Chapter 8 – Sienna #2
"No." Stubbornness flares to life inside me, a combination of my earlier humiliation and the stark realization that this man is not the sweet Luca I knew, who walked me home after late-night study sessions and slipped notes into my coat pocket when I wasn’t looking.
This is the Luca who left the country without saying goodbye.
"This isn't a request, Sienna.” Each word is enunciated clearly, so I’m left with no doubt that he means business.
Well, that tone might work on his mafia underlings, but not me.
"I don't care what it is." I shove against his hard body, forcing him back another step, then jab my finger into his sternum. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
His hand snaps up, closing around my wrist, a grip like iron that’s making me immediately reconsider the notion that I forced him back. He was clearly just humoring me.
"He saw you, Sienna." He shouts, exasperated. "He looked right at you, knows that you saw him too. Do you understand what that means?"
My heart pounds.
"It means nothing. If he thought I could identify him, he would have killed me then and there."
"Or he's biding his time because doing it then and there would have made it too obvious that you knew who he was." Luca’s thumb brushes across the inside of my wrist as he tugs me a little closer. “Maybe he’s waiting until the heat dies down. Until you're alone. If it were me, that’s what I’d do."
Trying to sound braver than I feel, I ignore the hold he has on my arm. "You’re just trying to scare me."
Blinking, he tilts his head and looks at me. "You’re right. I am. Because you should be scared, Sienna. The sooner you realize that, the better."
“I'm not a threat to him.”
My attempt to yank my arm back is futile and only serves to get me off balance, teetering forward when I pull pointlessly. I have to press my other hand to his chest to keep upright, and his heart thuds beneath my palm.
"He doesn't know that,” he growls, exasperation bleeding into his tone.
"Let go of me,” I demand through gritted teeth.
He doesn't.
"You don't have a choice in this," he growls. “If you help me, I’ll find him, eliminate the threat, and you can go back to your…” He glances around the room. “Life.”
Bristling at the insult, my contrarian instincts kick in. He thinks my life is shit. Fine. But he’s not going to tell me what I can and can’t do. Not after all this time.
"I always have a choice."
His other hand comes up and closes around the back of my neck. The grip is firm, holding rather than squeezing as his fingers threading into my still-damp hair, and tilt my head back until I have no alternative but to look at him.
It's possessive, dominant, and my body responds to his touch instantly, remembering what he can do to me.
Butterflies flutter in my belly, my nipples straining against the thin fabric of my bra.
This position we find ourselves in, with him pinning me to the wall, reminds me of our first fight, when I tried to storm off, and he refused to let me leave until we worked it out.
Work it out, we did, with him holding my hands above my head and fucking the bratiness out of me in the hallway of his parent’s lake house. I can still remember the feel of him, thick and long, sliding into my tight body as I groaned his name.
His focus drops to my mouth, to my teeth embedded deep into my bottom lip, and linger there.
He knows exactly where my mind went. And from the press of his hard cock across my hip, his mind went there, too.
When Luca’s intense eyes drag back up to meet mine, they blaze with emotion, stirring up feelings deep inside me that I fought for years to bury.
Neither of us looks away. Neither of us blinks. The air between us crackles with ten years of anger and unfinished business.
"I'm trying to help you." His polished control is fraying at the edges. His thumb traces a water droplet sliding down my throat, following it down to the swell of my breasts. The touch is barely there, featherlight, but it sends a current through my entire body. "Why won't you let me?"
"Because I don't need or want you to." I lie, my body’s traitorous reaction to his proximity undermining my words serious intent.
My breasts brush against his hard chest, and I feel my stiff nipples dragging across the solid wall of muscle.
His nostrils flare, and his fingers on my neck twitch, digging in a fraction harder.
"You need someone." He leans closer, his lips ghosting across my cheek.
I fight back the barrage of memories that assault me from being this near to him once more. His smell takes me right back to a time when being this close to Luca only ended one way.
Me naked and writhing beneath him.
I need to act tough, even as I feel myself softening against him.
"I'm not your concern, Luca. You have a new fiancé, so I think it’s safe to say your obligation to help me is over."
The heat in his eyes cools. I swear I see a hint of regret crossing his features, before it's gone.
Hardening myself, I remember the months after he left, the hell I went through. I can’t go back there no matter how good it feels to be this close to him again.
Luca releases my neck so abruptly that I sway without the support, catching myself against the dresser beside me. He steps back, reestablishing the distance between us. His hands ball at his sides, chest heaving,
"Lock the door behind me.” He turns and stalks toward the bedroom door.
I watch him go, my pulse racing, my pathetic heart wishing I could take back my harsh words. But only until he speaks again and reminds me how different he is now.
“This isn’t over, Sienna.” And then in his most arrogant, condescending tone says, “I’ll be in touch."
He pauses in the doorway, clocking my nursing textbooks stacked on the table. Mercifully, he doesn’t comment.
In the hallway, Vito hisses and lashes out at him with sharp claws.
Luca curses, hand going to the gun stashed in the back of his pants, and a smirk tugs at my lips.
Good boy.
"Luca?"
He waits, hand on the handle, but doesn't turn around.
"Go to hell."