Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  Why my dick was making more appearances these days than Kanye West at a Taylor Swift award acceptance, I had no clue, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

  The smell of condom-rubber and Morgan’s fairy fragrance clashed as I inhaled deeply, drawing in a patience I wasn’t even sure I had.

  Could I beat the pastor’s ass in the house of his own parishioners? Sure. I’d done worse…

  But I didn’t need another stamp on my passport to Hell. I loosened my collar, letting my bow tie hang.

  The pastor was circling the desk that Morgan was pressing her prissy little ass against, and my eyes flicked from his face to the file cabinet. Back and forth. Forth and back.

  Keys still clutched in my palm, I did the mental math, calculating my next move. And when he went for me—like I knew he would, I stiff-armed the clergyman into the carpet, stuffing his face into the floor with my fingers, jumping over his body to stand right in front of the drawers. Securing the key once more, I opened the drawer. With laser focus, I flipped through the pages in the folders, finding the file I needed. I tucked it in the waistline of my suit when I heard a scream.

  Less of a scream. More like a high-pitched squeal.

  Steeped in fear, it sounded nothing like the squeaks of pleasure I’d heard just minutes ago, and when I pivoted on my Ferragamo-covered toes, I soon wished I hadn’t.

  Something dark and heavy smashed against the side of my face, shattering against my temple. Staples showered down, skimming and scratching my face as the church’s second-in-command Bartley Barrows slashed at me with the weighty stapler from the desk, nearly skimming my nose with a swing.

  The deacon dove at me, and the rumble became a dance. Duck left. Step right. For every fist that missed, I returned one of my own, landing several hardened hands across Bartley’s face until pretty soon the pastor joined the fray, pressing the tempo of our fisticuffed tango into a frenzy.

  Unfortunately for the maniacal-looking ministers, I’d been doing this dance for a long time. I could dance all night.

  And I would have until a familiar screech sliced through the air.

  “Stop it!” Morgan held up her hands. “Daddy, don’t hurt him!”

  Both of Morgan’s “daddies” looked in her direction, and, distracted, I dashed between the congregation’s finest, running down the hall.

  There was no fighting the men off for long. Still confused, they tried to file into the room while I split them like the Red Sea, parting them with my hands with my pants sagging halfway off my ass.

  Dignity be damned.

  Past the pulpit, halfway down the pews, I realized that something more than my self-respect was missing.

  The file.

  Somewhere between nearly fucking Morgan Daniels and fucking up, I’d lost it. The carelessness in me wanted to double back, but the common sense stopped it, propelling me towards the back door where I pushed it open and heard a strangled scream, trapped in someone’s throat.

  A man. An old man. I’d run him over, hit him with the door in my haste. He went down, but I didn’t check. I couldn’t.

  It never occurred to me that someone had seen the brief exchange… and me …

  I blinked, regaining my wits as the beep from a nearby vehicle reached my ears.

  Grimm was already waiting in the Porsche. I fell into the backseat passenger side, my body running off pure regret and undertones of rage, knowing one thing: I had fucked up.

  Grimm put the pedal to the metal. His grey eyes focused, he stared at me for several seconds in the rearview mirror before he said a word. Not that he had to. I’d known what he was thinking the second he shut the door behind me. I waited with thinning patience, rubbing my barely-there mustache as usual.

  “Boss…” he started.

  “I know,” I snapped. “The Gafanellis are closing in. Where is she?”

  “With Jessica. Like you asked.”

  “Fine,” I snorted. I didn’t want to hear her name, let alone say it. Pissed off, pain from the night before still shooting like sparks through every corner of my head, I knew that part of me—ok, every single part—was blaming Sienna for something she had no control over.

  I wasn’t new to lusting women. What I was new to was letting it interfere with business. I had been sloppy. I hadn’t secured the office door. The seduction of Morgan Daniels was supposed to be perfectly timed to retrieve the files—the money, and instead of sticking one to her like I had planned, I had hesitated, nutted up when it counted the most. I hadn’t done my job. And I always finished the job. I didn’t want a repeat of my Morgan Daniels fuck-up.

  But that was the thing. With Sienna, she wasn’t just part of any job.

  She was the job.

  Technically, I couldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, but seeing her again… small and fearless in nothing but a fuzzy cotton robe had done something to me since last night. She was slowly creeping into my subconscious, and I hated it. I couldn’t touch her… and since she showed back up into my life, unassuming and smelling like the Heaven my hedonistic ass would never see, that seemed to be all I wanted to do. I didn’t understand it.

  This wasn’t my M.O.

  Not even a little bit. Fuck. I couldn’t even entertain the thought of letting her go, and that head examination Grimm and I talked about was sounding better and better every day…

  Hey Little Rich Girl

  SIENNA

  Ten hours later, one hour left until I was to meet Jeff—shit, Giovanni—again, I was someone new… and this new someone was getting drunk at the bar, feeding her feelings with Lana Del Ray and the one drink who could do her no wrong.

  Yeah, the hair might have changed—Jessica made me get caramel highlights amidst the brown, and the eyelids might have been brushed gold, but somewhere inside was a semblance of Sienna.

  One that had been slipping away for some time.

  Training tip number one (courtesy of Jessica): Change is the only constant. Be prepared for it at all times.

  But the only change I was prepared for at this moment was a swapping of lemons to limes. I motioned for the bartender and added another piece of fruit to the side of my drink, clinking the third shot glass of tequila alongside the other empty two I’d drained.

  My New York accent was slightly slurred when the barkeep and I spoke, and a string of expletives sat on the edge of my teeth as I tried to hold back Sienna from sliding out. For now, I was someone else, and the reality of who I had to be and what I had to transform into to be Jeff—excuse me, Giovanni’s—employee wasn’t damned near as daunting as I thought it’d be.

  It was relatively easy to be someone else.

  Then I wouldn’t have to be Sienna. A lifetime loser who couldn’t see a single thing through. Not a relationship, a friendship, a fellowship.

  A law school dropout, an asshole magnet, she was the person I’d least wanted to be, and I was fool to think that this opportunity with Giovanni would be the turn-around, the catalyst to get back on track to actually becoming something—a feat my own mother never managed.

  Tears welled up behind the cover of my colored contacts, and I swiped them away, smudging “Natasha’s” mascara. The tequila in my system was exposing the fraud beneath the façade, and as I faltered to my feet, throwing a fifty on the bar, I rubbed at my eyeballs, heading towards the exit. I fumbled with the front door of the bar until a familiar scent hit me. Someone’s cologne. I ignored it, pushing past my pain… until the pain pushed back. A crowd pressed into my body as I was on my way out and I squeezed past them, making a beeline up the block.

  The DC evening was still cold for March, and I crossed my arms over my chest, anxious to shed the lingering feelings of nostalgia and Natasha off me and go to bed.

  Then I heard it.

  The sharp bark of my name.

  I turned, vision still fuzzy, my fake eyelashes hanging on with a thin strip of glue. I noticed a man in front of the bar looking in my direction, but I could only half-see him. His hair was dark
and his stare in my direction appeared hard. All of his focus was on the street and me. The crowd around him looked up as he said my name again. The man to his left waved drunkenly. The woman beside him turned.

  Then suddenly he was running. No. Sprinting.

  Tearing a path through the boisterous bar-goers who yelled and complained as he cut through. And no, he wasn’t just yelling. He was saying my name. Sienna. He was screaming it.

  Slipping on remnants of an icy storm three days before, I hauled ass, hanging a left at the corner. I felt my heart pumping. My footsteps crunched over the already-trampled snow, and I slid on it, scrambling to put as much as distance between the strange man and me.

  I didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

  If I did, I knew I’d bust my ass on the slippery sidewalk. The tequila had taken my natural balance away from me, and there was no more Lana playing in my ears to bring it back. I was alone—amidst a street streaked with partygoers. They saw me—and didn’t see me. I was present but invisible. They stared curiously… and I got the impression that some were simply considering whether or not to whip out their cell phones. Take a video of the terrorized girl too tired to talk, too exhausted to scream and too tipsy to do that well.

  Scanning the street, I threw myself through the throngs of people when I decided to take a chance, glancing behind me. There he was. Still there. Still running towards me. A cold fog and my falling lashes obscured his face, and I kept going. Sliding my body down a narrow alley, I tried to cut a path into another street, attempting to disappear beyond the people dawdling nearby.

  Sweating, my skin heated beneath my coat despite the cold, I ran towards daylight at the other end of the dark alley. I peeked behind me… and found the space he had occupied was empty. He was gone. Slowing to a staggered walk, I fought the urge to crawl, I was so drained. I didn’t know if the man was a mugger… or a maniac.

  Maybe it was Marco…

  With features just as black as night and even more menacing, I couldn’t be sure. All I know was that I had to keep striding my way to the other end of that alley and call a cab to get the fuck out of wherever I was.

  But then the daylight went dark. The lights on the other side of the alley went dim and as I looked up, I saw the now-recognizable crop of dark hair that’d been behind me, hurtling in my direction just a minute ago.

  The dark-haired bastard was now in front of me.

  He blocked the exit with his body, and in that moment, shock seized my throat, gripping it. The Sienna in me—somewhere deep inside—raged within. She found a new breath, took it deeply and then screamed.

  ***

  GIOVANNI

  I walked off.

  Sauntering back down the alley, I headed in the direction of the Hyatt Hotel. I was within five hundred feet of the building, but I felt every one of them.

  That stroll was worse than the walk of atonement. For every footstep that sounded on the slushy sidewalk, it was like I was enduring an internal whipping. By the time I made it to Sienna’s, I was completely spent. Body aching, my sense of self breaking, I knocked on the door to Sienna’s suite with a tired fist. I was impatient to see her face.

  But it wasn’t the first thing I saw.

  When the door finally opened, a fist greeted me right there in front of threshold. It hurtled in my direction, slamming square into my nose.It was the last blow. My ego and body could barely take it, and the hit knocked out what was left of me. I staggered backwards, stumbling into the opposite wall… before hanging my head and finally falling to my faltering knees.

  ***

  SIENNA

  This wasn’t happening. I couldn’t believe what the fuck was happening.

  My blonde wig flew. Pieces of the fake eyelash that had been hanging on went whipping in the wind, and as I rushed towards Jeff, I could feel the chill emanating off his body. It felt as if he had walked out of freezer and despite his rumpled clothes, despite the scratches and scrapes on his hands and face (and was that a bruise darkening on his cheek?), he had recovered from a hit that would have leveled regular dudes.

  I’d just seen him hit the wall with a thud, his sturdy body bouncing off of it. He bent at the knee, putting one to the floor, but just as I reached for him, he pushed himself off it, standing to his feet. He looked like he’d been through Hell, but the paleness of his skin told a story that was the opposite of that. It was as if he stumbled through an artic Tundra and came out of it, even stronger—even colder. Twice the ice.

  His normally hardened expression was even harder. He glared over my shoulder.

  “Is that it?” he asked, his voice silkier than ever. “Is that all you’ve got? Man, I’ll tell ya… you’re going to have to come a lot harder than that shit, pretty boy. In order to faze me, you’ll have to fucking kill me. And even then, I’d raise up from whatever bottomless pit I’d been banished to just to raise Hell once last time.” He blinked. “I don’t give a fuck who you are.”

  He stepped forward, and I stopped him.

  Javi did nothing but stare. His green eyes were Granny Smith apple-colored gems beneath his closely cut, curly hair.

  “Is this him?” he rumbled to me, not looking my way. “Because if it is, I swear to fucking God, I will kill this…”

  “Javi!” I warned. “It’s not him,” I huffed, panicked.

  “Sure seems like it,” he barked. “You’re out here by yourself, doing God-knows-what, stumbling alone in some—some weird fucking costume out of some God-forsaken bar,” he continued, growling. He came closer. “Now I love this girl… and I’m not going to let some scumbug in a fucking suit think that he can do whatever he wants with her, whenever he wants. It’s not happening, bro. Not here. Not fucking ever.”

  With irises that were a lime-colored wildfire, they blazed at Jeff. The air was literally humming, and as the two tall men stood, staring at each other, the tension I felt was not only vibrating in the veins beneath my skin, but on the surface. The heat of Javi’s body battled with the chill from Jeff’s, and I found myself shivering and sweating, not knowing how to deal with either. My head was still pounding from the tequila shots, and my upchuck reflex was definitely tickling.

  Nevertheless, I persisted. Or, at least, I tried.

  “Javi…” I took a deep breath, exhaling hard. “Javi. It isn’t him,” I asserted again. “This is Jeff DeSantos. An old…” I couldn’t get the word out. “An old friend. He’s been helping me with my case. When you haven’t…”

  Never one to hold his tongue, Javi looked at me, prepared to argue. I could see the hurt in his eyes, but whatever he was getting ready to say died a quick death on his lips, and I held my own tongue. I had to. Don Julio was about to make his reappearance. I placed my hand over my mouth just as Angie came barging into the hallway, looking much like she had appeared on the street beside Javi.

  Surprised. Unassuming. And completely innocent.

  She’d walked into the face-off as if she hadn’t just heard the arguing. I could do nothing but marvel at her master manipulation.

  “Boys,” she stepped forward, flipping her pixie bangs. “Do we really wanna do this here? I mean, think about it. You take a swing at each other, and the cops will be on our asses in two seconds. This ain’t your regular fleabag fly-by hotel. I should know… I’ve been kicked out a few.”

  Despite my growing sickness, even I caught that little white lie. My attention went to Ang.

  “A few?”

  “Okay, lots.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s not the point. The point is…” She exhaled harshly. “Get your asses in here before we get locked up. Especially you… for assault.” She glanced at Javi. My stare at Gio was softer, but I threw him a glance. “You, too.”

  She headed back inside the suite, pulling Javi by the arm. I followed, feeling woozy on my feet. Surprise slammed into my already sick stomach when Gio, clearly beaten and bruised, reached under my dangling arm, supporting me. He shifted his weight and, before I knew it, he was leading me silently insid
e the suite, his expression stony, his eyes still carrying a bit of that defiance that he’d flashed at Javi.

  Shockingly enough… despite how cold his body was, I was warmed in all of the places he was touching me. I could smell the faint traces of his refined cologne, and when he squeezed his fingers into the crook of my waist, I wasn’t just warm anymore… I was suddenly blazing hot all over.

  His hand was still around me when Javi stopped and turned. And all the while, Giovanni never stopped touching me. He centered me while the world felt as if it were spinning. Javi, for all his protective big-brothering, only seemed to make things worse.

  I held out a hand to stop him. “Please, Javi. Before you launch into a lecture, just let me get through tonight. It’s been bad enough—thinking you and Ang were strangers on the street, trying to attack me. I’m still drunk… and all I want to do is not feel like I’ve put my head through a shard of glass, alright?”

  Javi’s face fell flat. He looked at Ang, and whatever outrage he’d shown just seconds before deflated in the face of her soothing smile. My closest gal pal stepped forward. And when she did, I could feel the hesitance in her hug.

  She held me close.

  “Javi’s not going to let this go. That’s what we both love about him… but if you decide to stay with old green eyes here,” she cut a glance at Giovanni, “then just remember the Rules of Banging according to Ang: Keep a condom in your right hand, mace in your left, and his head between your legs as long as he can stand it.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I love you. Be safe.”

  “I always will.” I smiled… though the kind of safe Ang was talking about, I was sure I wouldn’t have to worry about. Not with Giovanni. Not with a man I truly didn’t know.

  Giovanni had already taken a step back, and I decreased the distance between me and Javi. I grabbed on tight when he practically garroted me into a hug, his muscular arm wrapped around me in a death-defying chokehold. He whispered into my hair.