clicks shut behind me, a pair of battered Chucks step out onto the punny welcome mat across the hall. My gaze skims up to meet Matt’s lopsided grin.
“There you are.” He tugs on a beanie. “Thought you might’ve had enough of your sticky carpets and 8B’s rock music and skipped town again. How have you been?”
I wouldn’t say I’ve been avoiding Matt, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hold my breath and mute the television when he’s knocked on my front door a few times.
The moment he found out I was at the hospital, he turned into Florence Nightingale. He feels guilty because he didn’t know I’d left the wedding, even though it’s my own fault because I didn’t tell him. Although I’m back to my usual self and my wound is barely more than a mark, he’s still checking up on me and bringing me dinner. I’m definitely not complaining about free food.
I decide to move the subject away from my head for once. “What’s up with 8B, anyway?”
It’s a good thing I don’t sleep, because the neighbor sandwiched between Matt’s and my apartments blares out shitty music at all hours.
His eyes light up as we descend the staircase. “Wanna know something crazy?”
“Always.”
“I’ve lived here for almost five years, and I have absolutely no idea who lives there.”
We step out onto icy cobbles under sunny skies. I slow to a stop and squint up at him. “For real?”
Matt slides a pair of Ray Ban’s up his nose. “Uh-huh. Never seen them in the hallway and never seen any letters or parcels get delivered to their mailbox.” He glances up at the building then drops his voice. “Get this. Once, I came home from a night out pretty fucking high, and the music was psyching me out. So, I took a glass and put my ear to the wall. You know that trick, right? Makes everything louder?”
I nod.
“Yeah, well underneath the blaring music, I could hear drilling.”
I bite out another laugh. “No you couldn’t.”
“I’m being serious, Penny. And this was at three a.m. What the fuck are you drilling at three am?”
We fall into step, fighting against the blistering wind as we walk down Main Street. The sun is already sinking toward the horizon, creating a sharp orange glow over the cobbles. “I think you need to lay off the weed.”
“I think you’re right. Anyway, how’s work going? Has Anna said anything about me yet?”
I haven’t had the heart to tell him she’s a massive bitch yet. Especially not when he’s been leaving pizza pockets on my doorstep.
“Ah, you can do better than Anna,” I say breezily. “A guy like you could get Beyonce, if he wanted.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll cross my fingers she swipes right on me on Tinder.”
I’m still laughing as we reach the end of the road. We’re about to part ways, when his attention drops to my wrist. “Hey—nice watch!”
I stretch out my arm and the Breitling winks at me, like we’re in on a private joke.
After a restless sleep, I woke up late this afternoon filled with the hot flames of vengeance. Last night, Raphael had made me feel a whirlwind of emotions. I was irrationally pissed he was with a woman, conflicted that he calmed me down during the thunderstorm, and then crazed when he slid his thigh between mine. His presence filled the phone booth and soaked into my skin, and I hate that it doesn’t wash off as easily as his aftershave.
I’m wearing his watch and I know it’s not just to annoy him, but also because if I’m playing this dance with Raphael, I’m not thinking about Martin O’Hare and him telling national news he’s going to take matters into his own hands. I’m good at shoving bad things right down to the pit of my stomach, as long as I have something to distract me.
Raphael Visconti is a very welcome distraction.
Thanks to my newly acquired timepiece, I’m punctual today, so the sleek staff shuttle is still bobbing at the end of the jetty when I arrive at the dock.
As I’m hoisted onto the craft by one of Raphael’s steroid-induced flunkeys, I’m all sunny smiles and small talk.
Anna’s scowl melts into a smirk as Claudia whispers something in her ear, but then the engine bursts into life under the bench and I find it impossible to give a flying fuck. I close my eyes and bask in the salty assault, finding freedom in tangled hair, wet cheeks, and a numb nose.
There are worse commutes, I suppose. And besides, Martin O’Hare isn’t going to find me in the middle of the Pacific, is he?
The roar of the engine simmers to a shuddering idle, and when I open my eyes, I’m met with a gaze sharper than a needle and just as capable of popping my helium-filled heart.
Raphael stands on the swim platform, a contrast of crisp black lines and gold accents glinting under the winter sun. He’s broad and tall and, even with fifty feet and a strong current between us, his presence touches my soul like a Zippo flame dancing too close to an oil spill.
The boat bumps against a fender, the suit-clad skipper secures the mooring line, and Raphael takes a smooth step forward. Dice cufflinks wink and a gold poker chip disappears into the pocket of his slacks.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he says smoothly, a satin smile carved into his dimples.
A giggly chorus floats around me. I turn my back and sigh into the wind, wishing it’d carry me back to shore. Maybe even over the border to Canada.
“Allow me.”
A silky tone and my own curiosity turn my head just enough to see Raphael hitch up his slacks and extend a large hand to Katie. He pulls her up onto deck with ease and chuckles when she falls against his chest.
“I’m sure there’s something in the staff handbook about drinking before a shift, Katie,” he jokes. “I’ll let it slide this time, all right?”
He winks, she blushes, and I wonder if drowning really is as bad as everyone makes out.
Claudia elbows her way to the front and extends her hand. “My goodness, who’s the lucky man?” Raphael drawls, swiping a thumb over her diamond ring.
“That’s not my ring finger, Mr. Visconti.” She giggles and waves her other hand in the air. “This is my ring finger. And as you can see, it’s very much bare.”
Raphael pins her with a lazy smile. “Phew. I thought you were about to break my heart there, Claudia.”
With an itch in my blood, I glare out to sea and try my best to tune out plastic pleasantries and shameful attempts at flirting. Laurie aside—she’d simply patted him on the shoulder and fled for the nearest bathroom—these girls must have three brain cells between them if they are gullible enough to fall for Raphael Visconti’s act.
His charm is like his aftershave—intoxicating. But when you get too close to the source, like I did last night, you can see it for what it really is: a thick satin veil hiding the danger that lies beneath.
“Penelope.”
His voice is colder when it touches my nape, making my lids flutter shut. A nervous energy hums under the surface of my skin now. I’d thought it was a genius idea to slip his watch on when I passed my suitcase this morning, but now, with its former owner just a few feet behind me, I’m a little less brave.
I galvanize my spine and turn around. Unfortunately, I’m the only girl left on the boat, and unless I fancy swimming back to shore, there’s only one way off it.
Raphael glances over his shoulder at the sound of the door behind him clicking shut. When his gaze comes back to mine, it’s five Pantone shades darker.
“I don’t have all day.”
“And I don’t have a broken leg. Don’t need your help, thanks.”
He glares at me for a beat too long, then shifts his attention to something above my head and extends his hand. He can feign apathy all he fucking wants, but the tick in his jaw suggests he’d rather get his teeth pulled than have me grab hold of it.
“Wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me not to help you,” he says dryly.
Like he suddenly remembered something else he’s forgotten to be pissed off about, he runs an eye down the side of my thigh, lets out a hot hiss, and returns to glaring above my head. “And it wouldn’t be very ladylike of you to get off the boat with your ass hanging out.”
“Not like you haven’t seen it already,” I snap back. My heart flutters at the memory of his staring at me in the locker room.
“Yes, but my men haven’t,” he says icily. “And we’re going to keep it that way.”
Only now do I realize he’s not staring into the distance merely to avoid looking at me, but rather, he’s staring at something. Someone. I turn around and catch the skipper looking at the backs of my thighs, as if lost in thought. Feeling the weight of two pairs of eyes, he looks up, flinches, and quickly turns away.
I sigh. Men.
“Up. Now.”
Jeez. I look down at the large hand under my nose. Blue rivulets under olive skin and neat, blunt nails. A shuddering breath escapes me as my mind floats to two scenarios:
That hand sliding over the dip of my hip.
It tightening around my throat.
Soft. Hard. Each, unfortunately, as enticing as the other.
Clearing my throat in an attempt to regain some sort of control, I slip my thumb and forefinger around his wrist, between his watch strap and cuff. I slide his sleeve up an inch and reveal what I already knew would be there.
Ink, and lots of it.
Just like his charm and his aftershave and Sunday morning smiles, his bespoke suits are yet another veil, disguising the darkness that leaks from the inside out. The private security. The yachts. The autonomy over a whole fucking coastline. It’s so blatant that Raphael is a bad man, and I wonder if all the women who look at him with hearts in their eyes just choose not to see it.
How am I meant to be good when I’m obsessed with something so bad?
Heart beating in my throat, I graze my thumb over Italian script. Stroke the corner of a Joker playing card. A cocktail of curiosity and lust blooms hot between my thighs, partly because he doesn’t stop me from pushing up his sleeve a little farther, and partly because I ache to know how far up his tattoos go. Half sleeve? Full sleeve? Or do they cover every inch of his sculpted, tan skin, like sinful secrets under a blanket of Brioni?
I look up to find him watching me, his own curiosity softening the planes of his face.
“You don’t fool me,” I murmur.
My smugness is short-lived, swept away by a flash of green and two strong hands hauling off the shuttle. They slip under my arms and carry me like a rag doll across the swim platform and into the jet ski garage. My back slams against something hard and I brace myself for the moment my head meets the same fate.
But the crack doesn’t come, because Raphael’s hand slips behind my crown and cushions the blow, while the other hand claps down on my mouth and absorbs my scream.
Oh shit. I’m pressed up against the darkest, quietest corner of the yacht, and despite its sophisticated silhouette, I’m not entirely sure the animal trapping me in is domesticated.
My pulse whooshes in my ears, the sound almost lost to the roar of adrenaline licking my body wildfire. I’m panting, and the wry amusement swirling through Raphael’s gaze suggests he’s enjoying how each of my ragged breaths dampen his palm.
“Let me—”
Uncertainty flares up behind his ice-cool demeanor and his grip tightens around my jaw, ending my protest with a full stop. It’s barely the twitch of a muscle, but just like the squeeze of my breasts and the flex of his thigh against my pussy, the insinuation feels so much heavier.
He takes a leisurely step closer, obstructing my view of the only exit.
“Haven’t you heard, Penelope?” he muses. “Red heads should never speak first when they step onto a boat. It’s—” He stops himself. Rolls his shoulders back and corrects his smile. “Inappropriate.”
My pussy clenches around the word inappropriate. He must have noticed, because he punctuates my moan against his palm with a sharp tug of my hair. Christ.
With a lazy smirk, he searches my half-lidded gaze, as if admiring the frenzy he’s sent me into. His eyes travel further south, grazing over my neckline, before coming back to meet mine with an edge of approval.
“As much as it pains me to admit it, you’re rather hot when you’re gagged.”
Sweet, holy hell. My clit beats to the tune of his flippant taunt; my nipples ache for the friction of his chest against mine.
A hot palm against my mouth, thick fingers in my hair, and the smell of chlorine mixed with his signature scent assaulting my nostrils: I’m falling into the black abyss of sensory purgatory, and Raphael Visconti is peering over the edge, waiting patiently for me to hit the bottom. It feels like if I don’t claw my way out immediately, I’ll die at the mercy of his large hands and smug smirk.
I push back against his hand behind my head, creating a millimeter of space between my mouth and his palm. I stick my tongue out flat and I lick.
Slowly. Sloppily. Steam rises from my blood with every inch of his palm I cover.
Realization crawls over the hard planes of Raphael’s face, and then the humor in his gaze flicks off like a light switch, plunging us into the ice age.
My breathing slows. My triumph sparks.
A smile curves his lips again but this time, it’s cold and calculated. Loaded with ill intentions, each of them meant for me. Before I can twist my head out of his grip, he removes his hand from my mouth and drags it down the side of my cheek, hard, coating my clammy skin with my own saliva.
What the fuck? It’s a childish retaliation, but the wet weight of his palm gliding frictionlessly over the angle of my cheekbone sends a violent shiver to the nerve endings in my clit. Christ, it feels so sordid, so obscene—a dirty kink I didn’t know I was into. Before his palm slides off my chin, he hooks his thumb over the curve of my bottom lip to keep it there.
I forget to breathe. Forget to feel. I’m too focused on the dark fascination clouding his eyes as he glides his thumb from one side of my lip to the other. I might have my own fucking saliva dripping down the side of my face, but a nasty flare of satisfaction spreads behind my aching breast. I’ve stood in front of enough hungry men to recognize that look. Sinful ink, yachts, and fat wallet aside, I’m the one with the upper hand here.
I’m winning this game.
I prove it to myself by clamping my teeth down on his thumb as it comes back to the middle of my lip. A blaze of annoyance, a hot hiss of breath, and then Raphael’s gaze snaps up to mine.
Three irregular heartbeats pass before he gains enough semblance to drag his thumb from my mouth and rest it lightly on the indentation of my chin.
“I bet you bite when you fuck,” he says pensively, as if talking to himself rather than me.
My heart hitches. “And I bet you a hundred bucks you’re hard right now,” I answer.
I don’t know why I say it. Drunk on lust and wishful thinking, perhaps. But something in my words seems to be the antidote Raphael needs to regain his composure. He untangles himself from me and takes a step back. He looks at his wet hand in mild amusement, plucks out the pocket square from his suit jacket and wipes it between his thick fingers.
With one last lingering look, Raphael tightens a cufflink and turns on his heel.
“You’re a dog, Penelope,” he says breezily over his shoulder. “I should look into putting you down.”
“They already tried.”
His footsteps slow to a stop and he glances back at me. “And?”
“I bit the vet.”
Silence. Then his laugh, dark and dangerous, floats over and caresses my skin like a long-time lover. The pleasure of it ripples through my center and settles like a weight in my already soaked panties.
Just as Raphael strides out of the garage and out of sight, a light thump hits the deck. On shaky legs, I walk over and see what he dropped.
Now it’s my turn to laugh, although it has a more nervous undertone than Raphael’s did.
Five twenty-dollar bills in a silver money clip.
