“Get off me.” His arms hung lazily at his side. “Let go.”
Stella’s hold grew fiercer, continuing to cling good and tight, raising her knees higher to get her feet as far away from the ground as possible.
His racing heart reverberated against her body, so hard it was almost as if the beat was coming from inside her. But not even her heart was going as fast as his. Every breath he took made her body rise and fall with him like they’d been glued together.
When he bent down, she jammed her eyes shut, preparing for her feet to hit the asphalt. Wondering if they’d even have the strength to hold her up, or if her wobbly knees would simply crumble underneath her, leaving her a trembling heap on the ground.
But his arm was under her thighs once more instead, his muscles flexing under her skin as he drew her back up into his hold. Back into his body. The soft hairs on his forearms tickled the sensitive skin on the backs of her thighs, but it was nothing like the unbearable tickle of the flies that had been crawling all over her in the trashcan. It was more of a tingle, a buzz. One that bubbled across her skin, and made her coil closer. She sank into him again, trying to find her center as he carried her across the alley to where a car still rumbled a few feet away.
In what felt to her like the blink of an eye, he’d removed his arm from around her back to throw open the passenger’s side door of the car. The force made the door fly open so quickly it nearly came unhinged from its sockets.
Stella removed her face from his neck to watch the door fly open, and her eyes widened. “Is this my Range—?”
She screamed when he dumped her into the passenger’s seat of her Range Rover before she could answer. The unexpected fall sent her body careening toward the middle console, where the joystick nearly took out all of her teeth. She braced a hand on the steering wheel to break her fall, glaring over her shoulder.
She didn’t find Rocco’s angry gaze locked on hers in return, however, but instead, riveted to the red lace thong peeking out from between her ass cheeks. Her plaid mini-skirt had ridden up around her waist, leaving the globes of her chocolate ass in full view.
A lump went down his throat. His eyes glossing over and shoulders slumped forward. His breathing grew ragged, knuckles going pale as the hold he had on the top of the door moved into a death grip. The rumble of the engine below her thighs was no match for the thunder vibrating at the depths of his eyes.
Clenching his teeth, his gaze shot back up to hers, green orbs darkening, hardening.
“Rocco, I—”
He slammed the door in her face.
Stella jolted, snatching her ankle away in the nick of time as the door plowed closed with a force that made the vehicle shake, seconds before it took her foot off completely.
She stared through the windshield as he circled the car, fists still clenched, shaking his head. The truck’s headlights caught every tight line running a race down his flexed arms, highlighting them as he moved.
She dug her nails into the seat, the cool leather under her thighs serving as the only escape from the hot lava gushing through her veins when he snatched the driver’s door open, climbed in, and slammed it closed. The car shook again. He didn’t even look at her as he jerked the gearshift and yanked the steering wheel to the left, guiding the vehicle out of the tight alley and down the quiet road that the massage parlor sat on.
They drove silently, the soundlessness feeling longer every moment. Soon, the Manhattan skyline was glowing across the Hudson River in the distance as the truck hit the highway, careening back home toward Cascade Hills in Alpine, NJ.
Skyline forgotten, Stella studied his profile. His tightened jaw. His focused eyes. His flushed cheeks. His expanded nostrils as they sucked in every violent breath his tightly sealed lips wouldn’t allow. The baring of his teeth as well as his knuckles, ghost-white around the steering wheel, told her his thoughts were going nowhere good.
She spoke softly. “Are you mad?”
His jaw rolled.
“You can’t even look me in my eyes?” She tried to laugh, but it came out false, choked. “Rocco, can you please just look at me?”
He took a sharp left that caused her to fly back into the passenger’s door, the window handle jamming into her side. She groaned but bit back the complaint burning her tongue, eyes moving instinctively toward the back seat instead, the way they always did when there was a bump in the road. Upon seeing Blue’s car seat, with Mr. Wiggles sitting where her baby girl usually was, tears stung her eyes. Her Chanel Boy Bag was lying in the car seat as well, and she instantly had her answer as to how Rocco had gotten hold of her Range Rover. He must’ve taken her purse from the massage room shortly after he’d dumped her into the trashcan. He’d found her car keys inside and had moved her truck from the lot across the street from the parlor, where she always left it parked.
He’d hidden the evidence.
Every bone in her body warmed up, but as her softened eyes moved back to him, it seemed every bone in his had gone ice cold. “Thank you, Rocco.”
He didn’t even look at her.
Her eyes fell down her body. The tie between her white cotton crop top had come almost completely undone, leaving a hint of her brown areolas in view. Heat rushed up her cheeks as she reached up with fumbling fingers to tighten the tie. She grabbed the hem of her plaid mini-skirt next, lifting her butt off the seat and doing a little shimmy, bringing it back down around her waist. It was so short, however, that a hint of her lace panties still peaked out of the bottom.
Her eyes shifted to Rocco, watching her shimmy in her skirt from the corner of his eyes, acknowledging her presence for the first time since they’d climbed in, eyes locked to the V between her legs.
She wanted to pull the skirt down farther but knew it would be pointless. A skirt that short hadn’t been made for sitting down. It had been made to be seen, and she’d never felt more seen than she did at that moment.
More naked.
More exposed.
She tried to wipe away the various stains that had accumulated on her white top from the trashcan, but it was no use. She didn’t even bother to straighten the sheer white knee-highs that were sitting on her calves at different angles—also stained with the dirt and musk she’d picked up in that trashcan—merely collapsing back into her seat.
She snuck another look at him.
But his eyes had gone back to the road.
“I was using an alias.” She shuffled her feet. “All cash. No official papers. None of them even knew my real name.”
He rolled his eyes, guiding the wheel to the right as he pulled off the highway and onto the surface streets.
“So you don’t have to worry about your job being on the line. About losing Quantico. No one will ever be able to trace it back to me. Or you.”
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting. A sigh of relief. A nod of understanding. Any indication at all that he was aware another human being existed in that car?
Her chest collapsed. “Rocco, I had to do it to pay rent—”
“This is what you’re not gonna do.” His deep voice filled the car for the first time. “You’re not gonna degrade yourself, and degrade my goddaughter, just to make a quick buck. That’s what you’re not gonna do.”
“How can you tell me what I’m not gonna do… when you’re leaving in two weeks?”
He shot her a look.
“Why did you cuff me? Did some part of you want to arrest me and charge me? And then you changed your mind?”
“I cuffed you so that asshole in the room wouldn’t see me aiding and abetting a criminal.”
“And the asshole in the room with me? Was he a criminal too? Or just me, the woman?”
“Do you feel no shame at all?”
“Oh, wow. That’s rich coming from a guy who has a different pair of thighs spread on his bed every night of the week, sometimes more than once a day. A guy who’s run through every woman in New Jersey, New York, and half of Philadelphia! So who’s the
real tart in this car right now? Who’s running the real whorehouse? Me or you? At least I’m getting paid—you do it for free. Do you know I made more in one day than you make in a month That those men threw enough money at me to move Blue into an even bigger house, and put her into a private school that even Troy wouldn’t have been able to afford? She can still have the life she would’ve had if he was alive.”
“Troy is rolling in his grave right now, Stella. And are you really talking to me like you’re not finished? Like you’re not done with this shit? You’re done. This is over!”
“No, you’re over! You’re done! You’re the one who’s leaving!” Her eyes filled with tears. “You’re leaving!”
He stilled, watching the moisture bubbling up in her eyes as if it was the first time he’d ever seen tears before.
Her weak voice trembled. “And it’s the only…it’s the only way I know how—how to keep a roof over Blue’s head.”
He hissed out a laugh. “You’re the most irresponsible human being I’ve ever met.” He pressed both of his palms against the steering wheel, fingers splayed. “You make me sick. Jesus, do you ever hold yourself accountable for anything? Anything!”
“You always accuse me of never holding myself accountable, but you’d sooner die than hold any man accountable. For anything! I’d bet my last dollar that you bypassed every john fleeing that place just to find one female masseuse so you could slap a pair of cuffs on her wrists instead of his. We aren’t in those rooms by ourselves, you know. It wasn’t my hard-on pointed at the ceiling when you came charging in. God forbid we ask that married man a few questions about why he was paying for the company of some woman he’s never met when he has a wife at home who he promised to cherish before God. But everything’s the woman’s fault, right? Men are just a bunch of innocent angels waiting in the wings, trembling in fear at the corruption our evil vaginas will inevitably bestow upon their wholesome, virtuous lives!”
“You’re selfish.” He shook his head. “Do you know that I could lose everything? My job? My spot at the FBI? Do you even give a shit?” He yanked the wheel to the right, changing lanes sharply and causing her to fall to the left so hard she had to brace her hand against his thigh to break her fall. He cringed and threw her hand off of him.
She was already snatching it back before he could finish the job, their scoffs filling the car.
He shook his head as they came to a stoplight. “Do you ever think of Blue?”
“I never stop thinking of her, Rocco, what on Earth do you think drove me to that place to begin with? It was the only place that would hire me with no experience. I didn’t know they were that kinda place until after my first paycheck. And when you’ve been unemployed for months, with a country at war, an economy in the toilet, wondering how you’re going to feed your baby and keep a roof over her head… that first paycheck is… damn persuasive. It’s called sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice! That’s hilarious. What if it hadn’t been me that walked in on you tonight? Huh? What then? What would’ve happened to Blue if you’d gone to jail? If she had to grow up an orphan? A daughter without her mother? This is what I’m talking about, Stella—goddamn it, you don’t think.” He slammed his palm into the steering wheel so hard she wondered if it might come unhinged from its sockets, his jaw clenched and cheeks heated. “You don’t think about anyone but yourself! You didn’t take that job for Blue. You took it for your Chanel Boy Bags and your Range Rovers and your hair and nail appointments and your goddamn closet full of shoes that’s bigger than most apartments in Manhattan! You weren’t thinking of her at all! Sacrifice, get the fuck outta here.” The light turned green, and he jammed on the gas.
Stella flew back into her seat, teeth bared.
“Let me tell you something,” he breathed. “These next two weeks can’t go by fast enough.”
Her stomach bottomed out.
Silence dominated the car.
Her voice softened. “I don’t give happy endings, okay?”
His eyes fell closed and stayed that way. She wanted to warn him to watch the road but worried she might not survive the potential explosion if she did.
She waited for him to open his heated eyes, studying his tensed jaw. “I don’t.”
“So I didn’t see what I saw?”
“I’m not saying you didn’t see what you saw. I’m saying that… I only role-play. I don’t actually touch the guys. Michelle gives us the choice. There’s a hell of a lot more money to be made for the girls willing to take it all the way obviously, but she doesn’t pressure us. I told her from day one I wasn’t comfortable with that, so she only sends me guys who know my limits in advance.”
He laughed breathily, nostrils flaring. “I saw you about to touch him, Stella, don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. If you weren’t always in such a rush to think the worst of me, you would’ve seen that he was grabbing my wrist and trying to force my hand towards it. He likes to push my boundaries. They all do. But according to you, they’re all patron saints just because they have a twig and berries hanging between their thighs, so I don’t even know why I’m wasting my breath.”
His eyes danced back and forth. Whether he was thinking too hard to keep them still or suddenly paying especially close attention to the road, Stella wasn’t sure.
“You didn’t see me trying to pull my hand back?” she whispered.
“So you don’t finish them off?”
“None of them.”
“You’re not making extra for giving extras?”
“Not ever.”
He licked his lips and yanked the steering wheel to the right. Several honks boomed into the air and filled the car as he flew across three lanes without so much as checking the rearview mirror. Stella grabbed the handle above her head with one hand and took the sleeve of his t-shirt in a fist with the other, saying a silent prayer as she began feeling more like a woman on a roller coaster than a passenger in a car. Just as quickly as the car was careening across the highway, however, it had come to a jolting stop in the rubble on the side of the road.
“You don’t finish them off, huh?” He shoved the joystick into park, and leaned across the console, big body dominating the passenger’s side and forcing Stella to push back into her seat. Mumbling to himself, he ripped open the glove compartment and reached inside. “You don’t do extras?” He came up with what she’d already known he’d find—several thick stacks of hundred dollar bills, tied with rubber bands pulled so tight they on the brink of snapping. He held it up. “What’s this?”
Stella held her breath as he put the money in her face, then swallowed thickly.
He shook the wad. “If you’re not giving happy endings then what the fuck is this?”
“Like I said, I role play. Even though men like you go out of their way to make sure I don’t, I know my power as a woman. I never have to touch men inappropriately to get money out of them. No woman does.”
He searched her eyes as she spoke, breathing heavier with every word that left her lips.
“Does that make you angry?” she whispered. “Our power?”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“I know it in ways you never will. And I think you know it too.”
He lowered the money and leaned in, the tip of his nose nearly touching hers. He licked his lips as he eyes fell to her mouth, a lump churning down his throat.
When his breathing grew hard enough to warm her lips, but his silence persevered, she dove in. “So who are the real criminals, Rocco? The masseuses? Or the never-ending hoards of weak, pathetic men who can’t resist us?”
A gasp tore up her throat when he suddenly came out of his jeans with a pocketknife and popped it open, the silver blade gleaming mere inches from the tip of her nose. He hoisted the knife in the air, like a serial killer in a horror movie, and then drove it back down.
Stella screamed and parted her legs in the nick of time, showcasing her red panties once more, just as the shar
p blade sunk into the leather seat between her thighs.
“Rocco!” she cried. “Oh my god!”
He yanked the knife, ripping a hole straight down the middle of the tan leather before reaching into the gaping hole with his free hand.
She gasped as his forearm grazed her center, brushing her clit just enough to send a jolt racing through her, causing her to push back in her seat as far as she could go.
He came up with another stack of hundreds in seconds, holding it up to her nose. “What’s this?”
Her face collapsed, mouth taut, eyes lowering as she clenched her teeth.
His hand sank into the seat once more, pulling a new stack out from between her legs every other second, holding each one of them up to her nose before tossing them away.
Stella jammed her eyes closed when he leaned into the back seat and the sound of the leather ripping back there rose into the car as well. More stacks. Flying through the air from the backseat and landing on her thighs as he tossed them. Soon, there was no more room left in her lap as the stacks piled up, causing them to tumble off her body and fall to the floor.
Her eyes popped open at the sound of the driver’s door opening, and she looked toward Rocco just as he climbed out and leaned down to lift up the driver’s side floor-mat.
“Who’re the real criminals, huh? What’s this, what’s this, what’s this?” A new stack of bills came flying at her head with each ‘what’s this?’, forcing her to bob and weave to avoid them slapping her in the face.
“Okay, Rocco, you made your point.”
But he was a man possessed, popping the trunk with his knife-holding hand before circling to the back of the car.
Stella closed her eyes once more, knowing what he’d find. Seconds later, the passenger’s side door flew open beside her and she looked up just in time to see him dump another handful of stacks into her lap, most of which tumbled to the floor at her feet, into the cup holder in the center console, or back out into the dirt road, hitting the toes of his combat boots.
Then he slammed the door closed.
A cop knew all the hot spots in a car—all the hiding places to look that a civilian would never think of—and Rocco had hit them all in less than five minutes.
Forbidden (War Book 1) Page 7
