by Kaylee, Katy
“Jesus, would you stop wriggling around like that.” I ground out the words, my starved body suddenly all too aware that it was not a devil at all it held in its arms, but a very lush and very frightened female.
I clamped down hard on the feeling that roiled through my gut, calling on every ounce of my control as the sweet scent of night lilies enveloped me, drawing my body even tighter as the hauntingly familiar smell teased me. Painfully tighter.
I grabbed her wrists to stop them from pounding against my chest and pressed them above her head, putting my face just inches from hers so she could see the snarl.
“I said, stop fighting.”
“Like hell.” She answered back with so much piss and vinegar in her words that it nearly surprised a grin out of me. She had spirit, I would give her that.
“Look, bella, I’m not going to hurt you.” The promise sounded like it had been drawn over sandpaper it was so gruff coming out. I swear I heard her snort out a laugh of disbelief from her perch underneath my much larger body.
“I don’t believe you.”
Smart girl. The thought flashed through my head as I bared my teeth in what I hoped she would take for a smile instead of the grimace of lust induced pain.
“I swear on mi famiglia. There’s nothing more important to me than that. You can trust my word.”
I felt her still beneath me, her mop of wet hair hiding her face from me and suddenly I needed to see her, to look into her eyes. They always said the eyes were the windows to the soul and I’d found them to be true. I could read most people by the look in their eyes.
“I’m going to move off of you now. Don’t run. Don’t scream. Just take it nice and easy and we’ll all get out of this just fine.”
She let out another snort. “I still don’t believe you.” She huffed under her breath and in the space of as little minutes I found myself fighting back another grin. Incredible.
But it was obvious no words would be enough to convince her. Still holding on to my grip on her wrists, I slowly eased off her body. Every slide of her softness against me was pure torture but I refused to let any of it show on my face as I stood, drawing her up with me.
Before I could stop myself, my hand reached out, my fingers suddenly growing a mind of their own as they moved to catch the sweep of wet hair that hung in a damp curtain over her features.
She didn’t flinch away from my touch, which made her either very, very brave. Or very, very stupid.
Considering she’d just been caught trying to spy on the Diorno family and my men, I was betting on the latter.
But still, it didn’t stop me. Hell, I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I had the gun still held in my hand pointed at my head.
There was something I was missing. I knew it. I could feel it like something glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. It was there, just out of reach.
I was shocked to feel a fine tremble work its way down my arm as my fingers slid against the wet silk of her hair.
I didn’t react. Not ever. And certainly not to a drowned rat of a woman who was currently trying to spy on me and mine.
I waited until my hand was steady, and only then did I draw back the curtain of her wet hair, pushing the long mass from her face. And froze.
“What. The. Fuck.” The shocked words were the barest of whispers as they fell from my lips. All I could do was stare at her. It was like staring at a ghost. Some specter that had risen up to haunt me after all these years.
The rain still pouring around them disappeared. The docks and my men never existed. The only thing in the world that mattered was me, and the woman standing in front of me, staring back with the biggest, darkest, most mesmerizing gray eyes I had ever seen. Even ten years later, they still had the same effect on me. Like a fucking sucker punch to the gut. Something I never got used to. And apparently still hadn’t.
“Uh, boss?” Remy’s whining voice reached me and the spell shattered around us.
“I’m fine, Rem. You and Billy stay where you are and keep your fucking eyes open.” Reclaiming her wrist in my much larger hand I dragged her with me, searching for the nearest open, empty shipping container.
I shoved her inside, following her with my body, pressing her hard against the wall of the metal container until there was no space left between us.
“Elizabeth.” I growled her name out like an accusation and this time she did flinch. But her wide eyes never left mine. So it was easy for me to read her like a book. The panic, the desperation, the fear that I hated more than anything else. But there was one thing that was missing. Shock.
She wasn’t surprised to see me. Not nearly as shocked as I was to find her crouched there in the shadows.
“You better start talking. Now.” My voice was low and harsh, that soft tone that instantly had fear flashing into my men’s eyes. Not her. She just stood there, staring me eye to eye, toe to toe. Not backing down an inch. The challenge in her gray gaze made my body instantly and agonizingly hard for her.
No one challenged me. It took everything in me not to pick her up, lay her sweet softness across my lap and paddle her ass until it was all nice and rosy and pink.
The image that flashed in my mind of my mark on her creamy skin had my breath hitching in my chest.
She must have mistaken the sudden intake as anger because she started to stutter.
“I…I, well, the thing is that, I, um, was just walking and got a little turned around and–.”
Before the air had even left my lungs I claimed her mouth as my own. I knew, even as I kissed her, that it was a mistake. Probably the biggest fucking mistake of my life. But there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
For a second, my control slipped I pulled her lush body hard against mine, feeling every valley and peak, paradise just beyond reach but so close I could taste it. Just as I could taste her. Her unique brand of sweetness, like honey and cinnamon all mixed together to create something absolutely addictive.
Need clawed at me from the inside and suddenly I was right back where I had been ten years ago. Before my father had been murdered. Before I had taken over as the head of the family.
Only this time, everything was different.
We weren’t young and naive kids who had barely had a taste of the real world. And I sure as hell wasn’t the dumb innocent I’d been the first time I had seen her. The first time she’d flashed that challenge at me a decade ago.
I pulled my mouth away from hers, breaking the kiss before it went so far that I couldn’t rake it back again. I tried to wrestle down the desire inside me, but it was like grabbing a hold of a live wire, a shock to my system.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
I had stopped our kiss but I was still close to her, our bodies pressed intimately together, as dominant as always.
She was just as affected by me. I could see it in the flush of her cheek and the way her eyes darkened and heated like a gray flame.
“Elizabeth.”
“No one calls me that anymore.” She said breathlessly. “It’s just Beth, now.”
“Elizabeth.” I growled again, ignoring her words. She would always be Elizabeth to me. “What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here. And don’t lie to me again. I can’t stand lies.”
The question shot from my mouth like a spray of bullets and she finally glanced away, avoiding answering me. Keeping secrets.
All of the chemistry that used to burn between us was still raging just as hot, just as fierce, even after ten years and it had blinded me at first from the worry inside her. The agony. The sheer desperation.
Not to mention the fucking shock at seeing her.
I reached out, cupping her cheek, wanting to gasp again at the feel of her soft as silk skin against my callused palm.
“Tesoro, answer me.” I whispered, far more gently than I felt at the moment. “What’s wrong.”
She looked at me with those eyes that hit me hard enough to bring me to my knees every fucking time even after ten
years.
“You, Aiden.” She finally answered, her eyes darkening now with another emotion I’d never seen before in their sweet, gray depths. Rage. “You’re what’s wrong. Now, tell me where my sister is.”
Chapter 4
Beth
The demand flew from my mouth like a bird, with wings of its own. It floated there in between us, startling him almost as much as it did me. I was surprised at my own sudden bravery.
I had been skulking in the shadows for so long that I’d been almost afraid that I had forgotten what that felt like.
Sneaking. Creeping. Hiding. Those were all things I had gotten way too familiar with in the last few weeks but not this. This blatant bravery. Or blatant stupidity depending on how you looked at it.
Yes, I had forgotten what it felt like. Oh, yeah. It felt terrible. Awful. Like I was staring up at the gallows and Aiden was my executioner, asking me if I had any last words before taking that last, fatal drop.
“What did you just say?” He asked, his voice soft and so low I had to strain to hear it. No, it was quiet, but sure as hell it wasn’t soft. There was an edge there so sharp I was afraid I would cut myself on it as he leaned his face closer to mine.
It was so dark inside the big metal container I could hardly make out his features, the shadows forming deep slashes in the hallows of his cheeks. His hair was shorter than I remembered it, his nose more crooked as if it had been broken several times and never re-set properly.
There was a long scare that slashed across his eyebrow and down across one cheek that hadn’t been there before either.
But his eyes. That icy blue so pale they almost looked white as he stared down at me. Those were exactly the same. Still just as intense. Still just as demanding. Still just as dominant.
His kiss still clung to my lips, trembling there like that last note of a song before it fades. It sent need shivering through me, stabbing me as sharp as a knife and I was just as shocked at how fierce my desire was even after all these years.
It was as if one kiss had erased the last decade. One kiss, and all the need inside me rose up as fresh and as fierce as it had ever been.
I stared into his eyes for a long moment, searching for the boy I had once known. But that boy was gone. Burned out by a life of violence and degradation.
A part of me mourned the loss of the boy. The rest of me demanded answers. Now.
“You heard me.” I forced the words out with as much confidence as I could muster, refusing to look away. Refusing to back down. “Where the hell is my sister?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tesoro.”
The endearment rolled over me, making me tremble. Making memories I had thought were long dead and gone rise up inside me, threatening to overwhelm me. I shoved them violently away.
“Now who’s the liar?” I asked, throwing the question at him but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look away. Just met my gaze with one as steady and brilliant as a forest fire and just as deadly.
“I’m not lying.” He shook his head. He still hadn’t stepped away and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. He was taking up all of the oxygen and the dizziness was going straight to my head.
“I know you are, Aiden.” I said, letting out a sigh of defeat.
“How do you know?”
“I have proof.”
He gave me a long look, raising one dark eyebrow at me and the doubt I saw there made me want to growl and bite him. I imagined my mouth on him and it was far too easy to imagine what else I could do with my mouth on Aiden’s body. Heat flushed across my face and I forced the thoughts away. This wasn’t the time and it wasn’t the place and it sure as heck wasn’t the person. I knew that. I had learned that lesson well and good the first time around. I didn’t need a repeat. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt.
I let out a soft, hysterical laugh as my thoughts derailed and Aiden furrowed his brows at me, giving me a serious look of concern. I’d earned it. I knew that.
“What the fuck is going on, Elizabeth?” He demanded. There was no other word for it. It wasn’t even a question. Not really. He knew he would get an answer. At least that hadn’t changed about it. He was just as dominant as he had been ten years before but it was harsher now, sharper. More out in the open.
Before it had been softened by his innate…I didn’t want to call is sweetness because I’d never thought of Aiden as sweet in the short months we’d been together. There was just something there. Something noble.
Honor. I thought as the word clicked in my mind. He was honorable.
It almost made another laugh escape. Honor. Right. What she’d learned about Aiden Diorno in the last few weeks made me think any honor he might have had was long gone as well.
The control, though. That was still there and in full force. I could see it in the strength of his gaze. The way he held his body. The way he’d broken off the kiss.
I stood there, unmoving. Not that I could move anyway, with how close his body was still pressed against mine. I hadn’t meant to confront him. Hell, I hadn’t even meant to let him know that I was there, not until I had the evidence I needed and could take it to the cops.
But here he was. Right in front of me. What better opportunity would I have to gather more information? I needed to know everything that I could about what my sister had been investigating, and it all seemed to circle back to Aiden.
“My sister is missing.” I finally whispered the words, barely breaking the tense silence that had fallen in the empty metal container.
“What?” The question exploded from Aiden’s mouth and there was no faking the shock that widened his eyes or the honest surprise in his expression. “What do you mean, missing?”
“I mean, she’s missing. Leah has been missing for twenty four days and seven hours.” I knew the time exactly. I had the last voice mail message she’d sent. It was time stamped on my phone. In my mind. On my broken heart.
I stared at him as he processed my words and suddenly I knew.
“You really had no idea, did you?”
Aiden slowly shook his head, still trying make sense of it all. Good luck with that. I’d been trying and failing for weeks.
“Elizabeth why would you think I had anything to do with it?”
“It’s Beth.” I said half-heartedly, but there wasn’t much fight in it. My mind flashed over everything that had happened the night Leah had gone missing. The frantic voicemail message my sister had left me. And then the package that had arrived three days later. The envelope. Full of photographs.
Most had been of men that I hadn’t recognized but there was one that I had. Aiden. It had been just a glimpse of him from the shadows of the photo but I would recognize him anywhere.
I’d gone to the police and filed the missing person’s report. But after weeks, they were no closer to finding out what had happened to my sister than I was.
I sucked in a deep breath as a realization hit me. Actually, with Aiden in front of me. I was now closer than I’d ever been. He was in the photo. If he was telling me the truth about not knowing Leah or her whereabouts, then he must know the other men in the photos.
“And I had a very good reason for suspecting you.” I sighed. He arched that damn eyebrow at me again.
“Had?”
“I hope I’m not making a mistake in trusting you, Aiden.”
“Tesoro, I would never hurt you or your family.” Aiden answered me, anger at my accusation flashing in his pale blue eyes.
I drew in a deep breath. I knew I might be making a terrible mistake. Fatal, even. But deep down, despite everything, I trusted him. I had to believe that a part of the person I had once known before was still in there. The person I had once thought I’d loved.
“Okay. Come on. I need a ride.”
Aiden didn’t say a word, just nodded, still holding my hand in his as he slid around the side of the container, yelled something to his companions and slid back.
“Where are we goin
g?”
“To find the truth.” I huffed out on a breath, my stomach flipping somersaults inside me. Either way, at the end of tonight, I would know the truth about Aiden and whether or not he really was involved in Leah’s disappearance. I just prayed I survived it. And I prayed even harder that my sister would too.
* * *
Aiden
I scanned the rundown motel room Elizabeth had directed me to and I hated everything about it.
I hated the sleazy man at the front desk who had leered at us when we’d walked through the lobby together. I hated the weak, all too breakable chain lock on the door. I hated the stains on the carpet and leaky faucet in the bathroom sink.
The state of the room made me cringe. It was nothing like my own house. Some would call it luxurious, opulent, over the top. I just thought of it as what it was. The best that money could buy. Dio knew that the Diorno family had amassed enough wealth over the last several decades to pay for many such homes, several times over. Not that there was anyone else to spend it. Just me. The last of the family line.
I shrugged the thought off, looking around the room once more and shuddered. To me, it was just how things were. It was normal. This, however, was certainly not. And it infuriated me even more to know that Elizabeth had been my city, living in a place like this, for weeks!
I clenched my hands into fists to keep myself from grabbing her, throwing her over my shoulder and taking her out of the place that instant.
And I knew if I tried, that Elizabeth would try and gut me, or hit me, or just do that thing where she shut down and gave me the cold shoulder. No one could go silent like Elizabeth Bell.
So, I didn’t do a damn thing. I just stood there, waiting as Elizabeth reached inside a bag that she’d had hidden under the bed and pulled out a large envelope.
She bit her lower lip as she handed it to me, and I nearly lost it. She might insist on a different name now, but at least that was still the same. She had done that even ten years ago, when she was eighteen and a fresh faced, nervous freshman in college.
