by Penelope Sky
My family name hadn’t meant anything to those men, but Bones’s certainly did. A ruthless hitman who wasn’t afraid of anything, his reputation acted as personal security blanket around me. Maybe my fate would have been completely different if I’d never mentioned him. “Brother-in-law.”
He nodded slightly, like that was the information he was looking for. “I owe him a favor. My debt is repaid.”
Now I was truly afraid. I’d just stepped into the underworld, and the reality was cutting off my air supply. I could barely breathe because there just wasn’t enough oxygen in the air. If this man knew Bones, that meant their characters must be the same. He could be a killer, a rapist, anything…and I was alone with him.
“But I still want that kiss.”
My breathing had increased because I couldn’t hide my physical needs. Unfortunately, the vapor rose out of my mouth at a quicker rate, showing him just how nervous I’d become. “And if I say no?”
He moved closer to me and placed his warm fingertips against the back of my frozen neck. He gripped me gently, his fingers reaching under the fall of my hair. He didn’t kiss me, but he invaded my space, his cologne and body soap mixing together and forming a tantalizing aroma. It was the scent of pure masculinity, of a man with so much power in his touch alone. “You won’t.” His eyes flicked down to my mouth as he held me in place, his stubble so close to my lips. His arm moved around my waist with a powerful hold. He tugged on me slightly, arching the curve in my back and bringing me closer into his chest.
He was so warm, and his grip was so strong. Like probably every other woman, I’d fallen prey to his touch. The context of our interaction didn’t seem to matter because my attraction outweighed everything else. Reduced to a biological need, all I wanted was that kiss he demanded from me. It was more than a fair trade after what he did for me, but I found myself wanting to kiss him…just because.
“Say yes.” His thumb rested against my jawline, and he angled my neck back more, gaining better access to my mouth with our differences in height. He was over six feet, making me over a foot shorter than him. His thumb brushed across my cheek, and he practically breathed into my mouth as he waited.
For a man who could do whatever he wanted, it was odd that he was waiting for permission. Maybe it was Bones’s presence still protecting me. Maybe that made me invincible. “Yes.”
The second he heard that word, his mouth was on mine. He came in aggressively, but his kiss was surprisingly soft. He touched my mouth with purposeful pulls, really feeling my lips as he breathed into me. His arm tightened around my waist, and he pulled me closer into him.
Making me feel the stiff outline in his jeans.
Jesus.
He turned his head to the right, positioning my mouth for a deeper angle. Like a man deeply in love, he worshiped my mouth with passion, moving his lips with mine at the perfect speed and intensity. It wasn’t sloppy, and it wasn’t slow either. He kept me on my toes, enjoying me like this was the sexiest kiss he’d ever experienced.
It certainly was mine.
He cradled the back of my head as he gave me his tongue. With a quick swipe against mine along with a warm breath, he protected me from the cold and made me melt right at his feet.
Now I was lost.
I felt his hard chest as I moved my hand up his t-shirt, touching the muscles that were as hard as a slab of concrete. My fingers felt the cord in his neck as I made my way to his short brown hair. I fisted the strands in my fingertips, and I matched his passion with my own. He was a monster, a man of the underworld, but that didn’t change the way my body responded to him. Good or evil, I wanted him.
My hand touched his jawline next, the thick stubble coarse against my fingertips. My thumb brushed across his bottom lip as I kissed him. Every single inch of him was all man, especially the enormous hard-on pressed right against my stomach. If I could measure him with my fingers, he had to be at least nine inches. On top of that, he was thick.
Monster cock.
He turned my hips and guided me to the wall of the alley. Our kisses turned from a smolder to raging fire. He pressed my back against the freezing stone and sank into me, covering me with his entire body as he continued to claim my mouth. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth before he released it. “This.” He kissed my top lip this time, breathing against my mouth as he looked me in the eye. “Mouth.” He dug his hand into my hair again as he kissed me harder.
I didn’t care that we were in the middle of a dark alley and my panties were getting wetter by the second. I didn’t care if this man was a murderer or a thief. All I cared about was keeping his mouth on mine, making this kiss last forever. I’d had good sex and hot kisses, but nothing like this. This was the first time I’d ever come this close to the sun. I was about to get burned, but I didn’t care.
He grabbed my left leg and hiked it over his hip, pressing me farther into the wall so his cock hit right against my clit.
God.
He gripped the back of my thigh and kept my leg in place as he started to grind against me, rubbing his thick length right against my throbbing clit. Without breaking the kiss, he dry-humped me right there in the dark alleyway, right there in the middle of winter.
And I wanted him to.
My nails clawed at him harder, and my mouth ached for more of his. Our tongues danced together, we breathed as one, and I gripped the front of his t-shirt because I was eager for him to take it off.
My hand slid up under his shirt, and that’s when I touched the rock-hard ads that felt like mountains. My fingers slid along the deep grooves as they made their way up to his hard chest. My thumb flicked over his nipple then stroked his pecs.
What a beautiful man.
He kept grinding against me, his huge cock hitting my clit in just the right spot.
Fuck, he was gonna make me come. Right in the middle of this ice-cold alleyway where I’d just been assaulted. I didn’t know anything about him besides his name, but my hips were rocking with his, and I couldn’t stop picturing how that dick would feel inside me.
He gave me his tongue again, and that’s when I came.
“Fuck…yes.” I gripped his shoulder and moaned in his mouth, my hips bucking against him as an awesome climax overcame me.
He stopped kissing me—just so he could stare at me. With hard eyes that burned with desire, he watched me convulse against his cock, his arrogance at its peak. His jaw was clenched hard as his fingers dug into the back of my thigh.
Watching him enjoy my climax just made me come harder. I moaned in the alleyway, an orgasm that was better than any I’d had during intercourse—or with my hand. My panties were soaked and I knew they were smearing against his jeans, but my mind was so far in the clouds that I didn’t care.
He kissed me again when I finished, a smile on his lips.
That orgasm felt so good that I didn’t care about being embarrassed. I wanted to keep my dignity, even now. My head rested against the cold wall, and I stared into his handsome face, his throbbing cock still pressed against my pussy.
“That was one hell of a kiss.” His hand was still in my hair, and he grinned like he’d just been crowned as king.
“Wasn’t bad.” I dropped my leg and adjusted my dress. Like I’d expected, there was a dark spot on his jeans—a pussy stain I couldn’t erase.
He glanced at it then looked at me, his arrogance at an all-time high. “Yeah…not bad.”
I moved around him, keeping my head high and my back straight. My clutch was still on the ground and so was my jacket. I pulled on my coat and buttoned it up, hiding my curves from view as I retrieved my purse.
He came up behind me, his heavy footsteps audible in the silence.
I adjusted my hair then turned to face him. “Good night, Bosco.”
He stared at me with those cryptic blue eyes, his thoughts a mystery behind that stone-cold gaze. His hands moved into the pockets of his jeans, and his hard cock still made the front of his jeans rise with
a bulge. “I like the way you say my name.”
He probably expected me to invite him over for the night. If he made every woman come like that, then he was probably used to women begging for him. I should be no different, but I refused to let that happen. I didn’t know much about this man, but I knew he was bad news. He might be beautiful as hell, but he was also dangerous as hell. I’d gotten a climax that would put me to sleep the second I got home. When I woke up in the morning, I would forget about this man forever. “You’ll never hear me say it again.”
2
Bosco
I stood at the window of my apartment, on the top floor of the building that I owned, and looked down at the city. It was the middle of the night, hours after Carmen had walked away from me in the alleyway. She’d pulled on her coat, flipped her hair, and left without giving me a backward glance.
Hot as hell.
I expected her to ask to see me again after she soaked my jeans with her arousal. But as if I meant nothing to her, she forgot about me the second I was out of her sight.
Made me want her more.
Carmen Barsetti…what an interesting woman.
She’d just been assaulted by four men, a gun pointed to her head with rope wound around her wrists. On her knees in an alleyway, her end seemed imminent. But she got to her feet again and carried on like nothing happened.
And she fought every step of the way. She stabbed a knife in one guy’s shoulder and broke the balls of another. There wasn’t a hint of tears in her eyes, not a sign of a plea for mercy.
She fought like a man.
I’d never come across a woman like her.
Fearless.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and made the call.
It only rang twice before he answered, a deep voice packed with annoyance. “It’s three in the morning. What the fuck do you want?” Bones practically growled over the line, a bear that had been stirred from hibernation. He was easily provoked, a temper that soared and never came down again.
“I wouldn’t call unless it was important.”
“What’s important to you isn’t important to me.” The background around him was silent. He was probably at his apartment in Milan, staring at a different skyline than I was now. “I’ve retired, Bosco. Whatever you’re about to ask me for, just assume my answer is no.”
I didn’t know he was out of the game. He seemed too young to hang up his badge as the greatest hitman in western Europe. “Congratulations. What are you doing these days? Fishing?” I couldn’t picture a man like Bones doing nothing. It didn’t seem possible.
“I’m married.”
“You retired to get married?” I asked. “Sounds boring.”
“Marry the right woman, and it’ll never be boring. So what the hell do you want?”
I didn’t ask him any more questions, knowing he wouldn’t give me answers. “I don’t want anything. I wanted you to know that we’re even.”
“Even, huh? How so?”
“I ran into your sister-in-law tonight.”
He was dead silent.
“Carmen, right?”
He turned even more sinister, like I’d just hit one of his buttons. “What about her?”
“She was walking home alone. A few guys snatched her in an alleyway. I happened to be walking by, but since this isn’t my scene, I wasn’t going to intervene. But then she dropped your name as a last attempt to save herself…so I had to do something. I scared the guys off and got her out of there.” I skipped the part about the make-out session against the wall, along with the pussy juice she left on my jeans. “So, I think that makes us even.”
Bones was quiet on the line, obviously battling the rage that pounded in his temples. His relief at her safety was nothing compared to his anger that she had been in danger in the first place. “Tell me who they are.”
“You know I can’t do that, man. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
“Bosco—”
“I can’t.” As the king of this city, I couldn’t be a rat. I was a villain, not a hero. Money would only keep flowing in if my reputation was impeccable. Secrecy was a big deal in my line of work. It gave me all the power—because I knew everything. Men only came to my club because they knew they were untouchable under my reign. “I know you want revenge, but I can’t. I won’t say it again.”
Bones knew I was as stubborn as he was, so he didn’t push. “She’s alright?”
“Yes. Not the least bit shaken up—at least not in front of me.”
“She’s not the kind of woman to show weakness.”
“Yeah…I noticed.”
“Stay away from her, Bosco.”
When I grinned, I saw my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass. “I saved her, didn’t I?”
“I mean it,” he threatened. “I’m not blind to the way men look at her. I see her as a sister, but our familial relationship doesn’t change the fact that she’s absolutely stunning. I know what a guy like you is thinking when you’re near her. She’s off-limits.”
“You know I don’t chase pussy. It chases me.”
“She’s not pussy,” he said with a growl. “Talk about her like that again, and I’ll kill you.”
“Wasn’t referring to her specifically. You know what I mean. And when am I going to get a thank you?”
He was quiet again, his anger clearly smoldering. “You said we’re even, so you won’t get any gratitude from me.”
That’s what I thought he would say. “Fair enough. Tell the wife I said hi.”
He hung up.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and continued to stare at the city skyline. The lights stopped at the edge, the rest of the Tuscany quiet in the background. The second I came home, I should have dropped my jeans and put my hand to work around my cock, but that didn’t sound appealing. After I’d had those luscious lips against mine, I wanted to have them again. I wanted the real thing, to feel that desire between her legs against my skin, not through my jeans.
As I’d said, I didn’t chase pussy. Not my style. There was no woman out there worth that kind of effort.
But then again, there was no woman like Carmen Barsetti.
The basement of my building was used for one purpose only.
The Brawl.
Men were gathered in a circle around the ring, ready to get the bets started. I made my billions operating the largest underground casino in all of Europe. The cops knew about it, but they never crossed me because I was an opponent who couldn’t be defeated. Besides, when I was handing out Christmas bonuses that matched their yearly salary, it was easy for them to turn the other way.
Jones escorted the first asshole into the ring and unlocked his cuffs. Shirtless and in jeans, he was a man in his late thirties with an entire sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. His hair had been shaved as a requirement, and he’d been locked up for three days prior to now—without being able to say his goodbyes.
The next man was pushed into the ring, about a decade older, out of shape. It didn’t seem like he had a chance.
The crowd started making their bets.
“Alright.” I stepped into the circle, my arms crossed over my chest as the men around me immediately turned silent. “Both of you assholes crossed the casino, which means you crossed me. Cheating and stealing are fatal offenses. But since I’m a merciful guy…I’ll give each of you a chance. You’ll fight to the death. Winner gets to live—and tell the tale of his punishment.” I clapped my hands twice. “Good luck, gentlemen.” The second I stepped out of the ring, the fight began.
And I watched the blood run.
3
Carmen
My crazy night turned into a strange blur. The details of the attack seemed to lose relevance, like they weren’t nearly as important as what happened afterward. Bosco pushed me against a wall, ground against me until I came, and gave me a kiss I would never forget.
I kept replaying it in mind the next day at work. I made a few arrangements, but since I was so di
stracted, I made the double the arrangements I need and wasted the flowers. I put them in the window in the hope someone would buy them.
I didn’t want to see Bosco again. That guy was bad news.
But why couldn’t other men kiss like that?
Why couldn’t other men have confidence like that?
I’d never met a man quite like him. I’d never seen anyone so damn beautiful. That jawline alone was worth a million dollars. His eyes were like diamonds, and his body was hard as concrete. He’d probably picked up a woman after we went our separate ways and fucked her in his bed—but picturing that only turned me on.
Because I wanted to be the woman in his bed.
A part of me wanted to ask Griffin about him, to see exactly how dangerous he was. Griffin used to be a hitman, but he’d never been a danger to my family. Maybe Bosco’s crimes were petty.
But I had a feeling they weren’t.
The bell rang overhead as the door opened and a customer stepped inside.
“Good afternoon.” I looked up from my arrangement. “How may I—” The words died in my throat when I saw Griffin staring me down like he might rip my head off. His eyes looked like bullets, and I was his target. Judging by the look on his face, he knew everything that happened last night.
Everything.
Shit.
He locked the door behind him and approached the counter, no longer the protective and concerned older brother I viewed him as. When Vanessa first started seeing him, I couldn’t deny that I thought he was sexy as hell. But that attraction died away soon after that, knowing he was meant for someone else. Now he seemed like a brother, a more intense version of Carter. Griffin gripped the edge of the counter with both hands and looked down at me, disappointment and rage in his eyes.
