Mafia Romance

by Aleatha Romig, Skye Warren, Annika Martin, Natasha Knight, Kaye Blue, Michelle St. James, Renee Rose, Parker S. Huntington, Alexis Abbott, Willow Winters

  Lucian decided to call her bluff.

  “No need to call a cab, Cassie. I’ll drive you,” he said.

  There was no way she’d accept. He knew that her pride, her stubbornness, her absolute insistence on never allowing him in would keep her from it. So he waited for her to protest, knew it would come. And when he saw the slight flicker in her eye, he prepared himself for her rebuke.

  “Thank you,” she said in a voice that was eerily like Cassandra’s but not.

  The concern he’d felt before was nothing like the worry that wormed through him in that moment.

  Cassandra never gave up without a fight.

  Ever.

  Which meant she’d been even more afraid than he’d first thought, a fact that pushed his protective instincts into overdrive.

  Lucian looked down, watched as Cassandra pursed her lips and then swiped her hands down her skirt, the nervous gesture jarringly unusual for her. When he met her eyes again, he saw more of the Cassandra he knew, saw that stubborn streak he knew meant she would not answer any question he might ask, particularly what had her so shaken up. If he pressed, she’d change her mind and reject his offer.

  “I’m parked out front,” he said, and Lucian frowned when he saw her body tremble with her exhaled sigh of relief.

  He settled his hand at the center of her back, and she didn’t protest when he guided her out to his vehicle. They made the walk in silence, but this conversation was far from over.

  Cassandra would tell him what he needed to know, whether she wanted to or not.

  Chapter Five

  As Lucian drove away from Silver Industries, it occurred to Cassandra that she’d never been so happy to leave the building if only to get away from the embarrassment of her own silly overreaction.

  She sneaked a glance at Lucian, allowing herself to hope he hadn’t noticed, though she was sure he had. The relief that one sideways glance at him gave only intensified her emotions. She was embarrassed, deeply, that he’d seen her in such a state, embarrassed he might now think of her as weak, a possibility that made her heart squeeze.

  Yet…

  She couldn’t pretend that being here with him didn’t make her feel better, calmer. Safe.

  Cassandra began worrying her thumb against her forefinger, something she did when she was nervous, a habit that she hadn’t been able to kick no matter how hard she tried. She and Lucian didn’t often see eye to eye on much, but what Cassandra never doubted was his respect for her, a respect that was now in jeopardy.

  Cassandra didn’t pay the scenery that passed any attention until Lucian turned and guided the SUV down her street. She looked over at him again, this time not trying to be surreptitious.

  “Should I be surprised that you know where I live?” she asked, unable to stop the tiny play of a smile on her lips.

  He turned into her cobblestone driveway. “Nope,” he said as he threw his vehicle into Park.

  The ride was over, and almost instantly, the embarrassment that had slackened a little and the last little tendrils of fear that remained intensified. Cassandra gave a mental headshake, determined to ignore both, and then she turned her body toward Lucian, met his eyes.

  “Thank you for the ride, Lucian. Have a nice evening,” she said in her most distant and professional voice, falling back on her old trick of projecting what she wanted to feel despite what she might actually be feeling, which, at the moment, was anything but distant and professional.

  “No thanks are necessary, Cassie,” he said.

  She started to object to his use of that grating nickname, but before she could speak, he had unbuckled his seat belt and opened the car door. He stepped out lightly and, moving with that lithe gracefulness that still surprised her in a man of his size, he rounded to the passenger door and pulled it open.

  She clumsily unbuckled her own seat belt and then got out. When her feet touched the driveway, she met his eyes again.

  “You’re walking me to the door? That’s not necessary,” she said, her voice a little more high-pitched than usual, her hope that Lucian would leave giving her words more urgency than she wanted to reveal.

  “Where’s the key?” he asked, voice completely even-keeled, but the intensity in his eyes as they fell on her made her look away.

  Gaze glued to her purse as though it contained the secrets of the universe, she rooted around in search of her keys. She always put them in the same place, so that she wasn’t able to immediately retrieve them was yet another sign of how shaken she was.

  When she finally found the keyring, she pulled it out, gripping it tight in her hand like it would settle her, which seemed an impossibility in the face of Lucian Silver’s intensity focused on her. She kept her eyes averted and then, after a deep and not remotely calming breath, she lifted her gaze back to his.

  “Lucian, thank you,” she said, extending her hand.

  It was patently ridiculous, her offering her hand to shake as though she hadn’t known him for years, as though she hadn’t just told herself how safe she felt with him.

  So, yes, this distant reserve was ridiculous, but she needed to do something to help her regain her bearings, and polite reserve seemed like the best option.

  “Give me the key, Cassandra,” he said, his eyes still intense but darkening more as he watched her.

  She scoffed, the sound high-pitched, almost frantic. “The keys? I’m more than capable of opening—hey!”

  Her fingers grasped for the keys but closed around air because Lucian had taken them from her fingers and was now standing in front of her door. Once he’d unlocked the door, he pushed it open and then stepped inside. A second later, he looked at her, tilted his head in question.

  “Are you going to stay out there all night?” he said.

  Cassandra pursed her lips and then huffed, watching him in disbelief as he stood in her foyer like he belonged there. Her first impulse was to buck him if only to satisfy her own stubborn streak, but soon enough she walked through the door.

  * * *

  The look on Cassandra’s face when he’d taken her keys had been priceless, something he would have ordinarily found amusing. He didn’t now, though, still preoccupied with trying to figure out what had happened earlier.

  And trying to ignore the new flash of anger that had sparked. It was clear she wanted him gone; her incredibly polite and even more incredibly distant thank-yous and unspoken good-byes were more than enough evidence of that. Lucian suspected that was her stubbornness at play. Lucky for him, he had plenty of his own.

  After she entered, he closed and locked the door while Cassandra disarmed the security system.

  “Nice setup,” Lucian said.

  He recognized both the locks and the system and knew they weren’t ones that most people would buy.

  “Damien recommended it,” she said.

  No surprise there, but Lucian was surprised by the sudden burst of jealousy. Damien and Cassandra were colleagues and friends, nothing more. Couldn’t be, not when Damien was still heartbroken and crazy after what had happened. The Senate investigation had been his brother’s nadir, his once-sterling reputation forever sullied, and most people he would have called friends now refused to have anything to do with him.

  Cassandra had stuck by him, though, was close enough to ask him for advice on a security system. The logical part of Lucian was happy she kept in touch with Damien. He needed all the support he could get, but the illogical part of him, the one that Cassandra seemed to have a direct line to, recoiled at the thought of her going to someone else for help.

  Cassandra was Lucian’s to protect.

  In an effort to suppress that particular train of thought, he looked around the house.

  Of all the times and things he’d thought of Cassandra, he’d never imagined her home, which seemed strange to him as he considered it. But, whatever he might have thought, he knew he wouldn’t have expected the place they were in now.

  Cassandra’s precision and firmness made it
easy to think she might live in a modern, icy environment like one of the sleek condo towers he called home. However, from this first glimpse at her home, he saw that nothing could be further from the truth.

  Warm. That was the very first thought that went through his mind as he took in her space. The main floor was open with a combination living and dining room and kitchen in the back, partially obscured by four columns. The walls were filled with framed pictures, a smiling Cassandra and scores of people he didn’t recognize with the exception of Sloan.

  He drifted toward the fireplace and looked at the pictures there, and as he stood, he felt Cassandra move to stand beside him.

  “Big family?” he said.

  “Huge. But most of them are on the East Coast. I try to get back every couple of years to see them,” she said.

  “Must be nice,” he replied.

  “It is, usually,” she said.

  Lucian knew that both of her parents were deceased but she had two sisters and a brother, and, he gathered from the photographs, a large extended family. Something he envied her. He’d just had his parents and his brother. No aunts and uncles, no cousins. And now that his parents were gone and his brother was doing his best to join them, he had no family except the one he made at Silver Industries.

  One that included her.

  That thought had him looking at Cassandra, and this time he looked at her in a new light.

  He wanted her. Wanted her more than he had any other woman in his entire life. But it wasn’t just that. Attraction, desire aside, he cared about her. And he would do whatever he could to make sure he never saw that look of fear ever again.

  She turned, lifted her eyes to meet his, and in the next moment, she threw herself into his arms.

  Chapter Six

  Cassandra couldn’t say what came over her.

  One moment she was standing next to Lucian, looking at the pictures she saw every day, and the next, she was in his arms, holding him as if her life depended on never letting him go.

  Were she herself, not still stewing from embarrassment and the last remnants of fear-induced adrenaline, she would have been able to hold herself back, but in that moment, she couldn’t think of anything else she needed to be doing.

  And like the rock he was for everyone else, Lucian was there, strong, solid, telling her without words he would hold her up. She squeezed her arms around his shoulders and pressed her face against his neck. Then she held on, couldn’t make herself let go.

  Soon, as the moments passed, she became aware of him in different ways. His arms around her, the masculine scent that was all him.

  She’d noticed all of them before, and though she tried to pretend otherwise, now, there was no room for pretending, no room for anything but being close to him.

  She tightened her grip on him, flattening her breasts against his chest. Their bodies molded together—she fit him perfectly.

  Cassandra moved even closer. Lucian didn’t respond, at least not initially, but then he moved, shifted just the smallest amount until their bodies were completely aligned, every inch of their upper bodies in contact, his ever-hardening cock against her stomach.

  And then, finally, she looked up and gazed at him.

  His eyes were dark, even darker than before, and when she peered into them, she saw the desire that she felt reflected back at her.

  She saw the moment when she knew that desire would not be fulfilled.

  Lucian reached up, tucked a loose stand of hair that had fallen out of her tight bun behind her ear. “It’s been a long day. You should get some rest.”

  His voice was soft, his words sensible, and they had the same effect as being doused in ice-cold water.

  The automatic step backward was thwarted because her arms were still hooked around his shoulders. By now, the cold shock had been replaced with the heat of embarrassment, and Cassandra quickly dropped her arms and stepped backward until she brushed against her sofa.

  She’d put several feet between them, but those feet were not nearly enough. Not enough to lessen the intensity of his gaze on her, not enough to make her forget her throbbing body, the need for him nearly a living thing. Not enough to make her remember why this couldn’t happen. When she locked eyes with him, she knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t, let this chance pass her by.

  Reversing course, she moved closer to him, her eyes on his the entire time, even when she stood in front of him, mere inches separating their bodies. “Lucian, I—”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he said, cutting her off.

  “I wasn’t going to say I was sorry,” she said.

  His eyes flashed, a moment’s confusion on his face. “What were you going to say, then?” he asked.

  Cassandra’s heart began to thud even harder as she considered the weight of this moment. It would change everything, probably in ways she couldn’t even anticipate, but leaving things as they were was not an option.

  “I was going to say it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. Has been for years. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but tonight…” She lifted her hand to stroke her fingers against his chest, the softness of his T-shirt, the hardness of the muscle it covered, creating a contrast that had Cassandra squirming. “I want to put that aside, explore the chemistry that neither of us can continue to ignore.”

  She finished, kept her hand on his belt buckle, and waited, watched him for a response. He kept his features impassive, but she saw the subtle change in his eyes, a deepening, darkening that confirmed to her she wasn’t in this alone.

  “And when you say ‘explore,’ what, exactly, do you mean?” he asked, his voice a rough rasp.

  Cassandra chuckled and pulled his shirt up to let her fingers play against his hard abs. “I think you have some idea,” she said, looking up to meet his eyes.

  “A couple come to mind,” he said as he unbuttoned her jacket and pushed it open so that her blouse was exposed.

  “I like where this is headed so far,” she said, her voice a little breathless as Lucian settled his hand at the curve of her waist, his palm burning her skin through her shirt.

  “Then you’ll like where I want it to go even better,” he said, momentarily tightening his hold on her waist before he loosened it, snaked his fingers up her back, and popped open her bra.

  “So far, so good,” she said as he moved his fingers in an irregular pattern on her back, his fingers working magic, the touch drawing her nipples tight and sending a flood of moisture from her sex.

  “This,” he chuckled, stopped moving his hand, and began again, “is nothing. No, I want inside you.” As he spoke, he moved closer, so close, his warm breath skated down her neck, his voice rich, full in her ear.

  “And then?” she asked, her own voice deeper than usual but wobbly, unstable as the arousal shook through her.

  He chuckled again, the sound not humorous but instead full of seductive promise. “Then I fuck you. Hard and fast at first, taking you right to the brink. Then slow, soft, hard again, your tight, wet pussy choking my cock until neither of us can stand it,” he said, his voice barely a whisper when he finished.

  She lifted her heavy lids and looped a finger in his pants. “Sounds like we’re on the same page. I’ll lead the way,” she said, not caring that her eagerness was unmistakable in her voice.

  “Nope. I’m afraid we can’t,” Lucian said, leaning back to put more space between them.

  Cassandra felt the frown on her face and the insistent throb between her thighs that demanded to be relieved. “Why not?” she asked.

  “No condoms,” he said.

  Cassandra felt her frown shifting to a smile. “Oh, we can work around that,” she said.

  “I intend to,” he replied.

  As he spoke, he pushed her jacket down and off her shoulders and made equally quick work of her shirt, leaving her standing in her skirt and open bra.

  Lucian’s eyes were glued to her upper body, his fingers caressing her skin as his eyes did the same. Cassandr
a had long ago made peace with her body, and in fact loved her curves, but she still had occasional moments of doubt, expected at least some tremor of self-consciousness when a flawless Lucian looked at her.

  There was none.

  As Lucian looked at her, trailed his fingers along the rise of her breast, tracing the line where her bra hit skin, she felt nothing but impatient desire. She reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head, happy he lifted his hands long enough to allow her to maneuver it off. When she got her first glimpse of his bare chest, she sighed out a moan that drew a cocky smile from him. She wouldn’t begrudge him the expression or the cockiness, though, couldn’t, because he had every right to be cocky.

  “Where were we?” he asked when he again moved closer to her, wrapped one arm around her waist and used the other to again tease that line between fabric and flesh.

  “You were explaining how we were going to work around the absence of condoms,” Cassandra said.

  “Oh, yes,” Lucian replied, but before he continued, he kissed her collarbone, trailing his lips up her neck and across her shoulder.

  Without thought, Cassandra reached up to hook an arm around his neck, desperately needing something to hold on to.

  “There are a number of options,” he said, his voice a muffled whisper as he nibbled at her shoulder.

  “Enlighten me,” she said.

  “I could tongue-fuck you, lick that sweet pussy until you come, keep licking it until you come again,” Lucian whispered.

  “Uh…I-I have no objection to that,” Cassandra said, surprised she managed to speak at all.

  “Didn’t think you would, but I’m going to save that for another time,” he said, sucking the flesh that covered her collarbone into his mouth before releasing it.

  “So instead?” she asked, her voice still shaky.

  “Instead,” he said, pulling her bra down her arms and dropping it before he reached up to palm her breast, “I’m going to suck on this nipple.”