Trigger (Pericolo #3)

by Kirsty-Anne Still

  I moan out, my head falling backward. His lips trace my jugular, indulging upon my racing pulse. He pushes me to my limit, exceeding my resistance until I give in and allow my orgasm to wrap around me with a suffocating daze. I moan louder as he continues to thrust into me even as I clench around his length. I know he’s finishing himself off, but I can’t deny the satisfaction it brings to my body.

  It’s during my comedown that I feel a sense of calm instill upon me. It’s in his strong embrace, my entire body slack against him, my mind unraveling that I realize a thing or two. I wasn’t here for the blood, for the murder, for the daily sin. I was here, by his side, as proof that I had someone to live for. Finally, after all this searching, I found my one cause to live and not just survive. I’d found someone as tortured as I am and I wasn’t going to risk losing him.

  But if only he knew that the rivers into my tortured soul ran red. Then he’d realize just how impenetrable I was to his intent. If he knew every single dark depth to me, he’d realize he was twenty years too late to scare me away.

  In allowing me a grand entrance into his life, he was helping me reap revenge. He was finally setting me free. I hadn’t known it at first, but my perseverance was paying off. Dante Valentino was not only giving me purpose but he was also issuing me with liberation and he didn’t even know it.

  Yet, while I feel the deliverance of my emancipation from my past beginning, I feel like I'm the desperate one. The notion of falling in love has escaped me, and I'm left here with a heart that aches for a man who will never want me.

  But is this love? After all, he doesn't do love. Better yet, do I?

  He's cold, meticulous, and scathing, but I know there's something about him that I have to hold out for.

  It might not happen today or tomorrow, but one day he will love something more about me – for now, it’s clearly my killer instinct.

  “I have a long list of cunts who deserve to be finished by a beautiful woman like you, Ryleigh,” he whispers as he pulls out of me, only pausing to give me one of the evilest smirks I’ve ever seen. “What do you say you help me?”

  My heart thuds hard before stopping altogether. I feel my skin become clammy, my chest tighten, and as I gaze into his crystal green eyes, I feel like I’ve found my place.

  “I say we terrify the whole of Brooklyn,” I remark, reaching up to kiss him as if to seal the deal.

  I didn’t think this was possible – a life that should see me dead has me feeling so sinfully alive.

  9DANTE

  “She just took that knife, and she taunted him, Jackson!”

  I’ve done nothing but gloat over Ryleigh’s first kill. I’m still at a loss to what she said to him, but that doesn’t matter because my beguiling little wolf wet her hands for the first time. She let the blood flow, and she didn’t even cower. All the men in that room would’ve bowed down at her feet if she had let them.

  She was officially my fucking queen without even a single push from me.

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “No,” Jackson grunts, taking a swig of his beer. “I don’t care.”

  I laugh at his childish behavior. “Are you pouting?”

  “No, I’m not fucking pouting!” he argues, sitting forward in his seat. “I’m just not a fan of the tale you’re spinning me. I don’t care to know how Ryleigh’s changing under your watchfulness.”

  “She’s not changing,” I admonish, rolling my eyes. “She’s becoming what she wants to become.”

  “Being a murderer isn’t something you aspire to be,” he retorts, his voice slick with sarcasm. He looks up, staring at me with a heated look. “You didn’t even choose to be one... remember?”

  He’s putting me on the spot, and I feel incredulity become a thick, suffocating emotion. I can’t hide from the man who grew up by my side. I made sure he was untouched, left to grow. I took the brunt of every teaching Marcello bestowed upon us. Jackson may have been classed as my brother, but his lack of blood relation meant he didn’t have to grow up with the Valens way as I did. He was given a home, a family, and a future, but he wasn’t dragged into the mess of the family.

  Why?

  No one ever knew. We all assumed it was because he wasn’t blood-related, but I soon realized that Marcello favored Jackson. He favored him in a way he never would me. While Jackson was an abandoned child, I was the only heir left to the family name. I had been born into deadly sin and Jackson hadn’t, so he never bore the brunt of his genetics.

  He sighs, breaking my reverie down to nothingness.

  “She’s just like us, Dante,” he says, standing up to pace. “And that’ll be the real killer in all of this!”

  “No,” I snigger, mocking him. “No, Jackson, she’s the killer in all of this. She’s proven what lengths she’ll go to.”

  “I hate how much you’re enjoying this,” Jackson states, finally stopping. “I hate all of this!”

  I shrug. “She opted for this. I’m not one to say no to a pretty face.”

  “It’s because she’s conflicted... and for that matter, you’re mentally deranged! You two are going to be toxic.”

  “We don’t have to be,” I remark, loathing how he views my relationship with Ryleigh. “You don’t know what it’ll be.”

  “What and you do?” he mocks, snickering. “You don’t want anything from her but to destroy her! You said that from day one. You don’t have her best interests at heart.”

  “And you do?” I retort, reiterating his words.

  “Fuck yeah, I do!” he bellows, throwing his arms in the air, beer sloshing in its bottle. “She’s not just one of the girls, she’s also a friend. I know her, and I know her struggle. Have you even bothered to ask?”

  “I know enough,” I admonish, waving him off. “She came into this by choice. I gave her the get-out clause, tried to frighten her off, but all she did was clean me up, Jax. I castrated a man in front of her and all she did was take me to the bathroom to clean me. She didn’t want her get-out, she begged me to take it away, so I did.”

  “I don’t want to see how this ends,” he mutters, fixing me with a solemn look. “Because what I imagine is not good.”

  “Then stop imagining,” I tell him, not caring for his concern.

  “I can’t,” he replies. While his anger defuses, his disappointment seeps in to replace it. “I know how you handle business, Dante, but I just wish you had never started this.” I watch as he sets the bottle down on the table. “You think this is all simple, but it’s anything but. I’ll see you later. I can’t do this.”

  I remain unmoved, watching him. “I guess you’re quitting on fight club for tonight?”

  “Fuck yes, I am! I’m not in the mood to watch you work out your anger issues on some guy’s face!” Jackson yells at me, his chest drawing in ragged breaths. “I’m going home to my wife because, unlike you, I’m not terrified to fucking commit myself to a woman who’s willing to give herself wholly to me.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “Don’t compare Jodi with Ryleigh. That wife of yours didn’t walk with the devil to bed you. If I remember right, it was pretty much love at first sight and then you were the hero. What I have with Ryleigh is purely physical.”

  “So wanting to corrupt her soul is physical, is it?” he asks and laughs when he sees my face remain stone cold. “You know what, Dante? I hope she corrupts everything you are. I hope one day you’ll regret this.”

  “Reading from the same hymn sheet as your wife, are you?” I mock, realizing that my best friend isn’t going to support this choice of mine. “It’s a bit monotonous that you’re both so fucking alike!”

  “I guess Jodi was right to walk away from you. When you stop being an asshole, drop me a call. I warned you how this would end, and Jodi did, too. Sometimes I hate how fucking big your ego is,” he insults me, showing how angry he is. “When you finally wake up and smell the fucking roses, remember I was your brother first, enemy second.”

  As he leave
s, I shake my head. I can’t believe he’d cut tonight short because of a stupid argument. I think to the fight I have tonight and I know exactly what I’m going to do about it. I pull my phone out of my pocket, finding her number quickly. I don’t need him when I have a perfect replacement.

  “Wear the tightest dress you have, little wolf,” I say the moment she answers. “You’re about to be my cheerleader for one night only.”

  I close the phone and finish my own drink. I stand, straightening my suit jacket and button it up. I look around the house, prepared to leave it behind and head for the door, wearing the biggest fucking smirk on my face.

  I hope Ryleigh’s prepared for victory sex.

  ***

  I fall against the cage, my competitor on the floor with a KO. As soon as my visions calms, my gaze lands straight on Ryleigh as she stands right in front of me. She has a towel in one hand, a drink in the other, and a cocky little grin on her lips.

  She was a born fucking natural for everything I’ve delivered at her feet.

  I spit out my mouth guard, allowing myself to taste the fucking blood. I reach for the drink she extends, taking a mouthful to guzzle and spit out. The rancid copper taste remains, but I listen to her; she’s too fucking alluring not to obey.

  “C’mon, champ,” she ushers, waving for me to come down and out of the cage.

  As I leave the ring, descending the stairs, I catch the way men eye fuck her. It’s my own fault because I told her to dress in something tight, and she prevailed. Her body looks divine wrapped in a tight, deep red mini dress that makes her legs look like they go on for miles. It doesn’t help she’s wearing the sexiest heels, and she knows how to work it all when put together.

  She looked uncomfortable to be back here, but the moment she was on my arm, presented as a trophy, she channeled every ounce of awkwardness and embarrassment onto me. She focused, and she cheered me to triumph.

  Now, she looks turned on as she stands before me.

  I seize my moment, stealing her away from these greedy fuckers to take her back to my room. I want to be alone with this woman, seeing as no amount of violence is going to scare her off. We move quick, making our way through the labyrinth of hallways and into my room where we came from thirty minutes earlier. I slam the door to my dressing room, consequently locking it so I can be alone with Ryleigh.

  “Come here,” I order her, my tone feather light.

  She does as I say, and it’s only now I see that desire set firmly in her beautiful eyes. I gaze at her face, the lightest of blood staining it. She was caught in the spray from the punches and hits. I hadn’t realized until this point. I reach up, my cut knuckles stroking along her jaw as my thumb runs across the dried blood. My eyes drop, catching her pursed lips. I stroke the pad of my thumb over them, delicately dragging her bottom lip. She gazes up at me, blood splattered on her cheek, and my breathing hitches.

  “We need to clean you up,” I remark, wanting to rid her of the bloodstains.

  “No,” she argues, grabbing my hand to prevent me from leaving this moment just yet. “Tell me who those men are that you fight. You’re reckless with them. You show no mercy.”

  “I only fight against men like Viktor, that’s why,” I tell her all too willingly. “It’s separate to what is expected of me, but I do it nonetheless. I like to make them suffer. This is the foreplay to their deaths.” I watch her eyes flutter shut a few times but never does she recoil. “I like to mess with their heads and get money for beating them down to a pulp. I like to get justice before I end them.”

  “You didn’t end Viktor,” she whispers, murmuring softly. “You left him alive.”

  “With no quality of life,” I respond, a voice full of conviction. “He’ll have a permanent reminder of what happens to men like him... that was my gift to him. Much like thieves lose their hands and liars lose their tongues. You don’t have to kill a man to make your point.”

  “So, I’m learning,” she muses, showing me a small smile. “Now what?” she asks innocently.

  “Revel in this with me, Ryleigh,” I comment, begging her is a distant tone in my words, but it’s there. “Let me show you how I celebrate.”

  “Okay,” she replies, immediately going to say something else.

  I hush her with a gentle touch of my lips. Everything she makes me feel rushes through my veins, making me feel numb to anything but the sensation of her. I need to live in this moment before it shatters. She's consuming me, making me crave only her. She sedates all my other urges and makes my mind focus on only her, and it's beautiful. The divinity she beholds is omnipotent, more than even she can assume, but I know how powerful her existence is in my life because I revel in only her.

  After I won, I only wanted her.

  No one else holds that power.

  The thrill of loving her, even allowing myself to do so for one split second, is far more addictive than the thrill of a kill will ever be. Reveling in this moment is far grander than that final punch to Phillip. The thrill of living this life with her is exulting.

  And I hate that I’ll be sabotaging this moment, our connection.

  It’ll be what turns us toxic.

  “Do you give yourself to me wholly?” I ask her, pushing the strap of her dress down over her shoulder. She nods. “Tell me, little wolf. Do you give yourself to me wholly?”

  “Yes,” she murmurs anticipation eats away at her words.

  “So you trust me to fuck you right?” I question, doing the same to the other strap.

  “Yes,” she breathes.

  Her breathing falters, coming in staccato beats as I grip the zipper on her side and run it free. As the dress falls looser, I give it a quick tug at the hips, forcing it to sag and fall freely down to her feet. I take a moment to look down and I grin like a fucking fool to witness the fact she’s not wearing one piece of lingerie under her dress.

  No wonder the sight of her had me hard as fuck. I never stood a chance.

  I rub my jaw, waiting with bated breath to take total control.

  “Leave the heels on,” I command, my hand pressing against her jaw, my fingers curling into her hairline. “Don’t even think about taking them off.”

  I take her hand, helping her step out from the pool of material. I walk her toward the middle of the room, knowing exactly what I want to do with her. I look over her shoulder, straight at the perfect setting.

  “Go and bend over the pool table.”

  She looks over her shoulder before turning back, her bottom lip bitten between her teeth. I see from her eyes that she’s becoming more in touch with her sexuality than ever. I want her to love being a woman after this; I want her to scream my name so loudly that the walls bleed it.

  “I want that ass in the air and your legs split, cara.” I don’t give any details, just instructions. I want her so wrapped around my cock that she no longer thinks straight. I want her to feel the total thrill of a good, hard fuck. “I want your tits flat against that pool table, your hands ready to hold on, and your ass so far in the air that it’s offering me a fucking invite.”

  I pull her close, issuing the finality of my instructions. I can feel her body temperature increasing, which in turn is speeding up her heart rate. Her breathing tells me she’s committed to me, ready to trust me.

  "That ass will never be yours again after this," I growl into her ear, pulling a little harder at her hair. "It'll only ever be mine. No man will own you after me."

  I watch her strive to look at me from the corner of her eyes, her lips parted as she breathes.

  "What do you saying, little wolf?" I ask, pulling even more. "You're seconds away from the real point of no return."

  "You're the only one delaying right now, Dante." Her words are tense, but I can hear a sense of lustful longing. She's been waiting for this moment of total ownership and now she's not prepared to wait any longer. "Be a fucking gentleman."

  I'll be damned if she isn't the devil sent to taunt me.

  “Very well
,” I say, finally releasing my grip. “You know what I want from you.”

  I allow my eyes to trail across her body, indulging in the beautiful curves of her body as she sashays her way over to the pool table in nothing but her heels. My hand automatically goes to my groin, rubbing the impending ejaculation I can feel building. I have never had a woman who could render me weak-kneed with just a walk, but Ryleigh is vastly becoming my favorite woman.

  I rid myself of my shorts, only turning away to grab a condom from my sports bag. I take a spare and toss onto the table ready for when I need it. One could say I knew tonight would end in ecstasy, but I never expected it to transcend into the divinity that Ryleigh is working with.

  As I tear into the wrapper, she stands to face the table. I see her turn, looking over her shoulder at me. It’s a chaste look, a notion to check that I am watching her. I begin to walk toward her, added proof that I am not prepared to look anywhere else. I see her fingers start to dance along the table’s edge, her legs separate, and she slowly and seductively leans forward.

  I slip the condom on, feeling the pulsating throb in my greedy cock. I know with all my might that I won’t be able to hold back from caving to what it is she makes me feel. Since laying eyes on her naked body, my cock has been holding back.

  My right hand comes out, running over the smoothness of her skin, moving until I start to curve over her waistline. I pull back, but only to issue a firm, hard slap to her bare ass cheek. She bucks forward, releasing one of the most sexual groans I’ve heard.

  That’s just the start of this.

  I spit on my fingers, using it as an aid in what’s about to happen. I rub it onto Ryleigh, preparing her body and her ass. I have no idea who she’s been with in the past or how, much like she doesn’t me. I don’t really fucking care, and I show her that as I run my fingers down the curve of her body, allowing my fingers to push on her ass. I hear her moan loudly as my fingers disappear within her. There’s a certain ebb of pain to her whimper, and it makes me stop. I don’t want to force her, take her too hard or too fast. I don’t want to cause damage to her body.