Smoke (The Carelli Family Saga #1) - Eden Butler Page 0,3

a little fuzzy when I was around him. I couldn’t help it.

The light from the bathroom slipped out through the darkness and moved over his features, hitting the sharp, fine angle of his cheekbones and the full, thick curve of his mouth.

He was beautiful.

Strong, even laying against his pillow, turned toward me and his fierce, masculine features relaxed as he seemed to move between exhaustion and sleep.

There was something about him I could never keep away from. No matter how hard I tried.

And it wasn’t just him.

It was them.

Smoke, his parents, his brothers and sister. They’d all taken me and my boy in when they didn’t have to. Brought us in from the snowy Christmas night like it was their pleasure to know us. They’d given us a family. A home. They’d given me a job and a place to belong.

And Smoke? Even though when this all started six months ago, we agreed there could never be anything real between us, somehow I always ended up back here. In his bed, pressed against him, being owned and loving every second that I was.

But then I’d leave and go back to the apartment I shared with my son and my friend Vivian, the older woman Smoke had rescued from her abusive husband, and pretend like I hadn’t been in his bed again.

“There’s more there than either of you will admit,” Vi had told me the last time she’d caught me sneaking in from a night with Smoke. If she could see me now. God, she’d laugh at me.

I rubbed my face, thankful she was out of town for a few days, but even if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t confess a thing to her. Or myself.

Smoke Carelli was a dangerous man. That much I’d figured out for myself. I knew about his family and the family business they were in. It was his life and the danger in his line of work kept him from wanting more from me.

There were little pieces that were mine. Pieces of him that no one else got. And even if I did want all of them—which I didn’t, of course I didn’t, it was only the little pieces Smoke would ever give me.

That was the problem.

I wasn’t a little pieces kind of woman.

And I’d never let my son want less than he deserved either. His father never cared enough to want anything to do with Mateo. No matter how good Smoke was to us, I couldn’t let him do the same to my son. Problem was, he was an addiction. Every time I swore I’d stay away, he’d kiss me or touch me and I’d come right back.

Every single time.

He barely moved when I wiggled from his heavy arm and slipped away from the warmth of his large body. I wouldn’t stay all night like I normally did. Smoke probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

The floorboards creaked when I shimmied my jeans over my thighs and I jerked, half-turning and pulling away from Smoke’s grip on my arm as he reached for me.

“Where are you going?”

He was so long and tall he didn’t have to do more than stretch an arm toward me to keep me still. All that beautiful olive skin was on display—those corded muscles twisting as he brushed his fingers over my shoulders.

“I—” My mouth wouldn’t work. Not when Smoke stifled a yawn and played it off with his fingers scrubbing through his thick, black hair. There was a tempting scruff of stubble along his chin. Despite knowing I needed to tell him my plans to move to the city, there was an overwhelming sensation to rub that scruff over my bare breasts.

“Bella?” he said, moving his head as though he started to worry about why I was gawking at him while standing half-dressed in my jeans and unhooked bra. His attention went straight to my nipples when my black bra slipped off one shoulder, then Smoke leaned up, resting on an elbow as he pulled me toward him with a hand curled around my waist. “Get back in bed.” His voice was deep, raspy from sleep. That sound alone could make a teasing throb pulse between my thighs. Smoke knew it, seeming to use it to his advantage when I hesitated. “Maggie,” he whispered, saying my name like it was a filthy word only he got to use. This time his voice going deeper, his mouth right against my naked breast as he pushed my bra to the floor. “You don’t wanna leave me.