Chapter 11
ELEVEN
ANTHONY
I can’t sleep. My cock has been hard since the moment I left the dining room. I throw the sheets off my bed and sit on the side for several minutes. I can’t get her out of my head. I never could. Even after five years, she’s able to get under my skin and embed herself there.
A cool breeze blows through my balcony doors, and I stand, going outside to look out over the ocean. Dawn approaches, and another day begins. I’ll ring New York in the morning and speak to Lucien, see how everything is going there. I can only hope the Dragunoviks don’t retaliate.
They will, of course. It could be today or tomorrow, but eventually they’ll want their pound of flesh.
I grimace and run a hand through my hair. I shouldn’t be here. I should be in New York, keeping the family safe and defending what’s ours. We aren’t the ones who fired the killing shot; that was a Romero.
Isabella.
Bells…
I swallow that truth and, for the hundredth time since she saved my life, I debate with myself what it means to me, my family, and our relationship with the rival family. What does it mean between her and me?
Maybe it means nothing, but I owe her my life, and now I can’t let anything happen to her. Love or hate, there’s a thin line, and I’m starting to see just how transparent it is.
Dinner was a disaster. Why do I think it’s a good idea to touch her? I seriously need my head read. I look at my watch: five a.m., eleven in New York. I walk back into my room and ring Lucien. I need to speak to someone, anyone, to stop myself from doing what my goddamn traitorous body wants.
He picks up on the first ring. “Anthony, how are you?”
“Good,” I say, needing to get my head in the game. “What’s happening in New York? Has there been any retaliation?”
“Not yet, but I I’ve requested a meeting with Rodin Dragunovik. I’m waiting to hear from them. It should be interesting.”
Jesus, the thought of Lucien going there without me made my blood run cold. “I should be there with you. This could be a trap. Where are you hoping the meeting will be held?”
“The Ironwood, a pretty public bar, I shouldn’t think they’ll try anything there, but from what your security has told me, they’re pissed and now have Alex Romero on their payroll. All of them are looking for Isabella.”
My blood runs cold. “So they’re blaming her and no one else.” Bastards. How did they think that what happened in that office was in any way her fault? “They pulled the guns first, or has Alex forgotten that, the fucking two-faced bastard?”
“I’m sure the story has changed, but I’ve forwarded them the security video, and so they know the truth. Hopefully, they’ll see that it was self-defense on behalf of Isabella and not her fault.”
“Do you think they’ll care?” I doubted they would.
“They might see sense, but they’re Russian. I think they’ll want an eye for an eye.”
I close my eyes, knowing that no matter what transpires between Isabella and me, I’ll never let anything happen to her.
“My bigger question is why she would save your ass.” Lucien paused. “I think she still cares for you.”
I scoff, having never heard of anything so prosperous. “I think you need your head read.”
Lucien laughs on the other end of the cell.
“Hear me out. Why would she protect you like that? She could have done nothing. With her brother working for the Dragunoviks, there is little chance they were going to aim at her in that office. They were there to take us out, but she stopped that. I want to know why.”
“I don’t know.” And I didn’t, even if I would love an answer to that question as much as Lucien did.
Did she still care for me, even a little?
Or had it been merely a reaction? A very fast one, faster than even I’d been able to grab my gun.
Which begged the question, how she still had her weapon on her.
Nothing should have slipped past my security.
“You’ve never said why you stopped seeing her.”
I sit on the end of the bed and stare at the wall before me. “She got pregnant and aborted the child. She had her brother Alex tell me that she’d been playing me, and that she doesn’t want another Moretti in the world. That I’m not to try to look for her.
“Jesus, man, why didn’t you say anything?”
I force down the anger, the hurt that rises within me when voicing my past. “It’s her body.
I didn’t have a choice.” I remember back to Alex, the smug ass who took me to a local bar downtown and gleefully told me it was over between Bells and me.
That she’d fallen pregnant and knew she’d taken her charade too far.
It had grown too serious, and she needed to rid herself of the trouble she’d gotten herself into.
“I went after her, but couldn’t find her.
I don’t know where she went, but it wasn’t until last year when she turned up in New York at the bar with Elio and Alex that I saw her again. ”
“But she saved you. It makes no sense.”
I swallow, knowing it’s a lie. I feel it in my blood, on my skin, and how it prickles when I’m around her. I may not like her, but God damn, I still want her in my bed. Even if to punish her.
“I think you need to talk to her. Ask her why she saved you, see what you can find out.”
“I will.” We hang up, and I throw my cell on the bed before heading to the shower. I strip and stand under the multiple jets for several minutes. I run a hand over my face, hating that I can’t get her out of my head. Whether my eyes are open or closed, she’s there.
“Fuck.”
The memory of us in a shower in upstate New York bombards me.
I clasp my cock and stroke it, slumping against the wall, and think of her.
On her knees, clasping my cock, positioning it between her wicked lips.
She was always so fucking good with a blowjob, and I harden to the point of pain.
The memory of her taking me throat deep makes my balls ache.
The wicked twist to her lips when she knew what she was doing had me as hers, in all ways.
How I’d reached for her and turned her around, pushed her up against the tiles, and stroked between her legs, sliding my fingers into her hot, ready pussy. “So fucking wet,” I’d whispered against her ear.
The alarm on my phone buzzes, and I start, opening my eyes. The water still pours over me, but the alarm is going off in my room.
I turn the water off and reach for a towel, wrapping it about my waist. I exit the bathroom and walk into the bedroom, and stop. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Standing at the end of my bed is Isabella, holding my phone. “Turning off your alarm,” she says definitively. “I’m at the other end of the house and could still hear it.”
I wipe some residual water from my face. “A bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?” My biggest question is how long she had been standing there. God, I hope she didn’t see me in the shower. Worse, though, was the image of my fantasy was standing before me, in flower pajamas and hair all mussed.
She is too fucking beautiful for her own good.
Her gaze slides over me, and I don’t bother to cover myself. I let her look at what she can’t have. “You all right? Or do you want to touch as well as look?”
She rolls her eyes and throws my cell at me. I catch it. “You wish.”
“Maybe.” I don’t know where the word comes from, but I want it back the moment I say it.
Her eyes flare wide, and she gapes before turning on her heel and starting for the door.
I go after her, stopping her before she leaves the room.
I press my hard cock against her ass. “Where are you going, Bells? You used to love waking up to a good fuck… remember?” I say, teasing myself against her.
She stills, her fingers pressing into my arms about her waist, before her foot comes down hard on mine. I stumble back, trying to ignore how much her heel could hurt. “I still like a good fuck in the morning, Anthony, just not with you.”
She throws the door open and leaves. I let her go, but we’ll see about that. I know a challenge when I hear one, and I’m never one to let one of those go.