“Careful, Elise,” he whispers, as he bends his mouth closer to my naked skin. His hot breath ghosts across my breasts. I stifle a moan when his warm, rough hands cup my ass and hold me closer to him.
“Why?” My own breath is no more than a whisper. He’s barely touched me, and I already feel the quickening pulse between my thighs, a growing ache of need. My sex clenches, longing to be filled by him. He may be my enemy, but my body may be the most traitorous of all.
“Because no matter what you say, your body tells me you like this.”
Traitor.
“Like what?” I don’t even recognize my voice. I moan, my head falling back, when he traces the edge of my nipple with the warm, sensual heat of his tongue.
“All of it, lovely. This,” he says, a prelude to a quick suckle of my nipple. Sparks of arousal shoot through my limbs. “This,” he continues, while he tickles the hardened bud with his tongue and squeezes my ass. “This,” he breathes, before he bites me. Fear quickly melds to desire when he kneads my ass.
Jesus.
“If you’re a good girl today, I’ll reward you when we get home tonight,” he says, moving one hand from my ass to my inner thighs. I part my legs on instinct, and a ghost of a smile flashes across his lips before he’s sober again. “And if you’re a bad little girl, no reward for you.” He scolds me like he’s speaking to an errant child, and something about the authority in his tone excites me. “I’ll send you to bed with no dessert, after a good trip over my lap.”
I want that. I imagine myself over his lap, his sturdy thighs beneath my belly. Even the thought makes me part my legs further.
I realize that what he threatens as punishment excites me. He can’t wield that power over me if I lean into it. My heart races with the knowledge of this newfound control.
“Wear the black jeans and pink top,” he says, as he presses the heel of his hand to my throbbing pussy. “And I’ll take you to lunch. We’ll buy you some workout clothes and sneakers later, but we’ve got business to tend to first. Dress, now. I’ll dress you often, but you will dress yourself when I command you to so I can watch.” Ah, the games he plays.
I almost whimper when he stops touching me. I’m so turned on, I can barely think straight. But I do what he says. My stomach growls with hunger.
I dress slowly, the last vestige of control I have over this man that commands my breath, my pulse, and everything that gives me life.
It isn’t until we’re in one of his cars with him driving, the warm Tuscan wind in my hair and the sun on my face, that I realize.
The entire time he touched me, I didn’t think of Piero.
CHAPTER 5
Tavi
I’ve told myself that I wouldn’t fall for a woman. Any woman. Definitely not the woman who betrayed my family and nearly sent us into ruin.
But maybe I could enjoy being with her.
She sits beside me in the car, as I take her into town. There’s one thing Elise and I have in common: we both love Tuscany.
I love my family and would lay down my life for my brothers, any of them. But here in Tuscany, life slows for a little while. Without the trappings of my family, I feel a little more like… well, me.
Here, I’m not just Ottavio Rossi, Underboss to Romeo Rossi, second in command to The Family. I’m not just a made man. When I drive down the long, winding roads that lead me to the heart of the city, the sunroof open, while low streams of music in Italian are swallowed by the breeze, I’m just me. The guy who loves books and football, who wore glasses when I was a kid and got a perfect 4.0 in high school, who passed on a free ride to Harvard in favor of working for The Family.
To some, I’m the guy with the reputation for being undefeated in a fight, or the guy who’s known for bringing down some of the most powerful cartels in our time, or the one who’s managed to convert some of our most lethal dirty cops.
But here, in Tuscany, when I shed the skin of family life… when I’m alone… I’m just me.
“Where are we going?”
“You got a favorite?”
Elise twirls a piece of her hair thoughtfully. She looks sad. I shouldn’t care that she does, but I want to know why.
“No,” she says, but her voice is hollow. She’s lying.
I reach for her thigh. I mean to put my hand on her leg to remind her not to lie to me, but instead of gripping her painfully, or giving her a reminder to obey, I run my hand up her jean-clad leg and down again. Thoughtfully. My dick jerks.