CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“I thought of his anger. And I smiled.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Luciana
I couldn’t stop shaking.
I didn’t know what to believe, what to think.
I hadn’t even grabbed the bags from the car. Just run away. I’d run away like a scared kid because I was in too deep. Working for a crime organization.
I rolled my eyes.
Get real.
I knew the word.
Mafia.
I was working for the mafia.
Maybe if I said it out loud I’d feel better?
“Mafia.”
Nope, not better. Not by a long shot.
I hugged myself and rubbed away the goose bumps on my arms, my teeth starting to chatter.
I grabbed the blanket from my bed, but it fell each time I tried to grab it.
“I’ll get that,” Chase said from the doorway.
My eyes drank him in.
Was he the devil?
Was he an angel?
Was he both?
I didn’t break my gaze from his face when he slowly walked around the bed, grabbed the blanket, and wrapped it around my shoulders. “A blizzard’s coming in.”
Great.
I didn’t respond.
“If we lose electricity, don’t panic. It’s just the weather.”
I nodded.
He sighed and then sat on the bed. He lifted his arm then wrapped it around my body.
He felt warm.
But the warmth was short-lived, because I’d just been warned by the guy who wanted to buy me to run from the very man trying to keep me warm.
Safe isn’t real.
What is safe?
Confusion warred with logic as Chase pulled me further under his spell by just being near me, comforting me.
“I used to be the funny one.” He grabbed my hand and examined it like he was looking for scratches.
I let him, too exhausted and petrified to move away.
“I know it’s hard to believe, trust me. Everything was a joke. Everything was funny. Life itself was funny. The darkness always attacked, but I never let it in. I was stronger than the darkness. I laughed in its face. But you can only taunt for so long before it finds a chink in your armor and then, it consumes you, and you let it because it feels better than the pain.”
I turned to him. “Darkness always feels better. It forces you to ignore the light.”
His smile was sad. “There is no light, Luc. Not anymore.”
So Andrei was right.
I hung my head.
“I’ll admit there are glimpses.”
I jerked up. “Like?”
“Like when I watch a girl put away three pancakes in under two minutes.”
I almost reached for the pillow and smacked him with it. Instead I said, “Or when you get to name your ducks?”
“Close.” His smile grew and then fell altogether. “I’m trying, you know, not to be an ass, but I literally have no clue how to do that anymore. It’s a bit foreign.”
“I noticed.” I squeezed his hand back.
“Would you be more comfortable with me if you knew more?” His eyes searched mine.
“Oh, I know everything. You donate money to the entire city of Chicago. They gonna name you mayor anytime soon?”
He snorted. “Very funny, and you know what I meant.”
I shrugged. “It would make me trust you more, yes.”
“That something you want?” He seemed a bit dumbfounded.
“What?”
“Trust?”
I nodded slowly. “I want to know if you’re going to make me pancakes one day then threaten to shoot me the next. I want to know if you’re going to insult me to your friends then kiss me in the next breath.”
“To be fair, I kissed you first,” he corrected.
“Why?” I blurted. “Why kiss the girl with business attire and pearls?”
His lips twitched. “You forgot the headbands.”
I touched my head. “I’m not wearing a headband today.”
“Headbands.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. “The universe is seriously fucking with me.”
“What?”
“And to answer your question…” He leaned in. “…I kissed you because I realized you weren’t marked, not by me, not by anyone, and I couldn’t stand the idea of Petrov thinking that you were for sale, that you could be bought, when I’d already decided to keep you for myself.”
I parted my lips. What did that even mean?
“I kissed you, because for the first time in eight months, I wanted to feel something other than soul-crushing pain,” he whispered. “And that’s the truth.”
“Did it work?” I swallowed. Staring at his eyes was painful when I wanted to look at his full mouth.
He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to my lips, then drew back. “Only as long as the kiss lasts.”
“Oh.”
“I won’t make you promises, Luc. I’m offering you nothing.”
I jerked back.
“Because I literally have nothing left to give.”
I pressed a hand to his chest; his heart was racing. He still had it; it was still intact, working. But he believed the lie people often did when they were in pain.
That it meant there was something inherently broken within them, when the opposite was true. Heartbreak was just proof it was working.
If you had no heart…
You’d feel nothing.
I nodded. “I’m not asking for anything.”
“That’s the damn problem.” He kissed me again. “Isn’t it?”
I frowned.
“It’s an unfair trade.” He licked his lips slowly like he wanted to taste me with his tongue. “Believe me, I know, and you’re in way over your head, princess.”
“I was in over my head the day I walked in this house.”
He covered my mouth with his and laid me back against the bed then threw the blanket off my shoulders, exposing the thin, long-sleeved shirt I’d left the store in. His hands moved down to my hips. I moved against them. The hands of a killer.
I knew one of us had lied.
And that one of us…
Was me.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“He was too far gone. Nothing, and no one, would bring him back from the depths of hell. It was a feeling I knew all too well. All. Too. Well.
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Chase
I kissed down her neck, confused by why I wanted to, confused by why I felt so damn attracted to someone who couldn’t even defend herself with a weapon if she had one in both hands.
Everything about her screamed innocence, from her clothing to the way she carried herself, and yet, such wisdom in her words, in her perceptiveness, that kissing her felt like a balm to my dirty soul.
It felt like the cleansing I’d never wanted but desperately needed.
I licked her lower lip, encouraging her to open up for me. She grabbed the front of my shirt with both hands. I tried not to tense beneath the feel of her fingertips twining around my shirt, tugging me closer, as if she couldn’t get enough and never would. I threw a leg over her small body, straddling her, then dipped my tongue into her mouth, tasting her. Her lips opened wider like she wanted more of me. And I gave.
I massaged my tongue against hers, testing her out, shocked by how smoothly we fit together. Our mouths, neither one fighting for dominance, just existing in a lust-filled haze of want. She responded by arching into me. I almost saw stars. There was nothing this woman wasn’t giving to me.
Nothing.
I should have felt guilt.
But I didn’t.
Because I’d never felt this.
Total surrender.
Emotion shuddered through my body as if I was waking up from a foggy sleep, and with each addicting touch of her small hands on my skin, I felt more and more alive, as if she was shocking me back to life,
slamming electricity into my heart, forcing it to beat, even when my brain demanded its silence.
Its utter death.
I growled in frustration, in torment, as I dragged my mouth down her neck and tugged at her shirt, peeling it over her head in a rush of adrenaline and lust. Her lacy black bra barely contained her breasts.
“Are you going to tell me to stop?” I said between breaths, needing her to say no, needing her to push me away more than I needed her to beg me to stay. This wouldn’t end well.
And I was the only one who knew that.
She was fucking a dead man.
I closed my eyes as a fatal bliss stared right back at me, challenging me, beckoning me, even though there would only be death.
Darkness.
No light.
No light.
Never again.
“Only if you tell me you’re going to shoot me later,” she deadpanned, her eyes searching for what I wasn’t willing to give, her body responding regardless of the loss of my heart.
I caught my breath and reached for her bra. She lay back, a look of complete trust in her eyes as she slowly wrapped her hands around mine and pulled it down.
It was sexy as hell.
I never promised her I was good.
And yet she opened up to me.
I ached to taste more.
I leaned down and traced a nipple with my tongue then sucked; my tongue flicked against her pink untouched skin.
Her hips moved.
And then she said it.
“Chase.”
I sucked in a breath, not trusting myself to not lose it, to fall off the deep end as the dark dragged me into the depths of hell.
My name.
I shook my head.
Me.
“Chase,” she said it again, her small hands moving to my chest as she reached for my shirt.
Why was I letting this happen? Why wasn’t I stopping when I swore to myself I’d never slip like this?
Ever again.
But the more she touched.
The deeper I fell.
Over my head.
Both of us were in over our heads.
Two weeks, and I’d be gone, with memories of her tongue on my skin.
I threw off the rest of my shirt and slammed my mouth against hers, picking her up by the ass and pulling her down the bed so I could get a better angle, so I could kiss her deeper, harder. So I could sink into her.
Her kiss devoured me, and with each heated press of her lips, I lost more restraint, more control.
“Chase.”
My name again.
Like a prayer I didn’t deserve.
A prayer no God would ever answer.
“Chase.”
I threw my head back as she gripped my length through my jeans. I moved against her and then flicked open the button.
She hesitated.
I watched indecision war across her full lips, and then she wrapped a hand around my neck and very slowly reached down.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Her fingers felt cold against me. I was so sensitive to her that I ached. Her fingers tightened, not reaching around me by a long shot. I hissed out a curse.
“Shit.” Too long, it had been too long.
Had it ever even been real?
Or felt like this before?
Like I was going to pay for my sins, for taking this, knowing what would happen, taking her without question when I didn’t deserve it, and never would.
When I opened my eyes, she started to slowly pump me with her hand, the girl with the headband and nylons.
I licked my lips and reached for her breasts again, when she pressed her free hand to my chest and very slowly, shoved me to my back.
In a trance, I watched as she pulled my jeans down and then crawled over my body and lowered her head.
What. The. Fuck.
A kiss to the tip was all it took for me to lose my mind, my control. I moved against her lips on instinct, wanting more of the slick heat of her mouth, more of her tongue sucking, swirling.
She spread her palms against the bed, her breasts kissing my legs, rubbing against my thighs as her mouth moved up and down slowly. I tried to make it last; squeezed my eyes shut as I felt my body demand release.
I gripped her head, holding her in place. My breathing was ragged, so close. “Luc—”
She locked eyes with me over my cock and said, “You have nothing to give? Then let me.”
I snapped as she took me deep.
And when I tried to pull away because the feeling was too much, because I was tarnishing her innocence…
She refused to move.
Our eyes locked again.
And I lost control.
Handed it over.
And felt myself orgasm so hard that I was afraid my hips bruised her mouth as I bucked against its heat.
Chest heaving, I stared her down. What the hell just happened?
Her voice was husky as she slowly ran her hands up my chest and then kissed my neck. “See any light, Chase?”
“Stars,” I said groggily. “I saw stars.”
“Told you so.” She yawned and lay against my chest.
I pulled her close as anxiety spread over me.
I was a killer. I would always be a killer.
Broken.
Damned.
But for a few brief minutes, she’d done the impossible.
Given me a shred of humanity and light.
And made me feel like a man.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“When a plan backfires, you simply try it at another angle. There is no defeat.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Luciana
Did I just give a blow job to my boss?
A murderer?
A guy who even warned me to run from him on numerous occasions?
During a work day?
Not even on my lunch break?
I’d fallen asleep against his chest and woken up alone. Hopefully, he wouldn’t fire me for sleeping on the job; then again, if I was going to get fired, pretty sure the blow job would be the thing to do it.
Stupid. So. Stupid!
What had I been thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. That was the problem.
He tasted so good, felt so right in my arms, and then the sadness. God, the sadness on his face. I couldn’t bear to even look at him while he kissed me like it was this invisible prayer to take it all way, to just… love him. A man I barely knew.
I wasn’t one to do that. Ever.
I’d done it once and hated it so much that I’d sworn off all men — apparently, all men but ones who should be in prison.
Even better.
I quickly put my shirt back on and the new jeans I’d left the store with and padded down to my office.
Everything was as I’d left it, so I quickly got to work. My eyes kept reverting back to the box that read, Emiliana De Lange, right along with the white horse that had been placed on top of it.
My curiosity was going to get me killed.
I shut the door and walked over then picked up the black folder I’d been looking at a few days back.
When I opened it, I nearly threw up.
The girl in the picture…
The one with the dark hair and dark eyes…
Was too pretty for words.
Like the exact sort of woman I would imagine Chase being with.
I self-consciously touched my neck for my pearls, but I hadn’t put them on. Then I touched my hair.
No headband today.
This woman wouldn’t have been caught dead in a headband.
She had on higher heels than what should be legal, black leather pants, and wore a bright smile on her face.
Huge sunglasses were placed on her head. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was a cover shot for Vogue.
The information next to it had her age, birthdate, known aliases, and kills.
&nbs
p; Kills?
I did a double-take.
Why would she have kills?
“Twenty-seven?” That had to be a typo, right? Or was that normal? Were wives also supposed to join the mafia, like some sort of gang? I kept reading.
Miscarriage.
My heart sank.
And then I read in big bold letters, RAT.
I dropped the papers all over the floor.
Rat.
Rat.
Rat.
Pieces started falling together. Why he’d said he wasn’t sorry she was dead. Why he was so broken, why—
“Find something interesting in there?” Chase asked casually.
I dropped the papers again as shame washed over me. Great, I asked for trust and now I was snooping, not that my job wasn’t to snoop, but I highly doubted this was what he’d had in mind, trying to find out about the dead wife, the competition the—
Was that it? Did I really think she was competition?
I wasn’t even in the running.
There was no race.
Just the broken pieces she’d discarded and left behind.
The ones she’d been willing to gamble on — and lost.
Anger filled me.
And for the first time since arriving at the house, I got a glimpse into his rage, his darkness.
And I hated her for it.
I put the papers back on the desk and waited in silence for his next sentence, or maybe even a gun getting pointed at my face.
Chase didn’t say anything, just slowly walked over to me and stared down at the papers. I squeezed my eyes shut as he slammed his fist down onto them and then shoved the entire desk onto its side, causing all of my files to go flying.
Tears filled my eyes as I kept squeezing them shut, willing it to be over.
But when I opened them, he was gone.
I fell to my knees to catch my breath.
Only to have him come back into the room and join me on the floor in picking up the files.
“We should just burn these,” he said in an angry voice. “You’ve seen enough.”
“Or too much,” I said before catching myself.
I was seriously just asking to get buried in his back yard, wasn’t I?
His cold eyes met mine and then softened immediately. “I’m not going to… I won’t hurt you, Luc.”
Not physically maybe.
I exhaled. “Okay.”