“Man’s got a point,” Nicoli says. “With Dinali out of the picture, it’s one less fucker to worry about.”
I look at Maximo at the same time he looks in my direction. The knowing look he gives me tells me where he stands, what his opinion is of Rome’s idea. It’s a stupid fucking idea, but it’s the best one we’ve got right now.
I grab my phone off the desk and dial a number, my nostrils flaring as I glare at Rome who seems confident in this plan of his. “Pull back,” I say into the receiver. “Call it off. Let the parole happen, but I want to know every last detail, from his last meal served in prison, the last shit he takes in that place, right down to the second he walks out,” I bark at my lawyer. “I want to know everything.”
I hang up, my pulse racing, and warning stabbing a thousand blades in my skull. “This plan better fucking work.”
ChapterSixteen
LEANDRA
Iwake to darkness and suffocating heat. Sweat clings to my forehead, and a sheet of moisture covers my chest. The sheets are twisted around me, and I struggle to get out of them, my breaths coming in short gasps. That’s when I hear it, the sound of ice cubes clinking in a glass. I stop moving and listen, awareness trickling in, and I reach out for the lamp.
“Don’t.”
I freeze. “Alexius.”
“You should have said no.” His voice is like the roll of thunder in the dark. “The day at your apartment, you should have said no.”
“Would you have accepted it if I said no?”
“Probably not.” There’s a second of silence. “Definitely not.”
I shift on the bed, narrowing my eyes, trying to see through the darkness. “What are you doing?”
Ice cubes clink again, and I know he’s on the couch across from the bed. “I’m just sitting here watching you sleep.”
“Why?”
“That's all I’m allowing myself at the moment.”
My skin prickles. “Is there something else you’d rather be doing?”
Silence is his only reply, and there’s a delicate stir inside me.
“Can I turn on the light?”
“No.”
“I want to see you.”
No response.
I narrow my eyes, blinking, trying to see him. “Then I’ll just get up and find you.”
“Don’t,” he warns.
“Why not?”
“I’m already struggling to control myself by just watching you sleep. If you come closer, that will no longer be the case.”
My fingers grip the sheets, heat spreading through my core, and I’m overcome with how badly I want him. “What would happen then?”
I hear the ice. “I’d want to touch.”
My breath turns rapid, and I reach up my neck, brushing my fingertips across my skin, the silk of my nightgown soft against my flesh. “Then touch me.”
“If I touch you, I’ll only want more.” He scoffs. “That’s the problem with me. Nothing is ever enough for me when it comes to you. The more you give me, the more I want.”