Chapter 6
RAPH
“What do you have to tell me, Nicolette?”
She swallows nervously, her mouth parting on a tremble.
Fuck. I’m being an asshole, aren’t I? I don’t mean to be so harsh. But seeing her after all this time…everything inside me snapped. I wanted to grab her and ask her where she’s been. Why she never answered my calls. Why the hell she’s so damn beautiful.
Those thoughts of kissing her, of burying myself inside her, came barraging. And I did what I always do when I feel those things for the one woman I can’t have: I fought them.
Being cold and aloof is how I do that. How I show her I don’t feel a damn thing when she’s around.
But that’s a complete lie. I feel everything.
My heart beats faster. My skin comes alive.
Everything is brighter and louder as soon as she walks into the room.
That’s how it’s been in these past years, suffering in utter silence when all I want is to confess my sins.
What’s worse is she thought I didn’t care. That I didn’t spend every goddamn day in those years wishing we could have the kind of relationship we used to before she kissed me. When things between us were simpler. At least for me.
All I want is to find out what she’d do if I really kissed her. If I really touched her. Like the devil inside me has been craving to.
“I…uh…” She fidgets with her fingers, tugging at her bottom lip, staring into her lap.
“Just start at the beginning, little one.” Standing before her, I stroke the back of her head, and that has her staring up at me, brows tugging, eyes filling with tenderness.
And all it does is make my heart beat faster.
Fuck.
“The reason I ran, after Bianca…” Her voice trails.
“Yeah?” I keep touching her, massaging her scalp, wanting her to keep talking.
“Oh, God, Raph. I don’t know how to say this.” Tears swell into the rims of her eyes as she continues to look at me, and I don’t ever want her to stop.
“Whatever it is, just tell me.”
She nods nervously, a large breath whooshing out of her. “I’m just gonna blurt it out, okay?”
“Alright.” My mouth flickers with a small grin. I just can’t help smiling when she’s around.
“So, your father and my sister were screwing around.”
“What?” My eyes grow wide, and I jerk back a step, dropping my hand off her.
“Yep. She’s evil. Him too.” She nods, mouth pressing tightly. “He killed her, Raph.”
“He what?” Blood rushes into my ears, pumping loudly.
“I was at the house that day,” she explains nervously. “But once he came inside, I hid in the closet while they talked about the affair. Then they got to arguing about it, and he shot her. I saw it, Raph.” She presses a hand to her mouth, eyes growing wet. “I saw her die.”
“Oh, fuck…” My heart constricts in my chest.
No. This can’t be. I went after the Irish. I started a war. For nothing?
“Raph?” she calls, like from a distance.
But it’s like I’m drowning. I can barely hear it.
“Sit.”
A hand clasps my shoulder.
“Just sit, damn it,” Michael says while I feel myself being pushed down, and I don’t fight it.
What have I done?
“I’m sorry,” she cries softly, and that has me looking back at her.
Fucking hell. How could he do this to me? Does he really hate me that much?
Then he had Nicolette shot? He was going to kill her for being a witness? I’m going to kill him. I’m going to take everything from him.
“You’ve been running all this time, and you didn’t tell me?” I can barely get the words out.
She nods. “I was afraid he’d find out.”
“If I knew…” I shake my head before dropping my face into a palm.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispers.
“Like hell it’s not.” I grind my teeth. “I would’ve kept you safe. I would’ve done anything to make sure no one hurt you.”
Her gaze lowers to her feet, and it breaks my heart to know she had no one out there. She was alone. Scared.
Fucking hell!
I know I should care about what Bianca did, but all I can seem to care about is her. My Nicolette.
I keep staring at her, not even able to believe she’s here with me, still as breathtaking as I remember. She still looks the same as she did a year ago. The last time I saw her was at Michael’s house for dinner when Bianca was alive. But somehow she looks different too. Like she’s gotten older.
Maybe it’s all in my head. I’d make any excuse to be with her, to profess that since the moment she kissed me, all I can do is think about her.
Does that make me a bastard? To feel something for someone else while I was married? To her sister of all people?
Maybe I am. Maybe I deserve that title. But I know I never deserved someone as beautiful and innocent as Nicolette. She needs safety, not bloodshed, and that’s what being mine would get her. Just look at what happened to her and her sister already.
I’m not a good man. Not by any decent standards. I’m a killer. A ruthless one. I’ve ended more lives than she’s had birthdays, and I did it without a shred of guilt. She’s never been right for me, whether I was a single man or not.
But as she glances at me, rosy cheeks, short little thing, pinning her nervous gaze at me, I imagine…
What if? What if she were mine? What if I were a man worthy of her? Would she welcome my touch? Or would she push me away?
My pulse thumps at the mere thought of waking up beside her every single morning.
What am I doing?
I scrub both hands down my face. I despise myself for even thinking of her the way I’m doing right now.
Hate that I had to marry a woman I wasn’t in love with because it was the right thing to do.
Hate that I wasted years with someone who wasn’t even faithful.
Who betrayed me with my own goddamn father.
Fury rattles inside me like a sleeping beast, wanting—needing—the blood of its enemies. Bianca is dead, so I can’t do a thing to her, but my father is very much alive.
“Look,” Michael interrupts. “I’m going to figure out what the hell is going on, but in the meantime…” His eyes fall to mine. “She has to stay here with you.”
“No, that’s not a good idea.” I rise to my feet.
There’s no way I can keep her. No way that I can stay in this small cabin with this beautiful woman and not do a thing about it.
My heart, my body… She owns every goddamn part of me. How am I supposed to keep my feelings to myself when we’re alone? When all I want is to love her?
“What? No!” Nicolette wraps her arms around herself, shaking her head. “I—I can’t stay here. I mean…I…” Her mouth quivers, her eyes jumping between Michael and me.
“You’re staying here, and that’s final.” Michael’s tone grows irate, and he’s back to looking at me. “Until he’s no longer a threat to her, she has to stay with you. It’s the safest option. He won’t know she’s here. He’ll think she’s still on the run.”
I hate it when he’s right. “Fine. Okay.”
“Good.” He nods. “I have to go.” He starts for the door. “You call me if there’s a problem, yeah?”
“Okay.”
He sighs and claps me on the back. “We’ll figure this out. I swear.”
“I know.”
But I don’t. How will he get me out with the Irish and save Nicolette at the same time?
He’s supposed to take over for my father once he retires, but that won’t happen until my brother finds a wife.
But he doesn’t want one. Doesn’t want to get married just to put someone else in danger.
I get that more than he realizes. Our life is like a curse to all the people around us.
Because in the end, they’re the ones who get hurt.
But once Michael takes over, the men will be loyal to him. Not all of them, of course, but most of them, and that’s all we’ll need to destroy my father.
Michael inches toward the door before he’s gone, leaving me alone with the woman I’ve fought like hell to stay away from. But now that’ll be impossible.
My breathing heaves out as I imagine my father and Bianca. She was still my wife, and that was my father. What they did was unforgivable.
I can’t believe she was having an affair with him right under my nose. Was I that blind? I was beginning to get suspicious that she might have been having an affair about a month before she died, but I never thought it’d be with him.
I showed up at her job to take her to lunch one day, but the girls at the hospital said it wasn’t her shift. When I called her, she found an excuse. Claimed she was planning a surprise date for us and didn’t want to ruin it.
The crazy thing was, there really was an elaborate date planned.
I wanted to believe her. But something inside me told me she was lying.
I didn’t confront her, though. I didn’t want the humiliation if it were to come out that my own wife was fooling around.
But with my father? That would’ve been worse.
I knew he hated me, but I didn’t think he’d go this far. I knew he had a thing for her from the moment we all met, but I thought that stopped when we began dating. But maybe she was sleeping with him the entire time.
I didn’t even know my own wife. Who was she really?
I could kill him for this, but especially for hurting Nicolette. It’s lucky that the cop Michael has on his payroll lives in that area and heard the struggle. I don’t even want to think of what would happen if he hadn’t been there.
It’s a damn pity he killed the son of a bitch who put that bullet in her. I would’ve loved just five minutes with him.
My chest stiffens, imagining what she’s been through. If I for one second thought she’d left because she was afraid, I’d have brought her right back and sliced my father’s throat right in front of her. That way she’d know that I’d do anything for her.
She lowers onto the sofa and eyes me with a tight face. “There’s no way I’m staying in this tiny cabin with you.”
I snicker, matching the intensity of her gaze. “You are until Michael says it is safe. Until we can extinguish the threat.”
“You mean your father?” She bows a brow.
“That’s right.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Could be weeks. Months.”
“Months?!” She jolts, practically jumping to her feet. “I’m not staying with you for months.”
I take a step forward, a smirk lifting one side of my mouth, while my heart pounds, wanting to erase that adorable expression off her face with my tongue.
She inhales sharply as her lips part, those eyes pinned to mine. I can feel the weight of them on me, like they own me. In the space between us, the intensity grows until it swallows us both.
“And where do you think you’ll be going, little one?”
“Somewhere you’re not.” She tries hard to keep a brave face, but she doesn’t stand a chance with me this close. She feels this just as much as I do.
And that’s trouble.
Her nostrils widen with a breath. Her chest expands. And fuck, that flush in her cheeks when she rakes me down with her gaze has my dick doing what it’s not allowed to do: getting hard.
Her desire for me is practically etched into every move she makes, every look she gives me. Even the ones she pretends are full of hate. It’d be easier if she truly despised me. It’d be easier to let my feelings die. But how can they when she looks at me that way?
It’s a brutal existence to live in a world with someone you can’t have. And sharing a small space with her day in and day out will be a form of cruel torture.
“And one more thing, Raphael,” she adds, rising to her feet, her face grimacing, and I’m enraged all over again from the mere thought of her suffering.
She nears me until we’re almost chest to chest.
“If you want to cohabitate peacefully for however long we’re supposed to be stuck here…” She lifts a hand and digs her forefinger into my chest. “I suggest you stop calling me by that horrifying nickname.”
She sears me with a venomous gaze, and I welcome the burn as long as she looks at me. The sheer thought of her not looking at me at all sends me completely over the edge.
If those eyes are all I get to have, I’ll gladly take them until the day I die. Because with her, the way she brings my heart to life, the way it beats for her… It’s something I’ll never feel with anyone else. I’m forever hers, even when she doesn’t realize it. Even when it’s wrong.
The emeralds of her eyes have my gaze running down the length of her, taking in her small frame hiding beneath that cardigan she’s tucking around herself.
Her long hair curls around both sides of her chest, and staring at her is like staring at a gift you’re excited to unwrap.
“I’m not little, Raphael.” Her voice drops almost to a whisper; I watch her pretty pink mouth move. “If you’d like, I can take off my clothes and show you.”
My dick is really enjoying that damn feisty mouth. It’s heavy and throbbing and wanting her heart-shaped mouth around it. I can’t get the image of her bare for me out of my damn mind.
What would she feel like? Would she beg? Would she spread wide for me and take every inch? I bet she’s tight.
“Fuck,” I mutter, turning away sharply, giving her my back.
“What happened, Raphael?” Her fingertips slide down my shoulder blade, and I clench my jaw from the warmth that immediately glides up my arm. “Afraid to admit you might actually want to fuck me?”
Her touch continues to run up and down, and I slam my eyes shut, attempting to control myself. I’m this close to forgetting why it’d be wrong to rip off her clothes and take her bent over the sofa.
“Fucking Christ, Nicolette…” I sharply pivot and snatch her delicate throat in my palm, curling my fingers deeper.
This is her damn fault.
I grind my molars, my breathing raging out of me as I stare intensely into those eyes I’ve come to love.
My large hand practically engulfs her, and I squeeze a little at a time, giving her just enough room to breathe. I drop my face so close I can taste the wildness of her heaving exhales. I search her widened gaze, her panting growing unsteady as my lips hover right above hers.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, little one.
” My tone is rough, filled with pent-up desire.
“The things I could do to you…” I use the nickname on purpose, loving the lustful rage on her features.
“If I wanted to fuck you, I’d have already done it by now.
And every other bastard who’s been inside you would be instantly forgotten. ”
She gasps, her lips trembling, begging me to taste them.
“Don’t push me again, Nicolette,” I stress, delving my thumb into her trembling pulse. “You won’t like the beast that comes out when I’m pushed hard enough.”