book as thick as my dick when it comes to women, but all rules can be boiled down to one word:
Don’t.
Don’t stick your dick in crazy.
Don’t let them stay the night.
And definitely don’t let them leave something they’ll want you to return the next day.
A fat raindrop falls on my windshield, followed by another. Eventually, they merge together and obscure my view of Aurora’s perfect ass in those gym leggings as she hot-foots it away from my Bugatti.
Oh, and don’t ogle your uncle’s fiancee.
A bitter laugh slips through my lips. It tastes like disbelief.
Big Al is one lucky fucker and he doesn’t even realize it. Turns out, his latest squeeze is more than a smoke show—she’s a guilty conscience locked in a tight, stubborn body. If she wasn’t so fucking hot, the fact she thinks petty theft and being a little scissor-happy warrants a confession to Sinners Anonymous would be kind of adorable.
I glance to the phone booth opposite the church, then down to my cell in the center console. I could find her calls to the hotline within seconds. It’d certainly pass the time while I wait for her to emerge from whatever the fuck she’s doing in the Preserve.
Spinning my iPhone between my thumb and forefinger, I entertain the idea for a few minutes. My cock stirs at the thought of having something, no matter how trivial, to hang over her head. Perhaps I could convince her that atoning for your sins is better than confessing them.
Maybe she’d let me punish her by bending her over my knee, pulling down those obscenely tight gym leggings, and giving that ass a good spanking.
Or maybe I can elicit other trivial confessions out of her by winding my fist in those golden curls my uncle seems to hate so much, and—
Jesus fucking Christ. I thump my steering wheel in an attempt to beat those thoughts out of my brain. My cock is aching now, straining against my slacks like I’m a goddamn school boy who can’t control his urges.
Get a grip, Angelo. I’m a thirty-six year old man, perving on a girl nearly half my age. I’m not my damn uncle, and I like to think I skipped the sadistic gene that the Cove Viscontis all have. To them, women are a currency, something to buy and sell, barter for, and trade. How proud Alberto was to tell me that the latest in his long line of fiancees was a virgin, like that makes her worth sky-rocket. The sad thing is, all the other old fucks in his Rich Boys Club would have been impressed by that. Jealous, even.
The image of my uncle humping on top of her tiny body on their wedding night is enough to short-circuit my boner. Fuck. Now I’m all worked up in a different way. Hot, itchy annoyance prickles under my collar like a heat rash. Up until nine years ago, I would have probably started a Visconti civil war on this feeling alone, but I’m different now.
I’m not a part of this world anymore; I’m merely visiting it. Here to tie up a loose end.
I don’t chase the thrill of violence or dish out revenge that’s way greater than the crime. I don’t explode over barely anything and cause irreparable damage.
I am not Vicious anymore.
Burning up, I whip off my jacket and toss it on the passenger seat. Loosen my tie. Despite the rain falling in sheets, I inch down all the windows to let some cold air in, and also to drive the sweet scent of her vanilla perfume out. Christ, she’s fucking irritating.
If Viscontis are sadistic for treating women like currency, then what does that make me?
I treat them like they are nothing at all.
A wet hole to plunge my dick into. A mouth to face fuck. But at least I don’t pretend they’re anything more than that.
The minutes tick by on the digital clock on my dashboard. I check emails from shareholders, texts from my assistants—panicked messages asking me when I’ll be back. Skim through notes taken in meetings I should have been chairing. Through my cell, Visconti Capital goes on without me, and my corner office overlooking Hyde Park in my London Head Quarters seems a lot farther away than just the other side of the Atlantic.
When I see Aurora’s blond curls emerge from between the trees, I toss my cell in the console and twist the key in the ignition. She has a spring in her step, practically bouncing in her muddy sneakers as she cuts across the road. It’s still raining, and if I was a better man, I’d step out with my jacket to shield her from it.
But I’m not. Instead, I watch as droplets turn the white top under her unzipped hoodie transparent, revealing the outline of her bra.
Pink. Lace. Of course it is. I bet her panties always match, too. In fact, I bet her whole underwear collection is as sweet and silly as her stupid sins. The girl wouldn’t know a real sin if it slapped her in the face.
God, I can’t stand girls like her.
As she approaches the car, we lock eyes and she slows to a stop. She stands there in the glow of my headlights, shuffling from one foot to the other, like she’s just remembered I’m her ride and she’s contemplating if it’s safer to run back to Cove instead.
I last three seconds before impatience gets the best of me and I lay on my horn. She yelps, then mutters one of her stupid bird puns, and I hide my smirk behind the back of my hand when she flings open the passenger door and scurries inside.
Yeah, you’re real bad, girl.
The car tires screech as I turn the wheel into full-lock and peel out back in the direction of Devil’s Cove.
“Is your father Stig of the Dump?”
Next to me, I feel her still. “What?”
I glance in my rear-view mirror, just as the forest disappears behind a bend. “He lives in the woods. Nobody lives in the fucking woods.”
“How would you know if anyone lives in the woods? You’re not exactly the Mayor of Devil’s Dip.” She shuffles in her seat. “Bet you don’t even know who the mayor of Devil’s Dip is.”
Another smirk prickles on my lips, and I chew the inside of my cheek to stop it from forming. The only thing bad about this girl is her bite.
“You kiss my uncle with that mouth?”
“Unfortunately.”
Something flickers in the pit of my gut. Something I don’t want to name.
I clear my throat. “Smart-assed women don’t go over too well in the Cosa Nostra, Magpie.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she mutters.
The tone of her voice urges me to steal a glance at her, and I immediately wish I hadn’t. She’s staring straight ahead, my jacket draped over her lap and her hands absentmindedly stroking the wool fabric. I forgot I’d tossed it onto the passenger seat, and she didn’t mention anything when she got in the car. And now she’s sitting there, using my fucking jacket as a blanket like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
My hand hovers over the heater dial, but then I pause. Move my hand back to the wheel without turning it up. My jaw’s grinding so hard my teeth ache.
“He’s a ranger.”
“What?”
Aurora rummages around in her purse and pulls out a chocolate bar. She peels back the foil wrapper and, watching me with big, doe eyes, she takes a bite. If she’s doing that on purpose, it’s fucking working. I shift in my seat to stop my dick swelling.
“My father. He’s the Devil’s Preserve ranger. Well—he was. He’s retired now, but still lives in the cabin by the lake.”
I frown. “A ranger of what? A few shitty trees and a swamp?”
“Are you serious?” she splutters. “Devil’s Preserve is a world-renowned nature reserve. It has more than three hundred different species of trees and is home to thirteen pairs of American Bald Eagles. You know the only place in the world that has more nesting Bald Eagles reported than Devil’s Dip? Yellowstone. Oh, and you know what else?” She leans forward, clenching her fist around the fabric of my jacket. My jacket. “It’s home to other rare birds, too. The Trumpeter swan. Ospreys. Marbled Murrelets. Not to mention all the other animals—otters, the cougars, the British Colombian wolves.” Flopping back in her seat and taking an angry chomp of chocolate, she adds, “It’s a lot more than a few trees and a swamp.”
Rain hammers on the windshield. Radio static crackles between us.
And suddenly, it all makes sense.
“Alberto wants to build a hotel in the Preserve.”
Aurora stiffens, then turns to look out the passenger side window. Her shallow breathing mists up the glass, and she uses the heel of her palm to wipe it away.
Letting the silence blister between us, I turn my attention back to the road, head pounding. A few months back, Big Al called my office, requesting an urgent meeting. I sure as shit wasn’t flying all the way back to the coast for no damn reason, so he came to me in London, blueprints tucked under his arm, Dante nipping at his heels like a loyal dog. He unrolled the plans over my desk and stabbed a fat, ring-clad finger in the middle of the expansive forest of the Devil’s Preserve.
A woodland retreat, he’d said, practically spitting with excitement. Russian and Saudi tourists love shit like that.
I’d taken one glance at the blueprints, another glance at my watch, then told both he and Dante I wasn’t interested. Sure, I don’t give a flying fuck about Devil’s Dip, but I know what Alberto and his slimy son are like. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. One hotel in Dip will turn into two, and before I know it, Devil’s Dip will be Cove Clan territory, just like Dante always wanted.
And so what if it was? I’ll never come back here. The right thing to do would be hand over the land to Alberto and his sons, let them do whatever the fuck they want with it.
I have no reason to say “no” except I’m a malicious, stubborn bastard.
A few days ago, Alberto dropped the idea into conversation again in the cigar room. He said they were still going ahead with it—not in Devil’s Dip of course—but up on the north headland in Devil’s Cove.
I’d nodded and grunted in all the right places, but I couldn’t give a flying fuck what Alberto does within the borders of Cove. Come to think of it, it was strange that he didn’t push it further. That he didn’t try to lay on the pressure, offer me the world until I agreed to give him what he wanted, which I’ve noticed is his usual tactic in business.
No, he just let it go. And now I realize why. He’s tricked Aurora into believing the preserve is his territory, and he’s dangling it over her head as an excuse to get between her legs.
My knuckles whiten over the steering wheel. I could bring this whole engagement crashing down with one sentence of truth. My mind goes to a darker place: if she’s marrying Alberto because she thinks it’ll save her precious nature reserve. What would she do for me if I told her I was the one with the real power?
Static travels the length of my cock. Fuck. I wouldn’t waste time with petty shit like the pretense of marriage. Instead, I’d put that smart mouth to work.
Suddenly, her eyes dart back at me. “What’s funny?” she snaps.
I realize I’d huffed out a laugh. One swimming in disbelief.
I pause, running my tongue over my teeth. What my uncle does is none of my business. Besides, let’s be real—if she doesn’t give him what he wants, contract or not, he’ll just pop her off anyway. This chick doesn’t need to hear my opinion, but that doesn’t stop it rolling off my tongue.
“You’re marrying Alberto Visconti to stop him cutting down a few trees in the Preserve. Jesus Christ,” I rake my fingers through my hair, shaking my head. “You’re even stupider than you look.”
I wait for her to bite back, but her retort doesn’t come. Out the corner of my eyes, I watch her pink mouth open and close just as quickly. Then she twists her hands together, and turns her attention back to the Devil’s Cove promenade passing in a blur outside the window.
Whatever. I don’t give two shits what this chick does. Whether that’s marrying my seventy-something-year-old uncle or chucking herself off the side of the cliff.
Heat prickles under my collar, and I pop the top button. I never pop my damn top button.
We ride in heavy silence until we arrive at the gates of Alberto’s beach-side mansion. Then Aurora sits up a little straighter. Starts coiling that curl around her finger again.
She clears her throat. “So, uh. We have a deal?”
My gaze slides lazily to hers. “Deal?”
“Um, my calls…you won’t listen to them, right? That’s what you said?”
Pulling onto the front drive, I kill the engine and look at her. Really look at her for the first time, not just with stolen glances from the head of the dining table, or over my whiskey glass in the basement bar.
Looking like that, she could never be a sinner. Her eyes are too big. Each of her pitiful secrets swirls in her irises, which are the color of warm whiskey. Her skin is too pale and perfect. The slightest sin will make her flush a beautiful shade of pink. My gaze drops to her plump, parted lips. And that fucking mouth. The only sound inside the car is the small, shallow breaths escaping it.
A familiar feeling swirls through my veins like a nasty virus. It threatens to poison the moral compass I’ve tried so hard to build over the last nine years.
But I’m fooling nobody. My moral compass: it’s as weak as a house of cards, and if Aurora lets out one more fucking breath like that, she’ll blow it down.
Fuck. My dash says it’s forty-eight degrees outside, but it’s a fucking furnace in here. I wish my Bugatti wasn’t so small. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel the heat rising from her, or smell the sweetness of her perfume.
Curling my hands into fists, I tear my gaze away and glare at the car logo embossed on the center of my steering wheel.
“A deal goes both ways, Aurora.” Her hot, shallow breaths stop. Thank God. “What do I get in return?”
“What?”
Her whisper goes straight to my dick.
“Nothing is free in this world. How are you going to buy my silence?”
The air is so thick I could stick out my tongue and taste it. What the fuck are you doing, Angelo? I shouldn’t be playing these games with my uncle’s fiancee. I should lunge over her, kick open her door and tell her to get out. Rid the car of her fucking vanilla and chocolate scent and heavy breaths and those shiny blond hairs I know I’m going to be finding strands of everywhere for the next few days.
But then her voice comes out in a low, sultry rasp. “Well, what do you want?”
Fuck.
I drag my eyes from the steering wheel back to her face. Her stupid, girlish face and those big amber eyes, which are now wider than usual.
Heat crawls under my skin like an itch I can’t scratch. I pop another button. Rub my hand over my jaw. Then I laugh a small, bitter noise that doesn’t belong to me.
This is ridiculous. I eat girls like Aurora for breakfast. Only I don’t, ‘cause I’m not going to lay it on my uncle’s girl. Even if that uncle is Alberto, and even if his girl looks like…
That.
I’m not going to grab her by the base of her nape, pull her closer, and see how those soft lips taste. I’m not going to wind my fist into that hair and scrape my teeth along the length of her neck until she moans all of those silly little secrets of hers in my ear.
“Get out.”
Aurora doesn’t move. But if I sit in this car with her any longer, I’ll either cave or put my fist through my dashboard. Or both. So I pop my door and get out and stride toward the house. Rain pelts down on me, sizzling against my skin yet doing nothing to cool me down. Behind me, I hear a car door slam.
“Wait!” Aurora’s soft voice carries through the wind, and I hear the crunching of gravel under her sneakers as she tries to keep up with me. “Angelo, please, don’t—” Looking up, I realize what has cut her off. The front door opening and her fiancee, my uncle, darkening the doorway. His eyes look to me, then to Aurora and back again. He folds his arms over his enormous gut and frowns.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” he mutters. “You could have got the girl an umbrella.”
The girl. I stare into the amber glow of the foyer behind him and lean against the pillar propping up the roof of the porch. “I’m not your associate, Alberto.”
His gaze skims over me warily. “Of course, of course. Well, I appreciate you helping me out in a bind. She would have been bleating on all week if I hadn’t let her see her father.”
Aurora climbs the steps, panting. She glances over at Alberto, then to me, sheer panic clouding her eyes. I slip my hands in my pockets and hold her gaze.
“Sweetheart, you’re back.” Alberto steps out from under the doorway and pulls her slender frame against his. “Give your fiance a kiss, then.”
My heart thumps against my rib cage, but I keep my expression neutral. Unbothered. Aurora takes a step back, but Alberto’s grip only tightens.
“What?” she says, with a tinkling little laugh.
“A kiss, Aurora.”
Her eyes shoot up at me, and I refuse to back down from her gaze. Refuse to help her, either. You got yourself in this damn mess, get yourself out of it.
Alberto leans in and presses his wrinkly lips against hers. My fists clench in my pockets, but I force myself to watch. It feels like watching is punishment for my own sins. She recoils under the weight of him, holding her hands out in the air at an awkward angle as he lays it on her. It feels like fucking forever until he pulls away.
I have the sudden urge to punch something, and if I don’t get off this porch right now, it’ll be my uncle’s face. And that’ll cause a war I can’t be fucked to get into.
I push off the pillar and trot back down the steps. “I’ll leave you two love birds alone,” I say icily.
“Thanks again, kiddo.” Every time he calls me that I want to remove his teeth.
The rain trickles down my unbuttoned collar as I stride toward the car.
And then before I can stop myself, I stop. Turn on my heels and pin my uncle with a blistering stare through the sheet of rain.
“I’ll take her to Devil’s Dip every Wednesday and Saturday.”
He looks up from Aurora’s tits. “What?”
“Your fiancee. I’ll take her to see her father.”
His eyes thin. “Why?”
I stare up at the gray sky, looming over the Visconti mansion like a nightmare. “There’s some shit I need to take care of in Devil’s Dip. She’s a local, so she can show me around. In exchange, I’ll drop her off at her father’s house twice a week.”
He frowns at me for a few seconds, then a sly grin stretches across his face. “You coming back, kid?”
A groan rumbles deep in my chest. Hell no. But I don’t say that. Instead, I suck in a lungful of damp air and steel my jaw. “Thinking about it.”
His laugh rips through the storm, dirty and distorted. With a small wave, he turns and heads back into the house. I turn too, my fingers brushing over my car key in my pocket.
As I pass, I slip the key between my thumb and forefinger and drag it along the driver’s side of Alberto’s Roll’s Royce Phantom.
When I get in my car and flick my wipers on full speed, I look up and see Aurora still standing on the porch. It’s growing dark, and the glow from the foyer turns her into nothing more than a dark silhouette. But when I swing the car around, my headlights wash over her.
And for the first time since we met, I see her smile.
I think I like it when she smiles.
