Surviving Mateo (Morelli Family 2)

I nod, sliding in and glancing to the front.

Adrian isn’t there, though. Someone else is—not one of the guys from the shop.

“Where’d Adrian go?” I ask as Mateo slides in beside me.

“He had something to take care of,” Mateo says vaguely. I’m about to reach for my seatbelt, but he stops me, lifting me and placing me so I’m straddling his lap instead.

“Oh,” I murmur, but I don’t complain. Especially when his hand skates up my bare leg, up under the skimpy skirt, and moves between my thighs. I brace my hands on his broad shoulders, sighing as his finger easily moves inside me. Leaning in to whisper in his ear, I point out, “We aren’t exactly alone.”

“I don’t care,” he murmurs back, his finger working circles around my clit.

“Oh, god,” I murmur, my head falling to his shoulder as he toys with me. Not wanting to leave him out, I let my hand drift down to the bulge in his pants and rub his cock through the fabric, enjoying the hiss of pleasure it earns me. He smells so good, the scent of his cologne stoking my desire. It’s so him.

His fingers feel wonderful, but I want his cock. My hands drift to his belt, unbuckling it, then unfastening the button of his slacks. Before I can finish, however, he’s withdrawing his fingers from my body and catching my hands. I’m not sure what he’s doing until he brings them both around my back, securing them with one hand. The other moves between my legs again, moving inside me and resuming their relentless pursuit of my pleasure.

And he finds it, a moment later. I cry out, pleasure shooting through my body. He still has my hands behind my back, but I’m weak from the release. I fall forward against his shoulder, dropping a few light kisses along his neck.

Releasing my hands, he curls his free arm around me and lets me snuggle against him as he lazily caresses my thigh.

The longing from earlier is somehow worse. There are no possibilities here, only gruesome endings, and I want more of this. This is so nice.

We stay like that for a while, in a companionable silence. I partially want to offer to go down on him and return some of the pleasure, but remembering my sex life with Rodney, I don’t. If I do that, what if we don’t have real sex? I want the sex.

After a few minutes of quietly relaxing against him, Mateo finally asks, “Can I ask you something?”

I wish instead of whatever we’re going to do, we could curl up in bed for the rest of the night and wear each other out, then in the morning we could have pancakes in bed and go at it again.

I sigh at the impossibility of it all and tilt my head back to look up at him. “Of course.”

His voice lowers, the faintest hint of steel creeping in, and he asks almost casually, as if only mildly curious, “Who sent you?”

Chapter Five

My blood freezes in my veins.

“What?”

“Don’t do that,” he says, suddenly pushing me off his lap.

The car pulls to a stop, and I realize I haven’t been paying attention to our surroundings, since I was too busy basking in the post-orgasm bliss with Mateo’s arms wrapped around me. My face flushes as I crawl back into my own seat, looking out the window to see where we are. My heart sinks, seeing an abandoned building with men gathered under a stretch of well-lit cement.

Oh shit.

They shuffle around, glancing up as our car stops, obviously waiting for Mateo.

Mateo grabs my arm, nudging me toward the door the new driver has opened.

I climb out of the car on shaky legs, stumbling a little when Mateo gives me a light shove to get me out of the way so he can step out behind me.

Swallowing hard, I try to contain the wild thoughts whipping through my head, most of them centered around one clear understanding: Mateo Morelli is going to kill me.

My carefully selected heels weren’t meant for grassy patches of wet dirt, so I stumble and wobble a few times as we head for the men. Mateo stays right on top of me, probably waiting for me to run.

I want to, I just don’t see the point. Me in heels, Mateo right beside me, a squad of likely well-armed goons up ahead of me…where’m I gonna go?

Unless Antonio’s backup followed us here, I’m fucked.

“Mateo,” I say tentatively, glancing back at him.

“Walk.”

As we draw closer, I realize what the men are crowded around—a lidded wooden crate, large enough to fit a woman of my size.

Ice water drizzles through my veins and I think for a moment I might pass out. What are they going to do to me?

“Mateo…please,” I say weakly, somehow not convinced of my fate even as I approach it.