatic, stubborn, a sore loser—but I’m not a liar.
I tried. Tried to look past all of it. Tried to remember that I was here to erupt, not have an out-of-body experience over my husband’s absurdly perfect body.
And then he turned.
My anger flickered, fizzling out like a dying match.
Scars.
Dozens of them.
Some faint and white, some jagged and stretched, all twisting over his ribs, his chest, curling around his back like a story carved into his skin. Old. Worn. Fused with him like they’d grown alongside his body.
My stomach knotted.
Rico just stood there, silent as ever, his unreadable gaze locked onto mine.
The furious monologue in my head—the one that had pages of colorful insults ready to fly—screeched to a halt.
Instead, I stood there, unmoving, cataloging every inch of destruction scribbled across his body.
Then I blinked, swallowed hard, and looked him in the eye.
“You didn’t show.”
Rico sighs. Tossing the towel onto the countertop like this conversation is just another chore on his to-do list.
“Nothing? You’re not going to say anything?” My voice climbs an octave. “You didn’t show, even though you said you would. You didn’t call.”
“I called.”
I blink. “When?”
“After I realized I missed it.”
Oh, he’s going to die tonight.
I didn’t get a call, but that might be because Kai forced me to turn off my phone after he caught me checking it every five minutes.
I take a slow, deep breath—because I read somewhere that’s what rational, composed people do before they commit murder—and let it out through my nose. “After you missed it?” My voice wobbles between incredulous and homicidal. “After? After!?”
Before I know it, I’m marching across the room, ignoring the fact that Rico is currently fresh out of the shower and standing there like a walking, talking Michelangelo sculpture.
And what do I do?
I slap his ridiculous, perfectly defined pec.
“Why. Did. You. Miss. It?”
His hand scrubs over his jaw, then drags through his wet hair, slicking it back, and my stomach flutters.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. No. Nope. Not happening. I refuse to let my ovaries betray me like this. This man is an emotionally stunted, self-absorbed asshole—and yet, somehow, I’m still two seconds away from fanning myself like a Southern belle in a heatwave.
“I fell asleep.”
I lunge. No hesitation. No second-guessing. I go for his face, prepared to leave a handprint so deep it’ll be his new birthmark.
Only, the bastard catches my wrist.
“I’m going to kill you,” I seethe.
And then…
He smiles.
Not a smirk. Not one of those half-assed, barely there things that men do when they think they’re smarter than you. No. A real smile.
And that’s the real problem.
Because I—Allie Bennetti, woman with an actual backbone—likes it.
Oh, and worse? It’s the most devastating smile I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
What is wrong with me?
“You fell asleep?” I manage, voice slightly strangled.
The smile disappears, and thank God for that, because my nipples were about three seconds away from clawing their way through my bra.
His grip on my wrist tightens—firm but not rough—as he tugs me in. My body collides with his, warm and hard and utterly unfair, and I forget how to breathe for a second.
“I’m sorry.”
I squint. “How hard was that for you to say?”
He smirks.
I groan. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Don’t smile.”
His jaw clenches, his face shifting back into that usual stoic, unreadable expression—the Rico I’m used to. The one I pretend doesn’t make me weak in the knees.
“I’m sorry, Allie.”
I tilt my head. “Not sorry enough.”
He exhales slowly, like he’s actually putting effort into this. “I’m very sorry.”
“When’s the last time you apologized to a human?” Why use human? Because he would count the time he hit a key too hard on his precious keyboard or scowled at his monitor. No, I want to know the last time he was sorry to an actual person. One with a heart beat and lungs.
“A few years. Don’t make a habit of it.”
“Oh, so I’m someone special to you, then?” I snap, driving the point home that I mean nothing to this man outside of me and what my uterus is offering.
His lips part, his voice dropping into something low and devastating as he murmurs, “Very.”
We both stop breathing. That or the Earth stopped spinning. Both are likely since hell just froze over.
Then, suddenly—we crash.
A storm. A collision. A riot of need so sharp it feels like it might cut. His grip on my wrist loosens, only to slide into my hair, fisting my ponytail and yanking my head back just as his mouth crashes onto mine.
It’s not a kiss. Not really. It’s war. A brutal, no-holds-barred battle of lips and teeth and tongues, all hunger and frustration and pent-up everything.
His other hand drops, grabbing a handful of my ass, yanking me against him so hard it knocks the breath from my lungs. And—oh. Yeah, that towel? Useless. That Egyptian cotton might as well be made of tissue paper for all the good it’s doing in hiding what’s pressing against my stomach.
I moan into his mouth, nails digging into his bare chest, and that’s it. He snaps.