8. A Dangerous Man #3
My heart pounded, and my lips quivered as I wrapped them around his fingers.
I’d never done anything so dirty before.
But then again, I’d never let a stranger make me come during a massage or now at a work event.
It seemed this man challenged me to want things I didn’t even know I wanted, and it was…
thrilling. He watched me with ?dark intensity as my tongue lapped at the sweetness, my core burning again with need.
He grunted, shaking his head with pure fire in his eyes.
He stepped back, giving me room to turn and face him, then brushed his thumb against my lower lip, his gaze filled with dark promises.
I longed to reach out and kiss him, to devour his lips and surrender to every ounce of pleasure he could offer.
But I knew that if he kissed me, I would be lost to him tonight.
I’d throw all my responsibilities out the window and demand he take me home to finish what we’d started.
God, who even was I? No, who on Earth was this man who made me feel so much, so effortlessly? I didn’t even know his name.
“Who are you?”
A slow, mischievous smile crept up his face as he lifted my hand, examining my fingers as if he hadn’t heard the question at all.
“What’s your ring size?”
“What?”
His thumb brushed the knuckle of my wedding finger, and then he peered into my eyes. My heart skipped a beat.
“What ring size are you?”
“Why do you need to know that?”
“So, I know what size to make the ring for my future wife.”
I scoffed at his cockiness. “Does that line actually work for you?”
“It’s not a line.” He smiled wider as if he found the whole thing thoroughly amusing. “I seriously need to know.”
“Yeah, okay.” I laughed with a snort, rearranging my dress and attempting to walk past him. “If you aren’t going to tell me your name, I’m definitely not giving you my ring measurements.”
“Sani,” he growled, grabbing my wrist when I tried to leave him behind. He tugged me back into him. “My name’s Sani.”
“Sani,” I repeated in a breathless whisper.
He licked his lips, holding me flush against his muscular body.
He was still hard, and the temptation to reach down and touch him was still thrumming through my veins, but I knew I was needed on stage any second.
“I have to go. I’m announcing the highest donations for the hospital. ”
“You work there?”
“Si. I’m the night administrator.”
“Impressive.”
“Not as impressive as a luxury hotel owner.”
“Among other things,” he husked, that cheeky, secretive smile and twinkle in his eyes shone a little brighter.
I narrowed my gaze, wondering what it was about this man’s mystery that intrigued me so much.
It wasn’t just that he was drop-dead gorgeous.
He felt…intoxicating. The deadly kind of addiction that you knew was bad for you, but you couldn’t break the habit.
“Arianna!” Allegra poked her head around the balcony door, and I jumped back from him, breaking out of the bubble we’d been in. “They need you on stage.”
Her brown eyes scanned Sani from head to toe, her mouth dropping open as I hurried towards her. I could feel him following me, his presence like a magnet at my back. He leaned down, brushing my hair away from my shoulder as he whispered, “Good luck, Arianna. I’ll find you after.”
I shivered at that seductive promise. He moved towards the bar with lethal grace, gaining stares as he went.
“Dio mio!” Allegra grabbed my arm. “You weren’t exaggerating. He’s unbelievably hot! What happened? You were out there for ages.”
My cheeks burned as I avoided her eyes, which was an obvious admission of naughty things. She started squealing and hopping from foot to foot.
“Shhh,” I whispered, giggling and grabbing her arm. “Calm down. And by the way… he’s not Cesare! He owns Hotel XO.”
“What?” she shouted. “So he isn’t the man who made you—”
I quickly covered her mouth with my hand before she could complete that sentence. “He is. I’ll tell you later.”
Releasing her, I stepped to the side of the stage and looked over the crowd.
I wasn’t searching for him. I really wasn’t.
Yet, he was impossible to miss. Leaning casually against the back bar, he watched me with a look that made my stomach flutter with more than just nerves.
Then, that feeling plummeted when my father approached him.
Sani turned his back on me slightly to give him all his attention, a lazy, cocky smile on his face as my father began speaking, but in a way that seemed less than friendly. Oh shit. What the hell was happening? Why were they talking? Did they know each other?
The speeches began, and Signorina Valtibino was the first to take the stage, delivering the welcome and thank-you speech on behalf of the board.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the two men who shouldn’t have been engrossed in conversation.
Despite Sani’s relaxed demeanour, I sensed tension.
My father didn’t like him. Did he know what happened between us on the balcony?
Were we seen by security? Surely not. We hadn’t left the event.
As far as I knew, there were no cameras outside.
“And now,” she said, turning to the side to look at me. “We have Arianna Caruso to announce the highest donations of the evening.”
An envelope was shoved into my hand, and I was nudged forward into the spotlight. I blinked rapidly, trying to find my father and Sani, but the light was too bright, making the sea of faces barely visible.
“Er, thank you,” I said, opening the envelope with shaky hands.
“Thank you to everyone who has made generous donations tonight to help fund the new cardiology department and teaching programme for the hospital. It means a great deal that you are here to support us, and without your kindness and generosity, this wouldn’t be possible.
Thank you.” I pulled out the list of the two most significant donations.
“Overall, tonight’s event has raised…” My eyes widened at the figure.
“2.5 million euros. Wow.” The room erupted in a chorus of whistles and claps.
“The highest donations were from Callum D'Ardenzi with a very generous 500,000 euros.” I smiled at the crowd, hoping he could see my genuine gratitude and glanced back down.
“And a huge 1.2 million euros from…” I swallowed hard at the name, wondering if Sani could be short for it. “Santino Buccini.”
The room roared, and the lights darted around the crowd, searching for him.
When the spotlight hit him, I froze. The man I’d just let fuck me with his fingers raised that exact hand in a cocky little salute and then held it out to my father, who was still standing beside him.
The colour had drained from my papi’s face, and he blinked, a little stunned under the realisation that all the attention was now on them.
Local photographers began snapping pictures of them both together while my father stared at Sani’s outstretched hand as if it were a venomous viper. What was he doing? Why wasn’t he shaking his hand? He had just donated an unbelievable amount of money to a state hospital.
Realising he had no choice, he slowly grasped it and shook it once with a tight smile for the cameras. He released it just as quickly and walked towards me, his eyes full of panic. I stepped off the stage, straining my neck to find Sani so I could thank him, but two security guards blocked my path.
“Signorina Caruso, your father’s car is waiting outside. It’s time to leave.”
“What?” I frowned just as my father hurtled towards me, grabbing my arm. “Papi? What’s wrong?”
“We’re leaving.”
“But the night isn’t over yet,” I argued, stumbling to keep up with him as we left the hall and headed towards the exit. “I need to say goodbye to everyone. I left Allegra in there.”
“She’ll be fine. You can text her.” He opened the back door of his car and slid in. I hesitated, glancing over my shoulder at the building, hating that as a thirty-year-old woman I was being told what to do, but clearly something bad had happened. Something had shaken my father. Or someone.
The seductive sound of a motorcycle revving nearby caught my attention, and I turned to see Santino Buccini balancing the powerful machine between his thighs.
Even though it was standing still, it looked fast, coated in a shiny metallic red that made my pulse race.
He lifted a black helmet over his head, keeping the visor up so our eyes could meet, and my heart quickened.
My lips parted as he ripped open his black shirt and raised what looked like a lipstick in his hand.
Using it as a pen, he scrawled one word across his mouth-watering abs.
Ribelle.
He lifted his head, pointed at me, and winked before revving the engine and roaring past us like a bullet, his open shirt billowing in the wind behind him.
Frantically, I searched my small clutch bag for my lipstick, but it was missing. When the hell did he have time to take that? A giggle escaped as I lifted my fingers to my lips. The man stole from me, and yet he somehow made it the hottest thing ever.
“Arianna! Get in the car now.”
I climbed in beside my father, my smile fading fast when I saw the worry etched into every line of his face. He was shaking with fury or terror; I wasn’t sure.
“What’s happened?”
“He made me look like an idiota,” my papi growled, shaking his head. “Those photographs will be plastered all over the internet with that donation. And now he knows exactly who you are. He probably already did.”
“I don’t understand. Who are you talking about?”
My papi reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Santino Buccini. He’s a very dangerous man, Arianna. He’s a mafioso. The very man I’m trying to protect you from.”
Holy shit.