Body of Trust: A Romantic Suspense Novel

by Jeannine Colette

  Pain and hesitation wage a war in his expression. His searing blue gaze burns a hole in mine as he fights my own determined stare. I will him to divulge his secrets. I know they won’t be pretty. The ugliest side to someone is the one you don’t show the world. I lift my chin and let him know I’m ready. I need to hear his story because if I don’t, there is no way I’ll ever be able to rely on him.

  He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it. His eyes scrunch shut as he tilts his head and curses, furious with himself because he doesn’t want to have to talk. He doesn’t want to tell me his secrets.

  I wait and find out if he’s angry about the words he won’t say or if, finally, I’m about to hear them for real.

  “My name is Jesse Davenport. I’m an undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, assigned to get intel on Frank Evangelista and Raphael Sorrentino.”

  The wind is taken out of me as his confession leaves me dumbstruck. My hands fly to my belly as I fight the feeling of being sick.

  He sits on his heels and holds his arms open as he tells me, “Today, I was called away by my boss, the director of criminal investigations, for an urgent meeting. I swear, I would never have abandoned you otherwise.”

  “You’ve been spying on my family?” I ask in disbelief.

  He nods, poised yet wary of my reaction. “A year ago, I took an assignment to investigate the Evangelista Crime Family, including the mob-run sanitation business.”

  “The sanitation business is not run by the mob. That’s an old wives’ tale. Assuming any Italian in the garbage game is in the Mafia is prejudice.”

  “The New York Mafia has been ruling the commercial waste game for the last seventy years. Your father and Frank Evangelista are the majority owners of twenty-five trash companies that control eighty percent of the carting industry in New York City, parts of New Jersey and eastern Connecticut.”

  I hate how steady his voice is. And how his eyes maintain focus with mine, never faltering.

  “How so?”

  “Money laundering, rigged contract bids, extorting from non-mob haulers and customers to quash competition and keep their prices high. They use money, intimidation, and violence to get the routes they want. It’s a multimillion-dollar industry.” He’s stern with his words as his eyes hold mine. “I got a job at Villa Russo to investigate from the inside. The last agent was a driver who received intel they were using the trucks to move drugs and weapons across the five boroughs. I was assigned to apply for a position at the club as a means of becoming a family insider at the place where decisions are made.”

  “What kind of decisions?”

  “Family business.”

  “You mean my uncles. Vic, Joey, Enzo… they’re not in sanitation, and there’s no way my family is involved with drugs or guns.”

  “Frank Evangelista is the boss of the crime family. Your father is the underboss. His consigliere. Villa Russo is their headquarters where all Evangelista Family business is run through. Six months ago, I started running errands for Frank while closing in on finding out the truth. He offered me a job not in the company, but within the family.”

  I recall my uncle telling me that very information, making Jesse’s story pan out. “You’ve been playing secret agent for a year, and you haven’t been able to get evidence to prove they’re criminals? Wonder why. Oh, I’ll tell you. It’s because they’re not criminals!”

  “I’ve been gathering the evidence I need for an indictment.”

  My eyes widen at the word indictment. “You’re trying to put my father in jail!” I turn away in betrayal. “And you have the nerve to say we’re in this together. That you think that I should trust you.”

  I stand up and walk away from him, pacing the living room as I play with the charm of my necklace.

  He rises to his feet yet stands in place. “I was never supposed to get close to you.”

  “It’s not your job to protect me. You’re supposed to be surveilling my father and uncle. You don’t know where they are, so I’m the next best thing.”

  “I’m protecting you because I’m too attached. And you keep opening the door to me because you know what we have is real. We’re together, Amelia. From the first time you sat at that bar, we’ve been connected. I know you feel it too.”

  He takes a step toward me, but I move away. I don’t want him near me, nor do I want his voice radiating through my body.

  I put my hands over my ears. “I can’t listen to this.”

  Jesse is an FBI agent, my father is in the mob, and a group of criminals want me to rig the lottery or else they’ll kill my family. What the hell one has to do with the other is beyond me. I’m afraid to find out. It’s too much for my head to process. Too much for my heart to handle.

  I don’t want it to be true, and yet … the more Jesse talks, the more I learn, the more I admit to myself that it’s real.

  I crouch down in tears because the weight of the situation is too much.

  He kneels down in front of me and gently removes my hands from my ears. “Amelia, I need to know what that man told you tonight. I have to help you.”

  “You? Of all people, I should never speak with you again. If the Lugazzis find out I told the police, they’ll know. I’m certain of it.”

  “Then, don’t tell them. Tell me. It’s just me. Jesse.”

  Wiping the tears from my face, I think of the hundred thousand reasons why Jesse Grant—no, Jesse Davenport—is the wrong man to talk to. For starters, he’s a liar and a spy.

  I walk to the front door and briskly open it. My hand is shaking on the knob as I cry, staring back at his distressed stance, kneeling on the carpet and looking like someone atoning for his sins. I lose my will as I take in his fallen shoulders and curved brow. His chest rises with anxious breaths, which match my own.

  I raise a finger, ready to tell him to get the hell out but I hesitate.

  He saved my life.

  Twice.

  I should tell him to leave. My mouth opens to curse at him, to tell him to fuck off and be gone from my life forever, but it just trembles as I sob. My body remembers the way he pulled me to safety. My heart can still feel the way he held me. My head knows that without him, I’ll die.

  I face him, the man who is consistently telling me how to stay safe.

  He’s never tried to trap or hurt me.

  He watches over me at night.

  He listens.

  He cares.

  He’s here.

  There’s something about the way he’s kneeling in my living room, pleading with me to talk to him. It’s breaking down my walls.

  He’s trying to put my father away, but he doesn’t want us dead. I drop my hands in a dramatic fashion and close the door, conceding with myself that if I’m going to have someone on my side, it should be him. It’s a gamble. A life-or-death game, our Russian roulette. If I’m going to play the game, I want to be on Jesse’s team.

  “I have been selected by DeLuca & Associates to be an outside auditor of the Mega State Jackpot this weekend,” I start.

  He stands and waits for me to continue.

  “I have to rig the game, and I don’t know how I’ll pull it off.” I walk around the living room as I run through the instructions I was given, retelling every detail, including the numbers and how I’ll remember them. I lean against the back of my couch and bite my thumb. “I’m scared. I’ve never broken a law, let alone fixed a multimillion-dollar lotto. I have to do it though. My mother and sister mean the world to me. My family is everything.”

  “You should never have been asked to do this.”

  “Why then? Why do I have to?”

  He shakes his head with a grimace. “I’m trying to figure it out. There are so many moving parts. The Lugazzis are an upstate crime family who are angry with your father and uncle for breaking a deal.”

  “That’s quite a big payout for a sanitation deal gone bad.”

  “It wasn’t just a sanitation deal. Carlo Lugazzi had p
lans to smuggle twenty-five thousand pounds of pure cocaine from Guyana in South America to the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria. Your father and uncle agreed to move the product from the shipyards in Bayonne up until a few weeks ago when they backed out. Without their help, Lugazzi had no way of transporting the product.”

  I’m glad my father pulled out of a drug smuggling deal, but it all sounds too surreal for my brain to keep up with. “I don’t understand what the lottery has to do with this?”

  “It was a four hundred million dollar shipment that was confiscated by the Feds. When the trucks never showed up in the morning, the crate was left there to be discovered.”

  “Then arrest Carlo Lugazzi. They’re his drugs!”

  “We’re trying but the evidence isn’t there. It’s not like there’s a bill of sale! Amelia, please, I’m trying to put this together as quickly as I can but here are still so many holes and I’m trying to figure out how to fill them before something happens to you.”

  “Then let’s kill him first.”

  “There’s an entire crime family behind him. A militia who will protect their boss, their weapons, their drugs and, most importantly, their money. They’re pissed and they want retribution.”

  I run my hand through my hair in disbelief. “Why me? Why this ridiculous plan?”

  “At the end of the day it’s about money. The Mega State Jackpot is hundreds of millions of dollars. You’re a means to an end. Plus, if it all goes wrong, all evidence points to you and your family connections. The Lugazzis will walk away scot-free.”

  I nod even though the notion of being in jail terrifies me. “What do you think the gloves are for?”

  “I can only assume there’s a substance on one glove that will weigh the balls down, letting the others get sucked up.”

  That makes sense, I guess. “Not the red power balls?”

  He shrugs as he tries to make sense of the instructions. “Easy to win when you’re only guessing the Mega ball number. You only have to buy a hundred different tickets.”

  My body shakes with the nerves that this is something I might actually have to do. “I’m frightened.”

  He walks to me, standing inches from me. “I’m going with you to the drawing.”

  “You’re not going. He said not to tell the cops.” I tap my finger against my lips as I think about my alternatives. “Then again, how would he know if the FBI found out? Maybe there’s a way to handle this with your connections—”

  “It’s not that simple. I’ll talk to my boss, but …” His voice trails off as he runs his fingers across his temple.

  “What are you not telling me?” I ask brashly.

  His chest is rising, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. I can tell he’s stressed.

  I lay a hand on his arm, forcing him to look at me. “Jesse, we’re too far deep in each other’s secrets to keep any more from one another.”

  He nods and speaks softly, “The department has been corrupted. They think there’s an informant on the inside. My file has been relocated to a new division. Only a handful of people know I exist. My boss is one of them. That’s who I was with today. We have to handle this from the inside.”

  “So, that’s it? I go through with this, or my family dies? And when it’s all over, my father goes to jail.”

  “We’ll take it one step at a time. We have a few days. I’m going to take care of this, Amelia.”

  “You say that with such confidence.”

  “I told you, I was prepared to take a bullet for you. Nothing’s changed. I’d do anything for you.”

  “Why?” I ask, exasperated.

  “Because I’m fucking crazy about you! You’re all I think about. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, just knowing that you’re here and I’m out there. I wanted you long before any of this happened, and the moment your life was threatened, I was destined to save it.”

  With my heart about to burst from my chest, I lift my hand to my mouth and shake my head. In another world, this would all make sense. Problem is, we’re not anywhere but here, in this messed up crime-family drama where lives are on the line and this impossibly brave and stubborn man is determined to fix it.

  “You sound like a crazed man,” I say even though I know exactly how he feels. I’ve felt the same way about him.

  “Maybe I am. I can’t help it. I’m too far gone for you, and I know you are too. It’s not just when we kiss, which is out of this fucking world. It’s also when we’re near one another. We need each other.”

  His words are like lifeblood to my heart. My feelings for him are ballooning so fast that it’s frightening and exhilarating, and I just can’t seem to fight them any longer.

  He strides toward me, and the air turns sultry. Until this moment, I’ve always wondered if he feels that magnetic pull as strongly as I do. Tonight, there’s a buzz around him as he leads me in, drawing me closer to his desires.

  “Kiss me, Amelia,” he says hoarsely as he cups the back of my head and stills, just a whisper away from my mouth. “If you say you don’t want me, I’ll back away and still do everything in my power to keep you safe. But if you want me too, stop fighting me on this. Stop fighting us.”

  Panting softly, I lick my dry lips, and the last bricks of the wall I have up, guarding my heart, fall to the ground.

  “Us?” I breathe.

  “Only us.”

  I sigh and seal my mouth over his. The second our lips touch, a bolt of electricity shoots through me. This thing between us—the connection we have, the intensity of our relationship—ignites.

  He doesn’t waste any time in pulling me close. I’m shocked at the gentleness of the pressure he exerts. He groans as his tongue dips inside my mouth, tasting me with firm licks.

  My hands are in his hair as his move to my face. He deepens the kiss, stroking my tongue with long, luscious swipes.

  I lower my hand to the hem of his T-shirt. He lifts his arms as I fling it over his body, and our mouths are reconnected as I press my body against his, achingly aware of every hard, hot inch of him.

  His skin is unmarred and smattered with hair. I inhale his masculine scent as I place kisses over every chiseled ridge of his chest and torso before roaming back up, finding the thick skin of his neck and sucking lightly.

  “Sweet Amelia,” he growls, taking my head in his hand, his other cupping my backside.

  He lifts me in the air, and I wrap my arms around him.

  “Take me to bed.”

  He doesn’t hesitate as he barrels down the short hallway to my bedroom. It’s dark with the shadow of the blinds cascading over my duvet. He lays me down and stands over me, looking positively gorgeous in the moonlight peeking through the blinds.

  I sit up and rise to my knees. Turning my back to him, I move my hair to the side. His hands glide the zipper down the back of my dress. With each clench of the teeth at the seam, my body grows hotter, and my core is damp.

  With the utmost patience, he slowly lowers my sleeves down my shoulders, kissing the bare skin in its wake. I shiver as his lips French-kiss every freckle while his fingers run down the back side of my arms.

  I turn to face him, letting the dress pool at my knees, leaving me in only a bra and panties.

  “You’re so strong,” he says, “inside and out. You amaze me.”

  I look up into his blue eyes and want to tell him the same. I don’t. Instead, I pull him down to the bed.

  I kick the dress away from my ankles. My legs are spread, and he settles on top of me. His rock-hard erection presses against my core, eliciting a moan from my lips. The apex between my thighs throbs as he grinds against me with every kiss. It’s instinctual on both our parts. This connection is intense and desperate.

  I arch my back as he unsnaps my bra and tosses it on the floor. With deft fingers, he explores my body, starting at my collarbone and sweeping down the center of my breasts to my lower belly. My nipples harden as they brush against his chest. His hands grasp my hips as his mouth lowers to my breast
and licks the sensitive nipple, swirling and flicking me into a wanton woman who needs this man and his beautiful mouth.

  My hips rise against his torso, desperate for more friction to satisfy the ache. He must sense my need because his hand slides over the cotton of my panties and palms my aching core.

  “Jesse!” I cry at the simple touch.

  With firmness, he rubs the base of his palm in circles around my center. I tilt my head back as I bathe in the sensation that runs from my core, to my nipples, and up to my head.

  He wills me back with his lips on my mouth while continuing the vicious circle of lust against my core.

  With stealthy hands, I unclasp his belt. It hangs open along the loops of his jeans as I release the button and undo his zipper. I don’t get far in my quest to touch him before he lowers himself down my body.

  My panties are removed, and his tongue is licking my folds and flicking my clit. He moans softly as I writhe in his grasp, swimming in the pleasure his mouth elicits from my body. When his mouth closes over the sensitive bud and he sucks, I grip his head and hold him tight, riding out the most intense orgasm I have ever had in my entire life.

  “Holy shit! Oh my God, yes,” I curse, using the Lord’s name in vain as I come all over his tongue and mouth.

  He licks every drop and kisses the inside of my thigh.

  I’m still reeling while my body aches for more of him.

  For this man.

  For Jesse.

  I rise to my knees and push him up with me, kissing him passionately, tasting my arousal on his lips. He wraps his arms around my naked body and holds me tightly to his chest.

  I finish my job of removing his pants. I don’t even give him a chance to get comfortable as I lower myself to his cock, grip it in my hand, and pump my fist up and down the shaft, running my thumb over the hardened tip. I watch his eyes dilate so dark, they’re murderous.

  He leans down to kiss me, but I sink to the duvet, lining my mouth up with the engorged head, and I swallow it until it hits the back of my throat.

  My ass is in the air as I lick and suck on his throbbing length. He’s thick, making my jaw hurt with how wide I have to hold my mouth open as I take him in over and over again. I lick the length and run my tongue over the pleasure vein, making him hiss and groan until I’m suddenly flipped onto my back.