his chair and presses his body close to me. He smells like he’s showered recently, but I’m sure I smell smoke underneath. Gun smoke.
“Are you trying to run from me, Hazel?”
There’s a vicious glint in his eyes. When his hand smooths down my body, cupping my ass, I get the sense that he needs this. He needs control. He needs to assert himself. And whereas normally, with anybody else, it would piss me off, with Carlo, it’s different. I want to be his canvas.
“What if I did?” I shoot back. I reach forward and grab his erection, rock-solid through his trousers. A thrum moves through me. “Would you punish me?”
I give him a squeeze.
He grabs my shoulders and spins me around. Then his hand is between my shoulder blades, pressing me down. I grip onto the desk and stick my ass out. I offer myself to him. I don’t understand how I can be this wet, this fast. It doesn’t make any sense, but I’m soaked, and even though I came in here with a purpose, right now I just want him.
“Fuck me hard,” I moan. “Take out your pain on me, Carlo. Take out your anger on me. I just want to feel your—I just you to—I just want—”
It all happens so fast. He must’ve slid his cock out through his zipper. He doesn’t even take off my panties. He just pulls down my leggings around my thighs and pushes the panties aside.
“F-fuck,” he snarls. “Oh fuck.”
I buck my hips, looking over my shoulder at him. His blue-green eyes are fixated on my ass. It’s like nothing else exists. His face is intent. The whole desk is juddering as he fucks me hard and fast.
A sudden orgasm ricochets through me. I bite my lower lip so hard I think I taste blood. But it’s hard to be sure. All I feel is his cock.
“You’re so tight,” he pants. “So fucking hot.”
“Yes!” I moan. “Yes! Fuck—yes. Come for me, Carlo. I want you to come at the same time as me.”
He presses my ass cheeks together. My vision is blurry as I watch him watching me.
And then he comes, grunting and masculine, and collapses on top of me.
“Is that a yes?” I sigh when we’ve both caught our breath.
We stay like that, my breasts pressed against the desk.
“I’ll take you to the club.” He kisses my cheek, oddly tender. “But if you try to run, there will be consequences.”
“Ooh, I like the sound of that.” I wriggle my hips. His softening cock begins to harden again. I start to grind, to slide up and down. “But let me ask you, Carlo. Does it really feel like you’re in charge here?”
He groans deeply as I begin to ride him. And, crazily, I realize that I don’t want to run. I realize that, no matter how unlikely it might be, I’m happy here with Carlo. Maybe we can really make this work.
18
Carlo
Later that night, I’m sitting outside Nario’s hotel with Ubert behind the wheel of the car. There’s a cold rage moving through me as I remember that, only hours earlier, we were outside another hotel just like this one chasing the Irish off. They had the gall to hit my second in his home, and then in the hotel they sent him running to. It was all made even crazier that I got the phone call when I was with Hazel, as if the universe is trying to tell me I can’t live in both these worlds. Sooner or later, I’ll have to pick one.
Whatever the case, these Irish fuckers have gone far enough. Now they have to pay with blood.
Nario looks just as pissed as he strides across the street, fists clenched. But even though his family was just attacked, his first thought as he climbs into the back of the car is of me.
“Let us handle this,” he pleads. “It doesn’t make any sense, Carlo, the don putting himself in harm’s way.”
“Take us to the staging site, Ubert.”
“Boss.”
I turn to Nario as the car pulls away. “Imagine holding Sil as she bleeds to death in your arms. Imagine if you and Sil both died. Then what would your kids do? Who would they grow up to be? No, my friend, you’re not talking me out of this.”
He sighs, slumping against the glass. His gray hair is silver in the night’s hazy light. “Thank you.”
Durante and Maury are already at the docks with the back of the van open, displaying