“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
—Cesare Pavese
I RAN MY HANDS DOWN her back, marveling at the softness. She was so small and breakable in my arms—I could snuff the life right out of her with little effort. The thought made something tighten in my throat.
I didn’t know what to do with this woman, but I did know I was keeping her. Every time I saw her, my blood burned hotter, searing the word mine into my chest. If it were only the greedy Russo in me driving this infatuation, it would’ve gone away the moment she left my bed. Everyone at the Abelli house today knew that hadn’t fucking happened.
I’d come to the conclusion I didn’t give a shit if she wanted to be with another: she couldn’t. It was that simple. I kept myself from digging into her past because I knew if I found something I didn’t like—specifically, a lover—I wouldn’t be able to handle it with a clear mind. And the thought of earning her hatred sent a hollow ache throughout my chest.
Her breath fanned my neck, and I ran my fingers through her hair. There was so fucking much of it. I’d had to hold it out of her face while she sucked my dick. She hadn’t been lying—that was the first time she’d done it. A heady rush consumed me. Maybe she wasn’t as experienced as I’d believed.
What else hadn’t she done? I wanted it all. Everything. The urge to demand she tell me was on the tip of my tongue, but I forced myself to keep it in. I didn’t want to talk—or even think—about her sexual history. I had a feeling it would only end up with another broken piece of furniture.
She chose me instead of her papà.
And fuck, if that hadn’t filled me with a warm wave of satisfaction.
Her fingernails ran into the hair at my nape, and it sent a chill down my spine. “Nico, are our families going to kill each other at the wedding?”
Amusement rose in me. “Maybe.”
She tilted her head, and all of her silky hair slid across my hands. “I don’t think my papà likes you.”
I laughed. “I don’t think many Abellis do.”
“I do,” she whispered.
Fuck. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Warmth flamed to life inside me. “You’ll be a Russo soon, so it doesn’t count.”
She trailed a finger down my neck. “Next weekend.”
Tomorrow. But she didn’t need to know that yet.
After her papà had threatened to change his mind, I’d decided I wasn’t risking waiting. Elena was mine, and tomorrow she’d take my name to prove it.
“I think we should have a couple more functions before then,” she said. “Somewhere our families have to interact.” She paused. “Like the casino.”
I chuckled. “Probably not the best idea, baby.”
“Oh,” she laughed, and the sound hit me in the chest. “I forgot you’re a bunch of cheats.”
“We’re,” I corrected.
“We,” she whispered, as though she was trying it out on her tongue. I wanted to know how it tasted.
She leaned back, and my dick began to harden from the sight of her tits in my face. I pulled my briefs over my growing erection and restrained from touching her. She was sore, and I felt bad enough about hurting her earlier. Though, I didn’t regret it now that her mouth was mine.
She smoothed my tie, running her fingers down my chest and stomach. I could sit here and let this woman touch me all day and I’d never grow bored. She lifted my hand, brushing my knuckles with a thumb. “Am I ever going to see these not busted up?”
I gave them a glance. “Probably not.”
She put her palm to mine, measuring the difference. “You hit Luca?”
“Yeah.” I’d hit him so hard I was surprised I didn’t break more than skin. Fucker had a hard face.
She smiled. “So honest.”
“Always.”
Her gaze came to mine, a little crease between her brows. Damn, she was too beautiful. It fucking hurt to look at her.
“Really? You’d answer honestly to anything I asked?”
I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I’ll be honest, but some things you don’t need to know.”
Her hand faltered against mine, and I suddenly realized how that came off. She thought I meant women. Jesus, I didn’t think I’d fucked another woman since I’d met this girl. Truthfully, I was pretty sure I was obsessed, and I didn’t give a single fuck about it anymore. I just wanted to keep feeding it. Fucking her, kissing her, eating her out, over and over, until I was dead. The idea that I couldn’t made me feel sick, like I was catching a bad case of the flu or something.
“I’m talking about business, Elena.”
She focused on our hands, interlocking her fingers with mine. Resting her head on my shoulder, she quietly said, “I hear you’re a bad man.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “You believe everything you hear?”
“Just what I see. Why did you kill your cousin?”
My lips pressed against her ear. “He had a gun to your head.”
A shiver rolled through her. I’d known she was mine even then.
“Nico?”
“What?”
“Your come is running down my thigh,” she whispered.
Fuck. That was the hottest thing I’d ever heard. My dick throbbed.
I found the wetness dripping down her leg. Running a finger upward, I pushed it back inside her. She made that breathy mmm noise of hers that drove me crazy. Damn, I was turned on. If she didn’t get off me, I was going to fuck her again, and I’d already told myself I wouldn’t.
“I have to go to work for a while,” I told her. “I have a meeting with your brother.”
She tensed. “Please don’t kill him.”
A noise of sardonic amusement escaped me. I hated how that bastard had her loyalty. I wanted it all. It was irrational, I knew, but I didn’t know how to deal with how I felt about this girl. Everything was amplified. Burning hot. And impulsive.
“I’m not going to kill him. Your papà and I decided not to work with each other anymore. Tony will be an intermediary of sorts.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Try not to let him kill you either.”
“And if he did?”
She paused, like she hadn’t considered it and didn’t know. I realized she didn’t want to answer the question when she pressed her mouth to my throat and slowly kissed her way up. Her lips skimmed my jawline before settling on mine. Heat erupted in my groin. She deepened the kiss, sliding her tongue into my mouth, and my cock went hard as a rock. Shit. I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her back.
Her eyes were dark as night, her mouth swollen and pink.
“And if he did?” I repeated.
She went silent for a moment, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m sure when people find out I’ve lived here there won’t be one man who would want me.”
Irritation ignited in my chest. Not the answer I was looking for, and not even true. Any man would give up his life savings and left nut for Elena. My eyes narrowed.
“There is no other man for you.”
Her lips quirked. “You’d make sure of that even in death?”
“Yes,” I told her, though I didn’t know what the fuck I was saying.
“If anyone would go to those extremes, it would be you.”
My glare intensified, because I didn’t believe she meant that as a compliment. “Are you on the pill?”
Her cheeks flushed a pale pink. She sat on my lap with her tits in my face and my come running down her thighs, and still she blushed from a simple question.
“Yeah,” she answered, fingering the end of my tie.
“When are you going to stop taking it?”
She blinked, and then she laughed in disbelief. “You’re crazy,” she announced, before dropping my tie and getting to her feet.
“I asked a question, Elena.”
“And I chose not to answer, Nico,” she parried as she walked toward the bathroom completely fucking naked.
I internally groaned at the view. “You’re not going to stay on it forever.”
“No, but I think I’d like to be married first before I even consider it.”
I rubbed my jaw.
Fine. We’ll discuss it tomorrow then.
“Stupid move today, Ace.” Tony sat on my office couch with an arm resting on the back.
I flicked a glance toward him. “Did I ask for your opinion?”
He rubbed a hand across his smile. “Just assumed you’d want it, is all.”
“You assumed wrong,” I said dryly. “If we wrote down all the stupid shit you’ve done, that book would be thicker than the fucking Bible.”
He sank a little further into the couch. “Everything I do is premeditated. Just have a quicker thought process than most.”
“I can smell your bullshit from here. Honestly, I don’t know how the fuck you’re still alive.”
He smirked. “You’re just upset you can’t kill me.”
“Never tried to kill you.”
“Debatable. But I know you won’t now. You like my sister and my sister loves me.”
I like his sister? Was that what it was? Sounded mediocre in comparison to what I felt about Elena.
Gianna’s words suddenly filled my mind.
Because you’ll fall in love with her. And she won’t love you back.
Well, Jesus H. Christ. Gianna was right.
Fuck. This was inconvenient.
I tapped my pen on the desk, leaned back, and refused to reply to that ridiculous statement. Tony laughed, and I gritted my teeth.
“Finally, the black-hearted Russo knows what it’s like to be whipped.”
I gave my head a small shake. “There’s a big difference between you and me, Tony. Whipped or not, I’m not a fucking doormat.”
Tony’s gaze hardened, but he only lifted his feet onto the coffee table.
“Jenny pulls you around by your cock and you let her. Might as well buy her a strap-on.”
“You know,” he said, “I could live without you saying her fucking name.”
“And I could live without your shoes on my coffee table.”
He left them there, smoothed his tie, and rested a bandaged hand on his stomach. “I got a hot date tonight.”
“I think ‘hot’ loses its steam after every man in a ten-mile radius has had a piece of it.”
His jaw ticked. “I love my sister, Ace, but it’s not like you’re getting a cherry with your fiancée either.”
Annoyance unfurled in my chest, and his gaze flickered with pleasure when he noticed he’d gotten to me.
“If you want to sit around and talk about me fucking your sister, be my guest. Brings back good memories.”
He picked a piece of lint off his suit jacket. “If it was up to me, I’d never have let Elena stay with you until the wedding.”
“Good thing not much is up to you,” I said dryly. “New York would burn under one of your massive tantrums.”
“If I lit fire to the city, it would deserve to burn.”
I let out a half laugh. “More likely a man tossed your girlfriend some quarters and took her for a ride.”
He pulled on his collar, his gaze heated. “She’s not a fucking hooker.”
“Coulda’ fooled me. If I gave her the watch off my wrist, she would’ve done anything I asked of her.”
“Any woman would. You look like a tool walking around with that thirty-five-thousand-dollar watch.”
I would’ve easily agreed with him before I met Elena—the any woman would part, not the fucking tool comment—but now I couldn’t imagine her giving it up for a large sum of money. And it wasn’t because she already had plenty of it.
Jesus, we hadn’t even gotten to business yet and a headache already bloomed behind my eyes. “Maybe we could get this over with?”
“Sure thing, Ace. But I gotta say something first.”
I tossed my pen on the desk. “Can hardly wait to hear it.”
“For whatever reason—most likely Stockholm—Elena chose you, and I respect her choice. But if you hurt her, I’ll have to kill you.”
I laughed. I was pretty sure I’d rather cut off my left arm than ever hurt her, but fuck if I was going to let him know she was my biggest weakness.
My gaze froze to ice. “Since we’re getting the threats out of the way—if you ever do anything stupid enough to get another gun pointed at her head, I’ll skin you alive. Got it?”
He smirked. “Got it, bro.”
Jesus. As of tomorrow, this idiot was my fucking brother-in-law.
The clock said two a.m. when I got home. Tony and I had finished the meeting without trying to kill each other—a success in my book—and then I had some other business to take care of. Annoying business that left a red stain on my shirt.
The trashcans near the garage were full of bags, and a small smile came to my lips when I realized what Elena had thrown away. She was like a fascinating creature in my house, and I’d never know what she would do next.
Luca left after filling me in on Elena’s amusing activities today. I knew he was getting tired of having to stay here—and I also needed him back at work—but I wasn’t sure who else to trust. Usually, I would have left Lorenzo with this kind of shit—but with Elena? Fuck no. I briefly wondered if eunuchs were still a thing.
Truthfully, I hated the idea of leaving her with another man at all, but her safety was more important to me than that. Also, there was an itch in the back of my head that kept reminding me she’d tried to run only six months ago. Did she leave because her papà was a fucking scrooge, or for another man who possibly still lived? My teeth clenched.
I headed upstairs and decided I needed to do something about the creak in the stairs. It was loud as shit.
I’d been chafing to come home. Just so I could fuck Elena soft and easy, all night long. I wanted to draw it out, soak up her moans, make her sweat and shake beneath me. I was fucking rock hard at the idea.
After going to my room and finding my bed empty, a growl sounded in my throat. I pushed open the spare bedroom door to see her fast asleep. The window was cracked, letting a breeze in that rustled the sheer curtains. The streetlight shone a yellow glow across her face, and my chest ached at the sight.
I dropped to my haunches next to her. She slept on her side, facing me. One smooth thigh was outside of the covers. She had on a tiny t-shirt that had ridden up to right below her tits and a fucking thong. The curve of her bare ass was right there, begging me to bite it. My dick insisted that I be an asshole and wake her up. Shit. I rubbed my face and gave my head a shake. I couldn’t do it.
Her lips were slightly parted, and her breaths came out even and shallow. Dark eyelashes fanned her cheeks. I stared at her for a moment. How peaceful it must be in that head of hers to have such a sweet expression. I wanted to keep it that way, to make sure she never worried about anything again.
Fuck, I was whipped.
If perfection had a face, a body, a voice—this girl would be it.
I skimmed a thumb across her soft cheekbone.
My gaze found her ring and my throat tightened. Gianna’s words filled my mouth with a bitter taste.
I would make this girl want me, need me, love me, because fuck if I was going it alone.
