Ruthless Heart

And it would be an execution order.

Not to mention, if he found out the reason that I’ve been keeping her around, this whole real estate deal…

"Do you think I’m being an idiot?” I ask Avery. I’ve known her long enough to know, she’ll give it to me straight.

She sips her drink. “About what? You’ll need to narrow it down.”

“Ha ha,” I roll my eyes. “About Lily.”

Avery pauses. “That depends… Not if she’s just a tool to get you what you want.”

I swirl whiskey around my glass. “And if she’s not? If it’s more complicated than that?”

Avery’s smile turns rueful. “It always is.”

I wonder, not for the first time, what Avery has going on that I don’t know about. She plays her cards close to her chest about her own love life, but I get the sense there’s something going on. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the best I’ve got.” She gets up and drains her glass. “But whatever it is between the two of you, it better be worth the risk.”

Avery’s wordsstay with me as I finish up business and finally head home. It’s late, and I’m hoping Lily will have turned in by the time I get back, but no such luck. The lights are on, and I can hear music coming from her new makeshift art studio.

I follow the sound down the hall, to the open doorway. I know I should continue, and head straight to bed to drink myself into unconsciousness, but I can’t help pausing to look.

Lily’s painting, barefoot in a loose summer dress, her golden hair spilling out of a braid like silk.

Fuck.

She’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and watching her like this, so absorbed in her work…

Every part of me craves to claim her. Own her. Give her everything she’s been wanting—and more.

Because I know she wants it too. It’s there in the way her body sways against me, the breathy way she moans when I kiss her.

The wildfire in her eyes last night, when she fell to her knees and sucked me off like her mouth was made to pleasure me.

Fuck it.

Determination takes root—and frustration, too. I’ve been holding back since the day I saw her again, keeping her at arm’s length in case she finds a way beneath my defenses. Allowing myself only a brief taste of her sweetness, her passion. But all that’s done is wind me tighter. Made me need her more.

She’s like oxygen, and I’m starving for a single breath.

This isn’t me. She’s running rings around me, making me less of a man with every minute that passes. Every second I’m not buried to the hilt in her slick cunt, taking what’s mine.

What’s always been mine.

I step into the room. Lily turns. “What are you—” she starts to ask, but then her voice fades.

She can see it in my eyes, how much I want her. And damn, if the flare of desire I see there doesn’t make my blood hot and my cock hard.

She wants me too.

“Enough with the games,” I tell her in a growl, moving forwards. Ready to show her exactly what kind of man I’ve become. The ways I can make her scream.

I’m Nero fucking Barretti, and I’m done waiting.

“Take off your clothes.”