“This is some place and some view,” she said, walking along the wall of floor-length windows that faced the door.
I watched her silhouetted against the twinkling New York skyline. “It sure is,” I said, looking at her only.
She stopped and turned, leaning her back against the glass. “Well, why did you bring me here? To give me real estate envy? I certainly wouldn’t get claustrophobia in here.”
That’s right. She’d told me at the bar that small spaces freaked her out. I was glad my favorite apartment made her comfortable.
I approached her. She had her hand in her pocket and looked ready to bolt. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Cici was like a light, suddenly appearing in the dark, and I wasn’t going to let her away without locking her down somehow. I needed more information about her, a way to find her again, a chance to tie her to me in some inescapable way.
“You know why I brought you here. You feel it too, don’t you?” I asked as I cupped her face with my hand and brushed her silken skin. I’d never sat with a woman an entire night, not touching or kissing, only talking and laughing. I felt like a schoolboy, alone with his first crush.
“Feel what?” Her voice was confident, but a shudder ran through her at my touch.
I knew that shudder. I felt it too.“This.” I leaned in, sweeping my lips across hers. “This isn’t usual or common. This is something else,” I murmured, my lips brushing hers with every movement.
I saw her slim throat bob as she swallowed. Was my girl nervous? Join the fucking club. I was, too, for the first time in living memory.
“Maybe for you. I hook up with random trivia savants in bars all the time at the weekend,” she murmured, teasing me with those blue eyes.
“Is that right?” I advanced on her, sliding my hand from her jaw to her neck and circling it.
I wanted to feel the pulse of her nerves against my skin. I wanted to know I was affecting her a fraction of how she was affecting me. I leaned down and took her ear lobe between my teeth, biting down nearly to the point of pain and then sucking the offended skin. Her hands came up to grip my shoulders, not pushing me away but holding me close.
“Liar,” I murmured against her skin.
She was quiet, full of silent thoughts I wanted to hear. I pulled back and gazed down into her eyes. The moment felt important, like all the years I’d been alone and reckless, angry, hurt, mad at the world, had somehow coalesced into this moment, here, with this remarkable woman.
“Tell me this is ordinary to you,” I commanded in a voice that had made grown men quake in their steel-capped boots.
She bit her lip, her hands falling from my shoulders. Her eyes seemed sad at that moment, too sad to take in. I never wanted this woman to be sad. I’d slay all the demons in the world for that look to be banished from her eyes.
“I can’t. It’s not ordinary. It’s something else,” she said in a rush of an exhale like it was a guilty confession she had to get rid of.
My mouth curved with a victorious grin.
“That’s why it’s hard,” she continued, stilling me. That regretful look was back in her eyes, torn and bleeding blue. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
Those nonsensical words were the last I heard before I felt it. A sudden pain in my neck, a sharp prick, and warmth flooded my veins. Clinically, I knew what was happening. She’d injected me with a sedative of some kind if I was lucky. Poison, if I wasn’t. In the few moments I managed to keep my feet, I saw a long tear streak down the rounded apple of her cheek, and then there was only darkness and a disappointment so deep, I could have drowned in it.
CHAPTER5
Antonio
Now
Ibrought her back to the downtown apartment. I had three others in the city, but this was personal, and this place was the crime scene. She’d betrayed me here two months ago, and I didn’t want to forget it. I couldn’t afford to forget it for a moment, or she’d slip back under my skin like poison, and I’d never get her out.
This exercise wasn’t about embarrassing myself further, it was about punishing the guilty party, and that was Chiara De Luca.Cici.God, I was such a fool for this woman. Only twenty-two, and she’d played me masterfully. Now, it was my turn.
The apartment was silent and empty, as I’d planned. I had security outside, unlike that night two months ago when I’d gone off the rails. Considering the briefcase of information I’d had inside my home that night, I should have had double the usual security. Instead, reeling from Vincenzo’s news, I’d had no one and come home with a beautiful stranger who’d screwed me. She hadn’t even relieved my blue balls after a night of build-up before drugging me and skipping off with the briefcase a client had paid the Lucianos a million dollars for.
“Make yourself at home, tesora.” I dropped into a chair in the open plan sitting room and watched her as she stood uncomfortably in the middle of the open space. The last time she was here sat heavily between us.
She sighed, sounding tired. “Seriously? All this just to re-enact that night? What are you going to do? Drug me? Fuck me? Hurt me, like I hurt you?”
My fists balled on my lap.“Who says you hurt me?” I drawled.
She cocked a hip, holding her arms over her chest and fixing me with a look that told me my cool act wasn’t cutting it.“You say it by bringing me here. By orchestrating this entire thing.”