his face. “Whatever you say, Baby Girl,” he whispered, shoving off the counter and tucking the gun into the back of his jeans.
He snatched Smaug off my shoulder, the poor lizard looking traumatized as the man cradled the small reptile in his giant hands and ran his left index finger over his tiny head gently before returning him to his tank. The cold fury in Enzo’s eyes never faded as he took a seat at the island next to me in silence and Ivory prattled on in an attempt to lighten the mood.
My finger tapped against my thigh as I bit my lip to suppress the urge to scream. Even in a kidnapping attempt, it was never about me. Just a means to an end to get to Ivory.
That shouldn’t have stung.
But it did.
Music blasted over the speakers. The sound pulsed through my strained muscles with the need to move despite that familiar fatigue that came from a hard workout. I'd never been one of those trainers who sat back and watched. I always had to be in on the action and moving. After the scene at the Bellandi Estate, I’d worked my body even harder than normal to get rid of the lingering rage in my body.
I moved through the room, locking up supply closets and back doors after the last of the evening rush filtered out through the front entrance. Enzo's gaze felt heavy on me as I worked, but I refused to care as I danced to the beat and went through the motions of my lock-up routine.
Moving to one of the empty rings, I hopped up and slid between the two ropes. Turning back, I grinned down at him. With his arms crossed over his chest, and leaning against the wall with his feet kicked out in front of him, he raised his brows at me. A slow smile took over that brutally handsome face. There was nothing in this world quite as sinful as Lorenzo Vescovi. I knew it down to my bones, an unbreakable truth imprinted on my soul that I couldn’t even try to deny.
I was no innocent virgin. I'd had my share of fun, but I'd never had him.
If I wanted to maintain my sanity, it should probably stay that way. Even if it felt like a crime against humanity not to take him for a spin and see if he could live up to all the promise in those observant hazel eyes of his.
He’d been quiet, lurking dangerously behind every move I made, but never moving to take out his aggression on any of the equipment. With the rage simmering in his body, I felt the need to tempt it to the surface. To see what he was capable of, and maybe, if I was lucky, I’d annoy him enough that he’d see I wasn’t worth the effort.
Everyone else knew it. It was time he did too.
"Come on, Big Boy. Nobody to see me humiliate you now," I teased. All day he'd watched me, studying every move I made just a little too closely for comfort. All the fixation he kept attuned to me, even while he worked on his tablet, threatened to unravel the carefully laid out disguise I'd cultivated over the years.
It was part of me, but the outrageous behavior also helped protect me from people seeing the little signs of my disorder. Only Ivory knew the truth, and even that was barely a glimpse into the storm surging inside me every time I glanced around any space I inhabited.
He pursed his lips, that smile broadening to reveal perfectly symmetrical teeth, and gave a tantalizing sweep of his tongue over them. "I can't have you knowing what I'm capable of. Not when you're still planning to bolt the second you get a chance." His words were so similar to the thoughts I’d had only a moment before that I had to work not to show him a genuine reaction.
I gasped, clutching a hand to my chest in mock outrage instead. "Come on, Lorenzo," I purred. "Why would I try to run from you?"
He uncrossed those arms, his broad shoulders seeming even larger as he shoved off the wall and approached the ring slowly. There was nothing objective in his gaze as it ran up my body, from my feet to the booty shorts hugging my thighs and bare stomach revealed by my sports bra. My abs twitched, feeling the fire he lit inside me with just that one glance.