by Blaire Drake
“I... Shit. I forgot,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing pink. “Never mind.” She turned around and walked out the door.
I felt Darien's eyes on me, so I looked at back at him. “What?”
“The way you look at her. It's the same way you looked at her when you were kids.” He tilted his head to the side. “Maybe Isaiah was right to trust you on this job.”
“Doesn't matter how I look at her.” I bit down the annoyance, along with the emotion I could feel rising. I didn't want to feel. “She pretty much hates me, even if she hides it well.”
“Sure she does.” He snorted and stood. “I have to go to work. Stay with her just in case Carlo two-point-oh doesn't make assassination attempt number two, will you?”
When he put it like that, it was hard for me to argue. Even if I knew all she'd want to do is talk about how to get to New York and overthrow her father. “Sure. But she might kill me first.”
“I doubt that very much.” He picked a tie up off his desk and tucked it beneath the collar of his button-down shirt. “She looks at you the same way you look at her. Don't like it much myself, but hey.”
And with that, he walked out, knotting his tie, leaving me staring after him.
***
Adriana groaned as I found her out in the yard. She was wearing a plain black bikini, and she tugged up the top. “What are you doing here? I thought you went with Darien.”
I shook my head and sat on a sun lounger. Thank fuck she was under the water. My cock was already twitching at the knowledge she was in nothing more than two tiny bits of fabric. Focus, Carlo. Fuck. “He's worried your father will send someone to come check up on me... and you.”
“Great. So you're babysitting me? That's just what every girl wants—an trained killer to babysit her.”
One of my eyebrows quirked upward. “Doesn't that make me the perfect babysitter? Who's gonna hurt you?”
Her lips parted, then she flattened them into a thin line. She splashed some water in my direction, but all that did was make me grin.
“Shut up,” she said, swimming over to the edge of the pool and resting her arms on the side. “I don't need to be looked after, Hunter. I'm a grown woman.”
The top of her cleavage was just visible over the edge of the pool. “I noticed.”
“Are you staring at my boobs?”
“Should I be?”
“You're supposed to be looking after me, not dreaming about me naked.”
I snapped my eyes up to hers. Did she honestly think it was the first time I'd thought about her naked? Fucking hell—I'd thought about a shit load more than just her naked. It was like a goddamn reflex now. Every time I was alone and thought about her, my cock stood to attention and there was only one way to get rid of the erection.
“You are,” she accused, narrowing her eyes. “You're thinking about me naked.”
“You want me to lie, Principessa? I can.”
“You can try to lie, but we both know you won't.” She swam to the other side of the pool and reached for a towel. She wiped her face and then looked back at me. “Admit it,” she called. “You were.”
“I was,” I begrudgingly told her. “Still am.”
She grinned. It was the kind of grin that made her bright blue eyes dance with laughter. “How are you supposed to protect me if all you can think about is me without any clothes on?”
Oh, man. I so badly wanted to reach down and adjust my pants. My cock was fucking throbbing against the zipper. “If you think that's all I'm thinking about...” I clenched my jaw.
She slapped her hand over her mouth, and her cheeks blazed a bright red, screaming of her embarrassment. For some reason, it made me want to laugh. She'd just spent a good few minutes forcing me to admit I was picturing her naked, and then when I was honest, she was suddenly shy.
“What's up, bella?” Now I grinned. “Am I putting ideas in your head?”
Adriana shook her head. Fiercely, like she was trying to convince herself of that fact. “Like what?” She came back over to my side of the pool, but this time, she walked, carried the bundled up towel over her head. Her tits raised above the water level, and her pebbled nipples pressed against the wet fabric of her bikini top.
I swallowed hard. Fuck. I couldn't fight the urge anymore, so I adjusted my pants so the zipper wasn't completely against my dick.
Her eyes laughed at me.
She knew what she was doing.
Vixen.
“What's up, Cacciatore?” she teased. “Am I putting ideas in your head?”
“Like what?” I fired her words back at her the way she did me.
“You tell me. You're the one who started with the ideas.” She threw her towel at me.
I caught it, and she motioned for me to open it, so I stood and held it out. She pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the pool, grabbing her hair. She wrung it out before she stood up and came to me.
I loved it when she looked at me with those eyes. Bright, happy, playful. They were the eyes I remembered.
She snatched the towel out of my hands and pushed me toward the pool. I laughed, sweeping my arm around her waist. She screamed as I tugged her against me and her shove took us both into the water.
“Oh my God!” She gasped, emerging from the water. “Hunter!”
I pushed my hair from my eyes, still laughing. Thank fuck I'd left my gun and wallet in the kitchen before I came outside. “You pushed me!”
“You weren't supposed to take me with you, idiota!” She slammed her hands against my chest.
I caught her wrists before she could back away. She stilled as I wrapped one arm around her back and held her to me. “You pushed me,” I said quietly, my lips twitching to one side. My pinkie finger brushed the waistband of her bottoms, and my hand twitched with the desire to slide down and cup her pert ass cheek. “You should have known I'd take you with me.”
She pursed her lips, looking more mischievous than I'd ever seen her. All it made me want to do was kiss her. I didn't give a shit that we were soaking wet or that I had no dry clothes here. I just wanted to take her mouth with mine and consume her, breathe her in until all there was, was her.
“You're right,” she whispered. Her fingers jerked against my chest, and she glanced at them before meeting my eyes. “I should have.”
“You should have.” My eyes dropped to her mouth.
She parted her lips. My heart thundered in my chest, and fuck—there I was again. Wrong. I shouldn't have been thinking about kissing her. No matter how much I wanted to. Nothing good would come of that.
As cliché as it fucking was, she needed someone who was better than me.
“Addy?”
She jerked back from me at the sound of a guy's voice. I didn't want to let her go, but she pushed herself away from me like I was on fire and she was getting burned.
“Gaige.” She sounded shocked. “What are you doing here?”
Gaige. That answered the Pontarelli question. I turned in the direction of him and saw him standing on the path that lead to the pool area, his hands tucked into his pocket.
“I tried calling you.” He said the words to her, but he was staring at me—and he didn't look fucking happy. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. Given the circumstances.”
I was a circumstance, was I?
Adriana got out of the pool and quickly wrapped herself in the towel. “Sorry. I had school work earlier and then I got given a babysitter.” She motioned to me. “Gaige, this is Carlo Rosso,” she hesitantly introduced us as I followed her out of the pool.
Fuck, I was soaked.
“Hunter, this is Gaige Pontarelli.” She awkwardly waved her arm between us.
Gaige held his hand out toward me, and I accepted the shake. “You didn't kill her yet, then.”
“Gaige!” Adriana hit his other arm. “Don't be a dick!”
“Nope,” I responded. He tightened his grip on my hand, so I returned the favor. “That means there's still a bullet in my gun for any
one who pisses me off.”
“Hunter!” Now she whacked me. “Don't be a dick, either!”
Gaige smirked. “There's two in mine.”
“Yeah?” I raised an eyebrow. “I don't need two.”
“Enough!” Adriana snapped.
I dropped Gaige's hand.
“I am not in the mood for you two to have a pissing contest!” She looked between us both. “Now there's no chance I'm getting rid of you,” she paused to glance at me, “So, Gaige, I'm fine, I'm alive, I don't plan on dying anytime soon, and I promise to call you tonight, but I'm not putting up with this testosterone fueled bullshit.”
I bit my tongue so I wouldn't laugh. Not even Gaige Pontarelli's glare bothered me.
Bossy Adriana was hot.
It wasn't helping my cock calm down.
“You're trusting him over me?” Gaige snorted. “Jesus, Addy.”
“He's here on Darien's orders.” She sighed. “He knows if I get hurt Darien will hurt him. Please, Gaige?”
“Fine.” He clenched his jaw. “But I don't fucking like it, and I don't trust him.”
“I'm not asking you to.” She rubbed her forehead and tugged her towel up higher on her chest. “You just have to trust me. I don't particularly trust him either.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She cut me a dark look.
Gaige gave me a look along the same vein. It lasted for all of two seconds before he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pressed his lips against her cheek.
My chest burned as the muscles in my arms tightened. I wanted to ball my hand into a fist and slam it into his perfect fucking nose. I rolled my shoulders back, swallowing down the tinge of jealousy, and tried to block out the image of blood pouring out his nose as he lay on the floor.
I was so fucked.
I almost wanted to kill him for touching her like that.
I glared after him as he left. The smugness practically radiated off of him. I didn't trust myself not to follow him, so I folded my arms, pressing my hands against my ribs, and headed for the back door. I could feel Adriana's eyes burning into my back, but I ignored her and kept walking.
If I didn't get inside, I'd follow the smug son of a bitch and cut his lip so badly he couldn't do it again.
The feeling was alien. I knew jealousy. I knew protectiveness. I knew what it was like to shield someone, to want them to be safe no matter what... but this wasn't danger. This was good old fucking envy.
Never mind that her face had been millimeters from mine just minutes before and that he was the one she'd sent away. The fact that she had some kind of close relationship with Gaige fucking Pontarelli had my stomach coiling in rage.
She doesn't belong to you, asshole.
I cricked my neck and took a seat at the kitchen island. She didn't belong to me. I had to keep telling myself that. It didn't matter about the past or that I was supposed to protect her.
She wasn't mine. Mine to protect, sure. But not mine.
Chapter Nine – Adriana
Hunter looked like he was ready to kill.
It was strange. I'd never seen him like that before, but I was sure that when he stalked past me, murder shone in his eyes.
I should have been scared.
I wasn't.
I didn't know why. Maybe it was because I knew he wouldn't hurt me. His anger wasn't directed to me—it was at Gaige, and I couldn't help but think he was right in being annoyed. Gaige had kissed my cheek for no reason other than to piss Hunter off, and I think Hunter knew it.
I hoped Hunter knew it.
Honestly, I was annoyed at Gaige myself. There was no need to kiss my cheek so blatantly.
But then he always kissed me when I left—so why did I have a problem with it now? Was it because it obviously pissed Hunter off?
Why was I so bothered about the guy who'd tried to kill me two days ago?
I wiped my hand down my face and made my way toward the house. Why did Darien have to have Hunter babysit me? Jesus—the biggest threat to my life was the one protecting me.
I was starting to think that maybe it wasn't just my life he was a threat to. Maybe he threatened my very existence just by being around me. Lord only knew I couldn't fucking think straight when he was around me.
It was his eyes, I reasoned, closing the back door behind me and locking it. It was definitely his eyes. One day, that mixture of steely gray and molten silver would be my undoing. He'd unravel me like a loose string on a scarf, unwillingly caught.
I grabbed two dry towels from the cupboard in the hall and ran into the bathroom. My heart burned, and I didn't know why. Gaige was pissed off, Hunter was pissed off, and Darien was in turmoil.
I would have killed for a girlfriend I could spill everything to. But I didn't have one.
Not one that would understand. All I really had was Gaige... until Hunter appeared.
Now I didn't think I had anyone at all.
I stripped off and stepped into the shower. I turned the water right up as hot as I could bear it, then leaned against the tiles. The water pounded down on me like a deep massage, and I closed my eyes as the droplets trailed over my skin.
Hot liquid streamed down my cheeks, but I couldn't tell if it was the water or my tears. The past few days had been fraught with uncertainty and surprises, and despite my resolve to overthrow my father, I was overwhelmed by the possibility of everything and the knowledge of absolutely nothing.
My life felt like it was falling apart at the seams, and I briefly wondered if I had the strength to sew it back together.
Jesus—what was happening to me? I wasn't a teenage girl whose life was falling into disarray.
I was a motherfucking mafia princess who owned an empire.
I wiped at my cheeks and grabbed my shampoo. I had to formulate a plan to deal with the immediate issue; the testosterone fueled bitching between Hunter and Gaige. I wasn't going to deal with it. I wasn't the kind of woman who found it thrilling.
I found it annoying. You wanna fight? Okay, sure. Get the fuck outside and deal with it your fists. You're not teenagers. Settle the score once and for all and get over yourselves.
My tolerance for that petty bitchiness they'd exhibited earlier was at a firm zero.
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped my body and hair in the towels, then killed the water. I hoped Hunter wasn't still mad—I wanted to talk to him about Gaige. I didn't know why I felt the need to explain myself. I didn't need to explain myself, not to him, to Gaige, to anyone. But I wanted to.
It worried me. I didn't want to want to want to explain. I didn't want to want anything except for revenge on my father, and I certainly didn't want to want anything to do with Hunter.
Once I was dressed and had braided my wet hair, I went downstairs and in search of him. I found him at the back of the house, the room Darien dubbed his 'man cave.' It was different to the rest of the house in the sense it had his personal style in everything from the dark wooden floors to the striped curtains. In it lived the largest television screen I'd ever seen, plus a pool table right in the middle.
Hunter was at the pool table, smashing the balls around it. I paused in the doorway and watched him. His wet t-shirt clung to his body like a second skin, his muscles hinting through the thin material, from his shoulders right down to where I could see at the top of his stomach. His biceps stretched against the arms of it, and he bent down, seemingly unaware of my presence, and potted a spotted ball perfectly.
“Here.” He held out the pool cue. “Wanna play?”
Well that was strange. “Uh, I'm good. Do you want some dry clothes? You're probably the same size as Darien, right?”
“Probably.” He bent down again and hit a striped ball. It bounced out of the mouth of the pocket, coming to rest in the center of the table. “Crap.”
“Let me go see what I can find.”
“No underwear.” He looked up and smirked as he got in position behind the white ball.
“Got it.”
I grimaced and walked through the house to the laundry room.
There was nothing weirder than going to find him clothes while he played pool. How did he even know where that room was? Or that it existed? Maybe he just needed something to do before he left and killed Gaige.
I found a t-shirt and a pair of jeans in Darien's clean laundry pile. For the first time ever, I wasn't mad about his failure to put away his clean clothes. I smiled to myself as I took them back to the man cave and handed them to Hunter.
I didn't know what I expected, but it wasn't for him to put down the pool cue and whip his shirt over his head. I blinked several times before turning away. His laughter echoed through the room, but I bit down on the inside of my lower lip and kept my eyes on the floor.
It wasn't like I'd never seen a guy without clothes on, and I wasn't afraid to see a guy without clothes on.
He was just... different.
He was Hunter.
“You can turn around now,” he said in a low voice, laughter hinting at each word.
I let out a sigh of relief and turned. “Thank y—” I sucked in a sharp breath as my breasts brushed against his chest.
His. Bare. Chest.
“Where's your shirt?” I breathed out.
“On the floor. Wet.” He smirked.
“I meant Darien's. That shirt. Not yours. I know yours is wet.”
Oh God, he was hot.
This was wrong.
“On the chair. I need to dry off before I put it on.”
Sure you do. I swallowed hard and took a step back. That didn't help, because all it did was put his whole body in my line of view, and Jesus fucking Christ, it was one hell of a body.
All perfectly chiseled muscle, from the sharply defined abs that ran down the center of his stomach, to the teasing lines that swept above his hips beneath the waistband of the jeans. And right between those lines of sex god muscle, just peeking over the button of his pants, was a black tattoo. I couldn't make it out fully, but it looked like some kind of mythical creature.
I forced myself to look up at his face. I failed. Miserably. My eyes fell on his right arm and the ink tattooed onto his bicep. I'd never been able to see it fully before, but it was an angel, kneeling, her wings spread out behind her. My fingers itched to reach forward and trace the feathers that made up her wings.
