“Antonio,” I started, but he held up his hand, silencing me like a damn child.
“Get your stuff. We’re leaving. Now.” He turned and stomped off.
Dante glanced over my shoulder at Lorik then his gaze settled back on me. “A cop?”
I shook my head. “It’s not what you think, Dante.”
“What am I thinking, Karina, huh?”
“Enzio was being an asshole. Lorik was just—”
“Just what? Acting like the jealous boyfriend?”
“No. Of course not.”
“It sure fucking looked that way.”
The second Lorik stepped up behind me, I felt him. All my senses tuned in to him, and my entire body reacted. My fingers craved to touch him. My skin hungered to be touched by him. And my thighs longed to be wrapped around his waist while my body welcomed him inside. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get my racing hormones under control. It wasn’t exactly the right time for me to be horny.
“Listen, man,” Lorik started, but I spun around and held up my hand.
“Just…please. Leave it alone, okay? You’ve done enough.” I didn’t look at him. I didn’t even breathe because I was too afraid my body would betray me by showing exactly how he affected me. His scent, his presence, those damn eyes—it all teamed up in a bid to lure me in like a damn fish on a hook. It was embarrassing, really, to have a man affect me like this so damn easily.
He didn’t say a word—thank God—so I turned and stomped past Dante, heading up the stairs to get my stuff as per instruction by my control-freak brother.
This night literally got sucked into a big black hole of giant fuck-ups. I should have listened to my instincts and stayed at home. And I needed to stay away from Detective Stone—far away.
Chapter 9
LORIK
That certainly went well.Not.Clearly, this entire night did not go according to plan. My plan was to sit at the far end of the bar and quietly observe the Valentis. All I wanted was to try to get a new piece to the puzzle of what the fuck was happening in this town.
Ending up watching Karina—and only her—for bulk of the evening was not part of the plan. And neither was talking to her, or almost kissing her in the middle of a damn nightclub filled with hundreds of people. But I couldn’t help myself. She demanded all my attention the second she walked through those goddamn doors.
There was something about her that made me want to be close to her. And that something left me no choice but to approach her. The moment I was near her, feeling her breath on my skin, I fell under her spell.
And her scent? Dear Lord, that sweet smell of honey and vanilla made me crave to taste her. Fuck a nibble, and fuck just a sample of her full lips and sensual body, I wanted to completely devour her until there was nothing left. All I could think about when I stared into her dark eyes was how badly I wanted to take everything she had to offer and make it mine by marking her, by fucking her until my name was engraved into her goddamn soul. And something told me that was exactly what she wanted too—to be claimed. Until that jackass Enzio decided to show his ugly face.
What I really didn’t plan on doing was shoving Enzio Mancuso’s face into a damn wall. But the son of a bitch pressed all the wrong damn buttons. And what really got to me was seeing the effect his assholery had on Karina. It was clear as fucking daylight every word that came out of Enzio’s mouth rattled her, and for that reason alone I wanted to tear the fucker apart.
The question was, why would I feel the need to do that? Why did it bother me so much that Karina seemed to have a history with Enzio? Obviously, something happened between them. It didn’t take a detective’s intuition to figure that one out. But whatever happened caused some pretty deep scars for Karina, that was for sure.
And because I had to act all chivalrous like a knight in shining fucking armor, I managed to get my ass right in the middle of this mess. A cop associated with a mafia princess might as well walk around with a big, red flashing sign over his head saying, “Here I am. Kick my ass, fuckers.”
And why the hell had she acted that way? Like I was the one who did something to piss her off?
“Fuck!” I almost knocked a tray of shooters out of a waitress’s hands. “Shit, sorry.” I helped steady her and ignored the stare of death she shot me.
My sweeping gaze found Karina on the top floor. Antonio and Dante were already descending the stairs, and it was painfully obvious Antonio was extremely pissed off. And why wouldn’t he be? The first thing you learned in Mafia 101 was never to fraternize with the enemy, which in this case was Enzio Mancuso. And then there was that shitty rule of not having any kind of relations with a cop, and after what went down, I was pretty sure Antonio and Dante were under the impression there was something going on between me and Karina. Which there wasn’t…was there?
My gaze was glued to Karina as she made her way down the stairs. I knew I should let her leave, that I should back the hell off. But there was a very insistent idiot inside me who kept pushing me, gnawing at my goddamn spine to pursue her until I was buried balls deep inside her.
Everything about her triggered an uncontrollable animalistic urge in me to spread her legs and feel her pleasure gushing down my thighs. I wanted to make her shudder and scream. I wanted her clawing at my back as my cock forced her to come violently, until all she could see was fucking stars.
I pushed my hand through my hair and took a deep breath, trying to convey the message to my cock that now was not the time to stand at fucking attention. There was more important shit right now than creaming some Italian princess’s pussy.
I continued to watch Karina, my gaze moving to the exposed insides of her thighs as she took each step. The closer she got, the harder I got.