My eyes snap open and I shove off of the wall. “You can’t call Kayden when he’s with Raul. He’ll be furious with Raul. He’ll get killed.”
“Like I said,” Adriel replies, “I’m calling Kayden.”
“You’re going to get him killed,” I accuse.
“Because you fuck Kayden,” Adriel bites out, “does not make you an expert on how he wants things done.” He rounds the bed, heading for the door.
“Adriel!” I shout. “Wait!” And when he doesn’t stop, I turn to Nathan. “Stop him, before you’re covering another man with a sheet!”
He shakes his head. “Kayden’s orders were specific. He wanted to know any news on Enzo immediately.”
“You have to see why that’s a problem!”
“He wants to know. Let it go, Ella.”
“I won’t let it go,” I say, dashing for the door and the hallway to find Adriel nowhere in sight until I reach the stairs. I see him in the foyer below, his back to me. I run down the stairs, and watch as he slips his phone into his pocket and turns to face me. “You told him, didn’t you?” I demand, walking up to him.
“I left him a specific message. Yes.”
“If he dies—”
“He won’t, because he’s not dictated by his emotions. And if you can’t remove yours, to stand by his side, you will get him killed. You will be no different from Giada, who doesn’t belong here.”
“I’m not—”
“This is not your world,” he says from between gritted teeth. “And people who don’t belong in this world, but stay here, end up like Enzo. Dead.” He steps around me and starts walking, his boots sounding on the stone floor, no longer covered in a rug, and each booted step echoes, not like a warning, but a threat.
I decide right then that my uneasiness with Adriel isn’t going away, no matter how much Kayden trusts him. But now, when we’re all riding an emotional roller coaster, is not the time to go to war with him. Especially since I’m fairly sure that the only thing I’m objective about right now is the fact that I’m not objective.
Inhaling, I walk to the front door, open it, and exit, a motion detector triggering lights that cast the porch in a dim glow. Ignoring the cold night air, I shut myself outside, sit on the top step, and dig my phone from my purse, noting the ten o’clock hour. I tab to Kayden’s phone number, my finger lingering above it, but I remember my vow to only call in an emergency so I don’t hit it. And I quickly rule out a text as distracting and potentially dangerous.
The door opens behind me, and I twist around to find Matteo joining me. “What are you doing out here?”
“I need a few minutes of air.”
“It’s cold.”
“Is it?”
He studies me for several beats and shrugs out of his black leather jacket I don’t remember him wearing, offering it to me. “Kayden will kill me if I let you freeze.”
Kill me. I hate those two words right now, though of course I know they aren’t literal. It’s just . . . oh God. He doesn’t know. I accept the heavy weight of the jacket and manage a soft “Thank you,” hesitating to add, “Matteo . . . I . . . Enzo . . .”
His eyes shut, his chin falling to his chest, a guttural curse sliding from his lips, his reaction chilling me way beyond the cold breeze.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We tried. . . . Nathan—”
“I know,” he says, looking at me again. “I know.” He scrubs his jaw. “Don’t stay out here long.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, turning away.
“Wait!”
He turns to look at me.
“They told Kayden.”
Understanding fills his eyes. “He’s The Hawk, Ella,” he says, as if that should explain everything. And I never get the chance to ask for more. He enters the castle and shuts the door firmly behind him.
I face forward to stare across the dark expanse of the yard, settling the jacket around my shoulders, and while Matteo might have given it to me, in doing so, he made it clear that Kayden is looking out for me even when he’s not here. He is The Hawk. The protector of his people. I would die for you, he had said to me, but the word die shifts me back to the moment Nathan said, “He’s gone,” and tears prickle in my eyes. He’s gone. He’s gone. Damn it. He’s gone.
My cell phone rings and I glance at the caller ID, hoping it’s Kayden. But it’s the number from Gallo’s business card—and like Kayden, I question his timing. My gaze lifts, scanning the darkness, looking for a way he might be able to see me. But there’s really no way to know, thus no certainty he won’t know I am ignoring him. I decide it’s best to avoid any more of his wrath.
I hit the “answer” button. “Hello.”
“We need to meet,” he says. “Tomorrow morning for coffee. There’s a place in the neighborhood called Caffè del Cinque. Be there at eight. Alone.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Do you want me to take a photo of my badge and text it to you? Or perhaps your temporary visa?” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “You can meet me, and you will.”
“What is this about?”
“You.”
“What does—?”
The line goes dead.
Though I’m certain Kayden has more power than he does, I am afraid that Gallo will deport me, but I don’t think he has anything substantial on me, or he’d be dragging me out of the castle right now. It’s a game. He’s always playing games. I shove my phone back inside my purse and zip it up, glancing around the expansive yard, darkness consuming the walls blocking us from the public. Eerie silence surrounds me, the inky black almost a living creature, and suddenly I feel very exposed out here. I stand up, the leather draping my shoulders heavier than moments before, and hurry to the door.
Once I’m inside I lock the door, rush to Kayden’s private tower, and punch in the security code. The instant the heavy wooden door starts to slide up, I impatiently want to duck under, but Matteo’s jacket is too big and awkward. Forced to wait, I replay Gallo’s words, wondering why he didn’t insist on meeting tonight, since he knows Kayden is gone. Maybe he was baiting me, or us. Maybe he thought I’d panic and go somewhere he could follow? Perhaps to Kayden? Whatever the case, he’s playing head games and it’s working.
The door opens fully, a pool of light pouring in from the hall, and I hurry into the private foyer of the tower, pausing to push the button on the wall to shut the door again. And though normally I’d head right up the stairs, and let it close on its own, I’m antsy enough to watch it slide shut and know that I’m alone, considering Kayden guards our entry code like gold. Hurrying up the winding stone staircase, I reach the landing and pause, glancing down the hallway toward the bedroom, but the idea of being secluded in that room without Kayden hits all the wrong spots. Instead, I find myself walking straight ahead into the dimly lit living area, where I claim a seat on the couch, two chairs framing me, a big-screen television on the wall in front of me. The gas fireplace glows in the far left corner, warming the room, but it can’t thaw the chill deep in my bones and my soul from the death of Enzo.
Pulling my purse over my head, I set it on the floor by the couch, then lie down and cover myself with the jacket, staring at the high ceiling without seeing it, tormented by the death I’ve lived through tonight and taunted by Gallo’s phone call. I replay the important part of the conversation, honing in on my query about tomorrow’s meeting: “What is this about?” I’d asked.
And his reply: “You.”
It’s then that images flash in my mind, as if in answer to some question I haven’t asked, and I close my eyes, knowing even before I fully visualize the scene that this is the memory I was having right after Enzo died.
I am in the hotel room where David and I are staying. The room where I ripped the butterfly necklace off my neck and found the note inside. The phone rings and I rush over to it, hoping it’s David, who has been gone for an hour.
“Hello?”
A female voice says, “He’s at Seventy-fifth Avenue.
. . .”
I open my eyes, frustrated that I can’t remember the address. Seventy-fifth Avenue what? And who was it who called me? The voice was strongly accented, but was it Italian? My brows furrow. I don’t think it was. I shut my eyes again, and will more to come to me.
It is dark outside when I reach the address the caller gave me—a restaurant. I enter and walk to the hostess stand, and spot David with a beautiful blonde, who I believe is American. I quickly move out of his line of sight, and dash back outside to the busy sidewalk. I don’t think they’re lovers, but I don’t know. I wait outside, the hood of my jacket covering much of my face, and he finally exits, and the woman is not with him, but he turns away from our hotel, and I follow, sheltering myself in the crowded sidewalk, where shops line our path. For blocks we walk like this, him in front of me, me praying I find the truth about the man I foolishly planned to marry. Love wasn’t in the equation. Normalcy was. I wanted to be normal. To be secure. To forget the dangerous past I don’t want to exist.
Abruptly David turns down a side street and two women block my path. I cut around them just in time to see David disappear. I run after him, but pause at the corner. Peeking down the sidewalk, I find it dark, lined with brownstones, and no pedestrians, not even David to mark my path. Inhaling, I dare to turn down the path he’d taken, hurrying forward until I reach an open gate leading to a private garden. It’s then that I see a man on the ground. . . . David on the ground.
I rush to him, and there is blood oozing from his chest. “I’ll get help! Hold on. I’ll get help.”
I start to get up and he grips my arm. “Wait,” he hisses. “Don’t . . . give . . . him the necklace.”
“Him who?”
But the memory goes blank and my eyes pop open, my heart racing a million miles an hour. “Don’t give him the necklace,” I whisper, repeating his words and then my own. “Him who?”
And I can come to only one conclusion. He didn’t use a name because he believed I knew who he was talking about.
four
“Ella.”
At the sound of my name, my lashes lift and I blink the gorgeous man leaning over me into view, my mind flickering back to the hospital room where I’d done the same. “Kayden?” I ask, rising up on my elbows to find him kneeling beside me.
“Why are you on the couch?” he asks, his voice a soft but evident demand.
“I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?”
“Two in the morning.”
“Two,” I repeat. “The last time I looked it was ten, and—” Everything comes crashing back to me. Raul. Enzo. Adriel. Gallo and Giada. The flashback of David dying on that cobblestone walkway. My fear that Kayden would also die. “Oh God.” I throw aside the heavy weight of Matteo’s jacket, sit up, and fling my arms around Kayden’s neck. “You’re alive. You’re okay. I’m so glad you’re here.”
But he doesn’t hug me; his hands settle at my waist. “But you didn’t want to be in my bedroom, in our room, Ella.”
I lean back to look at him, shadows stroking his face that have nothing to do with the ones I see in his eyes. “I just . . . I needed to be right here while you were gone.”
“Because you don’t trust me right now.”
“But I do,” I confess, no matter how right or wrong that decision may be. “Beyond reason, I do, which is why the idea of you betraying me guts me.”
“The truth is not as simple as a betrayal. And what guts me is the idea of losing you.”
“I don’t know what the future holds, Kayden. I barely know how I got here. I can’t promise how I’ll react to what you tell me. But I know that we’re here, and Enzo is gone, and I can’t lose you tonight.”
His hand slides under my hair, folding around my neck. “I can’t lose you ever.” His mouth slants over mine, his tongue stroking deep, and suddenly we are crazy, wildly kissing, touching each other like we will never touch again, two people who value control and have lost it, as if every emotion we’ve bottled up tonight has exploded right here and now, and become this moment that is all about need, passion, and hunger. My hand slides under his T-shirt, and only then do I realize his guns are gone. The hell is done and over, at least for now, and I press my palms to his warm, taut skin, reveling in this escape that I know will not last.
“Kayden,” I find myself whispering, his name a plea for some unknown something that only he can give me.
His answer is to kiss me again, and I feel the deep, seductive stroke of his tongue in every part of me. I moan and arch into him, and a frenzied rush of our hands on each other’s bodies ends in our shirts disappearing and my bra falling to the floor. It’s then that we slow down and his gaze rakes over my breasts, a hot inspection that tightens my nipples and my sex.
“You are beautiful,” he declares, flattening his hand between my shoulder blades, molding my naked chest to his, skin against skin. “If I can hold you like this every day for the rest of my life, I’ll die a happy man.”
“If,” I repeat. “I hate that word. I hate all of the uncertainty between us.”
He stands and takes me with him, stroking the hair from my face and tilting my mouth to his. “If is a reminder to never take anything for granted. That every day, and every moment—”
“Could be our last,” I supply, the words reminding me of Enzo, of his loss, and our fight to save his life, which ended in his death.
“Which is exactly why we need to fuck like it is.” He kisses me then, a short, hot claiming that is all about demand, two parts fierce, one part a question I don’t understand, before he tears his mouth from mine and walks me backward. “You have too many clothes on,” he declares, going down on one knee again and wasting no time removing my Keds.
My hands settle on his shoulders, his mouth finding my belly, his tongue flicking here and there, and my nipples ache to feel the same. And when he moves lower, exploring the bare expanse of skin just above my waistband, my fingers slide into his hair, tangling in the soft stands. But they do not stay.
Almost instantly, Kayden catches my wrist and presses my arms and hands behind me. “Lace your fingers together.”
“What?”
“I’m going to make sure you can think of nothing but us. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say, my certainty that I want whatever he offers absolute. “That’s what I want.”
“Then do as I say. Lace your fingers together and don’t release them until I tell you to.”
The idea of submitting to him, of willingly giving him control, is sexy in ways that defy what I know of my past. I am even wetter and hotter than moments before. But Kayden has declared my submission to be my choice, while the man of my past took it. I twine my fingers beneath his grip, and there’s no mistaking the satisfaction that lights his eyes, a satisfaction that I know isn’t about sex. It’s about trust—something that I don’t believe either of us have known much of in our lives.
His finger trails my waistband, his mouth following, his tongue flickering above the denim, a touch and a lick I feel in places he hasn’t yet explored, but I have no question he will. My lashes lower, my breasts feel heavy, my sex is tight, slick, ready for the moment Kayden is inside me.
“Ella,” he says, softly, the rough timbre of his voice compelling me to look at him. “Tell me that the birth control you started has kicked in, and I can be inside you with nothing between us.”
“It has,” I say, and for several beats we stare at each other, a new level of intimacy between us that has nothing to do with our naked bodies, but everything to do with our newly formed, fragile commitment to each other.
He suddenly averts his gaze, resting his cheek on my belly, his energy shifting, darkening, several heavy beats passing. I want to touch him, to drive away the torment coming from him. “Kayden,” I whisper softly, and when he looks at me, those shadows of minutes before are thicker, more intense.
“I’m going to make you forget everything but us. I’m going to make me for
get. I’m going to fuck you every possible way I can before this night is over.” He cups my sex. “I’m going to lick you here, over and over, until you cry out because you want to come so badly it hurts. I’m going to make you say please. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Maybe I should just say please now.”
“No. When it hurts so good that it’s almost pain, you say please.”
He unsnaps my jeans and then unzips them, his hands slipping under the denim, and my panties, to my hips, sliding them down. They pool at my feet and I have a second at most to be self-conscious before he’s standing. He wraps his arms around me, covering my hands with his behind me, and then he arches backward, lifting me as he kicks away my pants. But he doesn’t put me down. He holds me there, cradling my body with his, and I can’t move, but I don’t want to. I just want him. This. Nothing else. The air around us crackles, stealing my breath. Stealing time and washing away everything else before this moment.
Slowly he lowers me, walking me backward, and then easing us down again so I’m sitting on the couch, and he is in front of me between my open legs. Leaning into me, he presses my hands into the cushion behind me, and then drags my hips forward, forcing me to support my weight on them. I’ve barely steadied myself when he twines rough, erotic fingers in my hair and kisses me, before ordering, “Shut your eyes.” I do it, no hesitation, wanting whatever unknown he intends, and when I do, he adds, “Don’t move.”
And then he is gone, and I can hear the sounds of him undressing, an erotic thrill that promises soon he will be naked, inside me, touching me. Me touching him. But unbidden, an image of that necklace is in my mind and then me holding a gun on Kayden. I jolt upward. “Kayden,” I say, at the very moment he shoves his jeans and underwear down his legs, giving me a delicious view of his amazing backside and the circle of skulls tattooed on his back.
He faces me, tossing his jeans aside as he does, and I inhale at the sight of him, every delicious, long, muscular inch of him now exposed, his thick shaft jutting forward. And somehow we are frozen in place. He doesn’t move. I don’t move. Seconds tick by, and every moment we’ve ever shared, including the one in the shower with me holding the gun on him, is between us, but there is only one question that I have to have answered right now. Before I can ask, though, he’s walking toward me, and in another few beats, he is sitting on the couch, pulling me over his lap to straddle him, his erection pressed to my belly between us.