A server waltzed past with another tray of drinks and I snagged one, not bothering to inspect the contents as I drained the glass dry. The liquor coursed through my veins, making everything a little blurry. But I liked the sensation, hovering between being drunk and sober, when the edges of reality began to shimmer and shift into something else.
My eyes scanned the room, landing on Enzo. He stood immediately across from me, the sea of tables and bodies separating us. Our eyes connected and he trapped me there in his icy gaze.
Something had happened to him. Something before losing his father in the accident. It had made local news. Vincenzo Marchetti taken too soon from his family and friends. Arianne tried to tell me Enzo was just grieving, but it didn’t explain the way he’d betrayed me with that skank.
I didn’t know what had happened. I wasn’t allowed to know. But I knew it was something bad. He wasn’t the same Enzo I’d known a few months ago. Sure, he was still the quiet brooding mafioso, but he was different now.
He was cold and cruel.
It didn’t stop me from crossing the room to him though. My body hummed with electricity with every step, the thread tethering us pulling taut and reeling me in.
When I finally reached him, he didn’t chastise me or taunt me. Enzo grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the party, out of a staff exit and down a long, empty hall. I stumbled behind him, drunk on liquid courage and high on pure lust.
This was a bad idea.
The worst.
But I couldn’t stop myself. I was under his thrall, completely at his mercy.
He grabbed a door handle at the end of the hall and pulled me inside. There wasn’t even a chance to get my bearings before he was pushing me up against the wall and pinning me there, his big hand wrapped around my throat.
“You’re playing with fire, Gattina.” Enzo dipped his eyes to mine, searing me to the bone.
But I wasn’t scared, not even a little bit.
“Yeah?” I smirked, loving how his eyes danced with torment. “Well, maybe I like the burn.”
Chapter 5
Enzo
She was under my skin.
I’d watched Nora all night. Watched as Matteo and Dane continually tried to lure her onto the dance floor with the promise of a good time. I knew Matt was probably doing it to piss me off, but Dane… that kid was too fucking self-absorbed to see past his own needs.
I knew she would be here. Arabella loved Nora. Sia too. I knew the root of their obsession with the girl with fire in her eyes and love in her heart.
Nora was good, too fucking good. But she was also strong, and unafraid to speak her mind, determined to go after the things she wanted.
And thank fuck, she still wanted me because the second my eyes landed on her tonight, I knew I had to have her again. I was a selfish bastard, concerned with only one thing, feeling her tight little body beneath me.
It probably meant something different to her. She probably thought it was my way of apologizing. It wasn’t.
It was sex.
Nothing more, nothing less.
“Fuck, you’re sexy.” I clawed at the skirt on her dress, trying to find her pussy.
“And you’re moving too slow,” she hissed, grabbing my hand and guiding it to her damp panties. “God, yes,” she cried as I rubbed her over the lacy material.
Of course, she was wearing lace. I smirked. Nora was good, but she was also as dirty as fuck. It’s why I wanted a repeat. The sex had been mind-blowing. I could use that kind of tension reliever tonight.
Dipping my fingers into the lace, I curled two inside her wet heat, rolling my thumb over her clit.
“Enzo, God…” she breathed, her head rolling back against the wall with a thud.
“Guardami.” I growled, squeezing her throat gently. It would be so easy to snap her neck, to watch the life drain from her hypnotic eyes.
Fuck, what was wrong with me?
I didn’t want to kill Nora. I didn’t even want to hurt her. But killing my old man, pulling that trigger and watching his brain splatter all over the wall, had flipped something inside me. Unleashed a darkness I wasn’t sure I could contain.
“What is it?” she panted. “What’s wrong?”
I hadn’t even realized I’d pulled away until her voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Enzo?”