trickles out of the car radio, even though it’s only mid-November. Heat blasts from the vents on the dash, and the condensation on the window does little to cool my burning skin when I press up against it.
The tension in the car could be chipped at with an ice pick, and it feels like a survival instinct to breathe as shallowly as possible to stop myself choking on it. Angelo says nothing. Does nothing, except drive too fast and breathe too heavy.
I wonder if he can hear my heart slamming against my chest, or the nervous chatter of my teeth. I wonder if he cares. Because while I’m uncomfortable in the most maddening of ways, having been stripped naked and my vulnerability carved onto every inch of my flesh for all to see, he has said nothing.
Not when I told him the truth. Not when the tears finally came. Not when I insisted on going back to Devil’s Cove. When I walked back to the car on unsteady legs, I expected to feel his tight grip on my wrist, pulling me back, but it never came. And now, my stomach is growing heavy with every mile closer we get to Alberto’s house.
As the gates of the mansion come into view, I squeeze my eyes shut. I pop them open again when there’s a loud screech, and the safety belt cuts deep into my neck.
“What the hell?” I choke out, palming the dashboard.
Angelo is silent, a thousand-yard stare on his face. Thick tension rolls off him, sucking what’s left of the air in the small space. His fists tighten on the steering wheel, then he releases it and drags a knuckle over his beard.
“You’re not going back there.” His tone is matter-of-fact, a stark contrast to the rage blistering off him like freshly stoked flames. “Not a chance in hell.”
The smallest, most hopeful part of my heart collapses in relief. Thank god.
But then I take a deep breath and glance up at the mansion behind the gates. A colonial cage in all of its sick, twisted glory. It’s a prison, but if I don’t willingly walk through the door today and lock myself behind its bars, I’ll only make it worse for myself and my father. “Angelo I—”
“Not another word.” The sharpness of his tone slices my protest in half. One-handed, he spins the wheel into a full-lock, the car roughly mounting the verge, until we’re facing the way we came.
“Stop, Angelo.” My hand shoots out to grip his bicep, and I feel it flex under my touch. “Please.” Now, it’s my voice that’s the most vulnerable part of me. “You’re being selfish.”
His jaw tightens. A small shake of his head. When his gaze clashes with mine, my breathing staggers from its violence. “If you think I’m letting you go back there and be man-handled by that drunken cunt, you must be smoking crack.”
His glare burns against my cut lip, and instinctively, I clamp my top lip over it. Irritation sparks in my chest. I’m suddenly reminded that Angelo Visconti doesn’t get to be demanding. Not if he’s going to whip up a storm and leave me here in the debris. I tilt my chin up. “Are you going to stay?”
His eyes flash. A beat passes. “I’m going to get you out of this.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
His tongue runs over his perfect teeth, each silent second another bullet wound in my pride. With a bitter huff of embarrassment, I reach for the door handle. This time, his tight grip comes. Iron-like and unrelenting, a handcuff around my wrist.
“You heard what I said. You’re not going back there.”
My skin burns as I twist my wrist in his grip. “Let me go. You’re only going to make it worse for me.” He doesn’t move. I shoot a glare at him, baring my teeth. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“Yeah, you seem to have that effect on me.”
My eyes flutter shut, but I refuse to buckle under the weight of his half-assed compliment. “If I don’t go back there, what do you think Alberto will do to me then?” I raise an eyebrow and wait for an answer. All I get is a snarl and a nostril flare. “You’re thinking like a thug, not caring about the consequences.”
His shoulders lower a fraction and I know I have him.
“I need a plan,” he mutters darkly, eyes darting out of the windshield. “I need to bide my time.”
It seems like he’s talking more to himself than me, but I answer anyway. “Exactly,” I whisper back. “Letting me go will bide your time.” His eyes narrow on me, but before he can shoot me down, I say, “Think like a businessman, not a thug.”
He falls silent. Swallows. Then gives the tiniest shake of his head, before rolling his eyes up to the roof of the car. “I must be mad,” he sighs. “Utterly fucking mad.” When his gaze shifts back to me, something dark and determined swirls among the emerald green. “Open the glove box.”
With shaky hands, I open it and a silver gun glints back up at me. Angelo lunges over and grabs it, placing it between us on the central console.
“Come here.”
I look back at him, confused. The car is tiny and there’s nowhere else to go. Impatience flickers over his features, and with a barely audible hiss, he unclips my seat belt and tugs me onto his lap in one, swift motion. The movement is like silk, but it grates over my skin, rough as sandpaper, making me feel raw and alive. My heartbeat stops, and instead, I can only feel his thumping against my spine. He’s hard and warm and the way his masculinity surrounds me like a death hug makes me feel delirious.
His fingers graze my hip, lighting my nerve endings on fire. His breath skitters over my throat. A few beats pass before he picks up the gun again and lets the magazine land on the passenger seat with a dull thud.
“If I can’t protect you, I’ll teach you to protect yourself,” he rasps. With his chin resting heavy on my shoulder, he wraps my right hand around the gun, pressing my fingers into the ridges. “Dominant hand first,” he says, lips brushing my neck. His palm grazes my thigh as he reaches for my other hand and lifts it to hold the butt of the gun. “Support the weight of it with the other.”
His hands leave mine and trail a gentle path up my arms and land just beneath my breasts. My nipples tighten, and I fight the urge to grab his hand and slip it inside my bra cup. Instead, I white-knuckle the grip of the gun and fall back until I’m leaning flush against him, my head against his chest, my ass pressing against his crotch.
His heartbeat thumps a little louder. Something stirs in his slacks. Christ. Nothing but heavy breathing and tension fill the car and although I feel like I might die, I’ve never been more alive. His hands tighten around my ribs. Lips brush against my neck. “How does it feel?”
I don’t know whether he’s talking about the gun or his cock, now straining to slip between my ass cheeks.
I swallow. “Big.”
He huffs out a laugh against the nape of my neck, raising goosebumps on my skin. Dropping his hands a few inches until they meet my hips, he pulls me closer to his body, rubbing me slowly up the length of him. The friction sparks like a live wire. “What about now?” he murmurs, voice dropping an octave.
I respond by arching my back and grinding against him. His moan is guttural and the way it vibrates against my neck sends my head spinning. I drop the gun into my lap and close my eyes, drinking in every last drop of this delicious moment.
I feel safe, warm. Excited.
Until the realization hits me with the speed of a freight train: It should have been you.
It should have been Angelo’s door I ran to when I heard the Devil’s Preserve was going to be knocked down. I should have sunk to my knees on his doorstep; should have signed my name in blood at the bottom of his contract. But some twisted turn of fate meant he was an ocean away, and I was left to make an empty deal with a man who makes my blood curdle.
It should have been him. Sure, it would have been a twisted start to our story, but I know, simply by the way he makes my body sing, it would have had a happy ending.
I pop a lid and draw a deep, shaky breath. Nausea flips my stomach. Behind me, Angelo stills. “Not too late, Magpie,” he murmurs darkly. “I can take you back to Devil’s Dip right now.” His teeth scrape the shell of my ear. “You’d look good in my bed.”
My moan leaves my mouth like melted butter. In another life. But I’m living in this one, and in this one, I need to save myself and my father. Grinding my teeth together like it’ll help me think straight, I pick up the gun and balance it in my hands. “Why did you give me this?”
“If he so much as touches a hair on your head, you shoot him. You run. And then you call me. Understood?”
I nod.
“I’ll put my number in your cell.” When I don’t answer, he strokes his thumb over my stomach and says softly, “Rory.”
Something in the way he says my name pulls me to look at him. I twist around, meeting his dark gaze. It flickers with something I don’t recognize.
“I will get you out of this. I just need to have a plan in place. Do you trust me?”
I chew on my wounded lip. With every second of silence that passes, anger brews behind his eyes. They study me intently, and it feels like the tiniest spark would make all of the tension between us explode.
But I’m not thinking about whether I trust him or not. I’m wondering why I’m so sure that I do.
I trust him. He has all of my sins and not a single one of them has slipped through his lips. But trusting him to get me out of this doomed deal with Alberto is akin to me jumping off the edge of the cliff and believing he’ll be at the bottom to catch me.
When really, I know it’d be safer not to jump at all.
I offer a small nod.
“No. Use your words. I need to hear you say it.”
My gaze falls to his mouth. Hope inflates my chest, and I pray to God that it’s not false. “I trust you,” I whisper.
His eyes flutter shut but if I’d blinked, I’d have missed it. “Rory?” His thumb pad carves a trail over my jawline. It stops at the corner of my mouth, but I turn my head to catch it between my lips. He lets out a soft moan, watching me, eyes half-lidded with lust, as I slowly lick it.
“Yes?”
Danger sparking in his eyes, he pushes his thumb further into my mouth, and with wetness pooling between my thighs, I open my mouth wider to take him all in.
“Out of all my sins, you’re my favorite.”
