“You’re kidding me, right?”
“What do you mean?” I tightened my ponytail. Earlier today, I’d gotten so bored, I’d disguised myself well enough that I could go to a little shop around the corner. Rome hadn’t exactly said I could leave his place, but he had said he was finally taking me out tonight.
That called for celebration. The closest store was eccentric, and I was all about it. They had knockoff clothes and secondhand items, but it was someplace to go where I knew I wouldn’t be seen.
“We’re not going anywhere with you dressed like that.” He pointed at me accusingly, as if my outfit was completely ridiculous.
I had to admit, it was different. The latex fit every nook and cranny of my body like a glove. I was actually surprised it wasn’t custom made for me. To say I was proud of the rare find was an understatement. “This is perfectly legit for whatever we have to do tonight. I’m wearing combat boots and a dark outfit. It’s the best way to hide in the shadows.”
“You’re wearing a fucking dominatrix outfit. If you’re trying to bait me, you’re failing. You’re so far from getting your way, you don’t even know.”
I scoffed at his words, even though my stomach clenched at the slight stabbing pain of knowing I hadn’t turned him on.
I popped a hip out and looked at him in the mirror. “My outfit works. Either like it or don’t, but this is how I’m dressing.”
“Why are you so difficult?” He pinched the bridge of his nose as I got on my coat.
“My coat covers most of my outfit anyway. Jesus. Can I have a little fun? I’ve been cooped up in here for two fucking weeks doing nothing.”
“You were doing the same damn thing at Bastian’s.”
“Bastian’s was planned. I was able to move freely around his penthouse. We went on scheduled excursions. You went shopping with me!”
“You didn’t leave that penthouse much at all.”
“What? Did you track me while I was there?”
“Of course I tracked you,” he shot back, not at all apologetic for his actions. “It’s my job.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. This is different!” I threw up my hands and then stormed past him, done with the conversation and wanting to get on with the night.
He stomped out after me. “You’re something, you know that?”
“What a compliment,” I grumbled as he checked a few of the locks and the security system he had in place.
Then we were walking in sync toward his garage. He stepped in front of me as we turned corners to make sure no one was watching us, and then he cut the lights to the garage as we made our way over to a black SUV with tinted windows.
He opened my door and grabbed me under my shoulder to hoist me in, probably a little more aggressively than necessary. Still, his touch shot through me, and I gasped at feeling his strong grip after knowing exactly how our touches exploded together.
He slammed the door as I cut my gaze to him and licked my lips.
Fuck, he was in a mood.
How was it that he wanted nothing to do with me right now, but I wanted everything to do with him?
He drove the back alleys in silence and checked his rearview mirror constantly. The night sky was muted by the city lights, the buildings glittering with their manmade brightness.
“You ever think the country might be the best place to be?”
“Why? The city all of a sudden too much for you?”
I sighed. I was tired of sparring with him.
We drove over a bridge, and the car rattled as the tires bounced off the metal. “I think the city can be too much for anyone. It wants our blood, and I’m not sure we’ll have any left to give once we’ve been drained of it.”
He glanced at me, his dark eyes suddenly not so empty of emotion. His tattooed arm flexed as he gripped the steering wheel. “No city is going to drain you of your blood, Katalina.”
“It feels like you’re all hiding this huge secret, and it might be that. Honestly, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go.”
“It’s also not the way you will go. You’re stronger than that. We’re stronger than that.”
I nodded, letting his words sink in.
“Your blood is my blood, Kate-Bait. You die, I die.” His hands white-knuckled the steering wheel, and he didn’t look at me as he spoke. His jaw clenched, like he was trying to hold back whatever he was feeling.
He pulled over in a dark alley, and when his head whipped my way, I saw the need finally, the hunger I’d seen the last time he touched me. I saw the Rome I’d missed for the past hour, the one I thought might have only been a dream or a nightmare.
I quivered under his stare, my core aching for anything he might give me in those moments his gaze roamed over me. “Maybe my blood isn’t, though. Maybe this family isn’t mine to—”
His hand flew off the steering wheel and went straight to my neck. He yanked me forward so I was just inches from his lips, feeling his hot breath on my cheek as he said, “There’s no arguing your place. Your blood is mine. We bleed together, woman. Always. Remember that.”
He devoured my mouth and bit down painfully on my bottom lip. He wanted to taste blood, and I moaned when I realized that was his intention. I could submit to this man. I knew that even if he was inflicting this little bit of pain, he would never take it far enough to truly break me any more than I’d already been broken.
I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed over the console to straddle him.
The latex of my outfit squeaked as I did, and Rome burst out laughing midway into our kiss.
“Are you kidding me?” I shoved him in the chest and glared at him. “Don’t fuck this up by laughing.”
He laughed harder, and I caught the side of him no one ever saw. Rome never really laughed, not like this. He’d momentarily lost the dark side of himself—the empty, hollowing side that sucked at your soul when he looked at you—and appeared like a genuinely carefree guy in his twenties.
The family had painted him as a killer and an angry, ruthless one at that. Even the villain in the story had dimensions that were pure and innocent. A villain is molded and shaped over time by the torture they have to endure. I wondered what Rome would have been like had he never been born into the mafia. I liked to think his laugh would have been contagious, that he would have gotten everything he wanted, lived the life he wanted.
I didn’t believe in happy endings, but I could wish for them in the dark, hidden corners of my mind.
“Are you about done?” I grumbled as I straddled him.
He wiped at nonexistent tears just to be a dick. “It goes to show that outfit is good for nothing.”
“Except that I’m on something hard, and I’m sure it isn’t your Glock. So my outfit’s good for something.”
“I’m rock solid because you’re in front of me, woman. It’s been that way since the day I laid eyes on your little ass. Not because you’re wearing a second skin.”
I ground my teeth together.
“How hot are you in that thing, anyway?” He raised an eyebrow as if he wanted to continue his stupid joke about my attire.
I gripped the front zipper and bit my bottom lip. If I couldn’t seduce Rome while I sat on top of him and make him forget about my outfit, I’d lost my touch. “It is getting hot in here.”
Slowly, I started to pull the zip down. The sparkle in Rome’s eyes died, and the hunger in them grew. He shifted so I could feel his length up against my pussy, and I moaned as the zipper traveled tooth by tooth down my body.
Rome sucked in a breath as it passed my chest. “Fuck. You’re not wearing a damn thing under there, are you?”
I stopped right at my hips and leaned forward. I threaded my fingers through his hair to pull him close and whisper, “I don’t ever wear anything under my clothes when I’m with you.”
“Because you want to feel like you might be taken by me?”
We stared at each other as I gave a tiny shrug. The side of his lip turned up, like he was getting used to my noncommittal answers.
My hand drifted to his zipper and shoved it down quick. His cock sprung free, and I whimpered as I gripped it, seeing that he’d worn nothing under his jeans either.
I stroked up and down his length, not once but twice, before I tipped the head of him onto the line of zipper teeth right over my pussy. “Feel that?”
His groan was guttural and his eyes dropped closed while he let me play with the one part of him I wanted in me at that very second.
“The zipper goes all the way down and around.” Rome’s eyes shot open as he understood my meaning. “Very easy access for both of us.”
“Unzip it, Bait,” he commanded.
I shook my head and rubbed a thumb over the pre-cum at the tip of his dick.
His jaw clenched. “You love the control, don’t you?” He glared at me.
“I love what I can get from you, sure.” I rode my pussy over him this time, dry humping right where I needed, and shifted my other hand up to my breast to start to get myself off.
Rome watched for a minute, letting me ride him just the way I was. His breathing sped up, his stare on me narrowed, and I felt his thighs start to clench with each roll of my hips.
My breath caught as I climbed toward my climax. I closed my eyes and arched to get there, riding him quicker and panting out little moans, when suddenly Rome’s calloused hands flew into the top of my jumpsuit and yanked it down around my arms, trapping me.
He shoved my hips back away from him and ground out, “You want to fuck, you fuck with me. I’m not here to ride for your pleasure only, Bait. I’m getting mine too.”
With that, he dragged his fingertip down the center of me, all the way to the zipper. He pushed it farther until it rolled over my clit. He stopped so that just that hot button was exposed. “Want to get off before I fuck you into oblivion?”
I sucked on my teeth, pissed he’d stopped my show of getting off just to take control for himself. I also bucked back so hard that my body just missed pressing on the horn for everyone in Chicago to hear when he rolled his thumb over that sweet spot.
“Hurry up and get on with it then,” I said, trying my best to be irritated.
He chuckled. “Ask nicely, Katalina.”
I wanted to punch him. Then I wanted to get on my knees and suck him dry. Something about him taking control of me shook me to my core. He was the only one who could, though I never wanted to let him know it.
I sighed heavily and rolled my eyes so hard, I’m sure he saw only the whites. “Don’t you know by now that I’m not nice?”
“You’re nice for me. You always will be. Deep down, somewhere where you aren’t broken, you still long for acceptance, for love. You want to be nice, Katalina. So be it.”
My stomach twisted, and my heart galloped in my chest. Rome pushed my boundaries, scaled the wall, and swam through the moat around my fortress. He wanted inside my soul, and he wanted to move past the broken edges of it to where he thought I was still whole.
“What if I’m broken everywhere?” I whispered. Most days I felt that way. I’d died with my father, and now I was this shell of a human, not really connected to anyone, striving to be a part of a family I wasn’t sure I could ever truly fit into.
His hand slid to my chest. He rubbed over my heart like he could soothe the fast beats. “Then you’ve survived, and you take your broken pieces, turn them to what you need them to be, and live with it, Bait. You were always a survivor. And you’ve always been the best at it.”
Maybe my shaking my head pushed him over the edge, maybe he saw the doubt in my eyes, maybe he was just done talking, but he didn’t give me the chance to contradict him.
He pushed the zipper down just enough and plowed into me, not hesitating over the repercussions.
I didn’t stop him either. I took what I wanted, riding him like I deserved every part of him in me. I yanked his dark waves of hair so hard he groaned as my nails clawed his scalp. He bit my lips and then ripped his mouth away so he could bite and suck my neck. The marks would be brutal, bruised, and red tomorrow. Rome wasn’t going easy on me.
I wasn’t going easy on him either.
We wanted a piece of each other. Even if it was broken, jagged, and dangerous.
Maybe we were past everything else. Right now, it was just the two of us, in that car, in the city, under the building lights that kept us alive, that drowned out the total darkness but muted the light of the stars. Our natural light, the one that brightened even the darkest soul, had been extinguished.
Chicago wanted to show how it owned us, how it molded us into who we were that night.
I thought I could navigate it all just fine. I thought I had this city by the balls. All these men, my relationship with Rome, all this mafia—I thought I had a handle on it.
I was wrong.
