“Well, alright then,” Vito grins. “Thanks for your time.”
I nod and stand up, making my way over to the door.
As I stride onto the street and over to my black sedan, my heart slams deafeningly in my ears. My stomach swirls and my seed roars at me, almost like it has a voice.
Nothing is ever going to be the same now, it growls. Protecting Rosie is all that matters.
What the hell am I going to do?
I don’t want to kidnap my woman.
I want her to need me as badly as I need her.
But I could just grab her. I own her, after all. I possess every curvy inch of her.
I pull out her photo as I sit behind the wheel, my cock getting stiffer each moment as I gaze at her luscious juicy ass trapped in a pair of jeans.
I let the photo drop and grip the steering wheel.
I need to speak with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rosie
“He should be here any minute,” I murmur, sitting at my mom’s bedside as she groans and moves her hands over her belly.
One thing that helps with mom’s illness is a warm shower, so of course, our hot water has decided to go bust after we got back from her last bout of chemotherapy.
Now it’s time to wait—and hope.
“You’re such a good girl,” Mom groans, her eyes closed as she sinks into the bed.
I smile and give her hand a squeeze.
“And you’re such a good mom,” I tell her.
She grunts out a twisted laugh. “I’m an old mom,” she says.
“You don’t look a day over ninety-five,” I joke, giggling in the hopes to make her laugh with me.
It works, and her laughter is like a warm glow of sun after a storm.
I sigh and sit back as she groans some more, waiting for the knock at the door. Our apartment is so small, I should be able to hear it.
But what if it’s not the superintendent? What if it’s one of Vito’s goons?
Ever since I had to drive mom to the hospital without a license, luckily not getting pulled over, I’ve been flinching at every sound, at every too-quick movement at the periphery of my vision.
I need to take Mom somewhere else, somewhere we’ll be safe.
But where?
I haven’t even got any gas left in the car. I’ve got no money. I’ve got no resources.
I feel stupid as I sit here, waiting for something dreadful to happen, but I don’t know what else to do.
Finally, it comes.
Knock-knock, two heavy pounding noises that reverberate through the whole apartment, like the knocker’s angry.
“See?” I tell mom. “Everything will be fixed soon.”
I walk through the apartment and into the kitchen, taking our sharpest kitchen knife and holding it behind my back. My hand trembles and fear lances through my body in a series of jagged stabbing sensations, trying to cripple me.
I have to be strong for Mom.
“Hello?” I say.
“Open the door,” somebody growls.
Ice freezes my heart and the knife clatters to the floor.
I curse and pick it up, clenching my fist tighter around the handle, telling myself I can use it even if I’m not sure I can.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
“I’m here to save your life,” he growls, his voice husky and firm.
There’s something about the voice – maybe I’m crazy – that stirs something deep inside of me, screaming at me to trust this man, this stranger, even if it’s the last thing I should do.
I’ve never felt like this before, as though I can judge him based on the rumbling gruffness of his voice alone, like a lion who’ll protect our pride no matter what happens.
What the heck am I thinking?
“Are you one of his men?” I say.
“Vito hired me to kill you,” the man snaps, “but I don’t kill women. But he has plenty of men who’d do this gladly. So open the damn door before it’s too late.”
“Do you know how stupid I’d be if I did that?”
The man laughs savagely. “Do you think this door’s made of steel, Rosie? I could kick it down any time I wanted.”
When he says my name, strange tingles dance all over my body, making my belly swirl with light and heat. I even feel my sex getting hot, my panties suddenly seeming rougher and my body more sensitive.
I don’t know this man.
Worse, he’s been sent here to kill me.
What the heck is wrong with me?
“How do I know I can trust you?” I murmur.
“Because I’d die before I let anything happen to you or your mother,” he snarls. “That’s how.”
That strange certainty rises within me again, that this man, this stranger is telling me the truth.
Somehow – impossibly – I feel my body scream at me that I can always trust this man, that I don’t have to doubt him.
Deep inside of me, something goes tight, screeching in a primal song that I should open the door and let him in.
“I don’t even know your name,” I murmur.
“My name is Ryland Radley,” he growls. “I’ve been hired by the Franzese crime family to take you out, Rosie. But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to save you and your mother. But I can’t do that unless you let me in.”
I glance across our small apartment to the open bedroom door, imagining this man – this Ryland – charging in here and sprinting into mom’s bedroom. My mind throws up horribly vivid vignettes of what he could do to us before he finally brought our lives to an end.
“I can’t,” I say. “Please, just go away.”
“Rosie,” he snarls. “If you send me away, they will send somebody else. And the next man won’t give a damn about kicking this door in and killing you. It won’t be a quick death, either. I can’t let that happen to you.”
“Why?” I snap, fierceness making my voice waver. “Why do you even care?”
There’s a long pause. I can hear his breathing through the door, a volcanic rumbling, like any second he’s going to explode and send the door hurtling against me.
“I don’t hurt women,” he says finally. “And I won’t stand by while somebody else does, either. I definitely won’t let them take you out when you’ve got a sick mother to care for. Open the door, Rosie.”
I bite my lip, nerves shivering through me.
Reason screams at me that this could so easily be a trick. He could have practiced this speech before he came over here, this Ryland Radley… If that’s even his real name.
And yet there’s another part of me, inexplicable and buried deep inside of me, that screams at me to accept this man.
I feel my womb throbbing inside of me, which should make me want to laugh. The thought is insane. And yet it simmers beneath the surface, rising up inside of me, boiling through me with the certainty of truth.
My womb aches and throbs and makes every inch of my skin tingle.
“Swear you won’t hurt me,” I say.
“I swear,” he growls. “I’d die before I hurt you.”
I reach forward and grab the door lock, my twisted emotions causing my hand to tremble as I slide it loose. I know this could be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and yet I can’t bring myself to stop the movement.
I grab the door handle and pull it open, trembling more and more each second, convinced that I’m going to be met with the barrel of a gun.
But Ryland is unarmed, standing there in a silver colored suit the same shade as his hair.
He stares at me for long moments, his clean shaven jaw tight, his eyes narrowed. His hair is the color of iron, and his eyes are a bright startling blue. He’s tall, at least six and a half feet, and wide.
His muscles throb through his suit.
I step back on jelly-like legs, my heart pounding heavily in my chest, my clit singing and becoming tingly and super-sensitive against the impossible roughness of my panties.
He steps into the
room, ducking under the doorframe, his lips twisted into a slight smirk. He turns and closes the door – showing me the muscled broadness of his back – and locks it with a definitive click.
He turns back to me, staring down, his jaw pulsing.
“You said you weren’t going to hurt me,” I whimper.
“I’m not,” he snarls, stepping closer, closer until his musky cologne washes over me.
Or maybe it’s not his cologne. Maybe it’s just how Ryland smells, manly and woodsy and overwhelming.
“Then why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper.
He chuckles darkly and averts his gaze, scanning our small apartment. It feels even tinier with his massive body filling the space.
“I don’t like men hurting women,” he says. “So if I seem angry, maybe that’s why. You need to pack a bag.”
“What? Why?”
He turns his gaze back to me, those wolfish blues pinning me in place. It’s like he can see right through me. The crazy thought rises in me that he knows how badly my body is tingling, all my nerves set slight, blazing under his attention.
“Because you’re coming to live with me,” he says firmly. “You and your mother. I have a large estate and I can hire discreet nurses to take care of her.”
“What?” I say, shaking my head slowly.
Surely this is a fever dream.
Any second now, I’ll wake up to find I’m in bed with mom, my hands wrapped around her hot body, her heat and her sweat transferring to me and driving me to wild, impossible fantasies.
Live with this man, in his estate?
“You can’t stay here,” he snarls. “You need to stay out of sight. Vito has to believe you’re dead.”
“For how long? I can’t hide forever.”
“For as long as it takes,” he snaps.
He takes another step forward, his firm body pushed right up against mine now. My breasts flatten against his stomach. My nipples tingle and harden, and a flush spreads over my cheeks and down my neck.
“This could be a trick,” I murmur.
He sighs. “It’s not a trick,” he says. “It’s a… job offer.”
He smirks, his eyes dancing with a teasing light.
“A job offer?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m going to have to empty my estate of all the staff when you come to stay. So I’ll need a maid. I think you’d work very well. Once I get you the right uniform.”
Is he mocking me?
I take a step back, scared that I’ll do something humiliating if we remain pressed so closely together—scared I’ll kiss him.
I can only assume he’s making fun of me because the alternative makes no freaking sense. The alternative is that he’s attracted to me.
I’ve never had much attention from men, or even from boys in high school.
Not positive attention, anyway.
I’ve always been too curvy and angry for them, I guess.
But the way Ryland’s looking at me, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he wanted me, really wanted me, as I’ve never been desired before.
“A uniform,” I murmur. “You want me to wear a uniform for you.”
He grins like a wild beast, a tendon in his neck becoming tight, tense. “You need to pay your way somehow, but we can worry about that later. For now, you need to pack a bag.”
“I can’t just… What will Mom say?”
“Explain it to her,” he says. “Tell her the truth. Tell her you’ll both be murdered in the most violent way imaginable if you stay here.”
He steps forward, brushing up against me again.
My nipples tingle and my insides throb, my panties flooding with wetness. He glares down and for a moment, I think he’s going to press his smirking lips against mine.
But then he swaggers past me and drops onto the couch, folding one leg over the other and laying his arm across the back.
“Hurry up, Rosie,” he says. “I haven’t got all day.”
I walk past him, feeling his eyes burn into my back as I head toward the bedroom.
Or am I just imagining, wishing, projecting?
I know I should question this more, but I’ve spent the whole day waiting for a gun to be shoved into my face.
Having a silver-haired, handsome giant sitting on my couch instead feels like a blessing.
CHAPTER SIX
Ryland
I look around her tiny apartment, clean but far too small, far too cheap-looking for a woman who deserves palaces and gowns and waiting staff, and all the finer things in life.
My balls are still throbbing as I wait for her and her mother to emerge from the bedroom.
Being so close to her makes me ache, my chest getting tight, the base of my cock going stiff and ready to explode any second.
I want to roar that she’s mine, that every inch of her curvy body belongs to me and me alone, but my main priority right now is convincing her to get out of here before Vito learns that I’ve betrayed him.
Telling her she could be my maid wasn’t part of the plan, but the more I think about it, the fiercer my desire becomes.
I imagine her in a little black french maid uniform, the hem frilly white, with thin tights pulled tautly over her juicy thighs.
She’ll bend over for me with the feather duster, looking over her shoulder with those gorgeous fuck-me copper eyes, sticking her ass out so I can see her bare, soaked pussy through the fabric.
I groan and grab a big handful of cushion, squeezing so tight it’s a miracle I don’t tear pieces of it loose.
Resisting the urge to grab my cock and stroke it, just a few times, while imagining those massive juicy breasts of hers bouncing freely… It’s a goddamn herculean effort.
I close my eyes and see how she appeared at the door, in a gray T-shirt pulled taut across her breasts, with her nipples poking tantalizingly through the fabric. The little minx must’ve known the effect she was having on me, appearing without a bra on, driving me more and more feral each second.
I wanted – I needed – to grab her shoulders and shove her against the wall. Tear her T-shirt over her head and toss it to the floor, freeing those juicy tits, palming them, and squeezing them until her skin was red with my possession.
The thought of her pert nipples in my mouth, the taste of them, the heat of them, drives me insane. I feel like I’m going to explode just thinking about it.
Focus, a voice roars inside of me, my professional hitman voice. Get her home first.
I stand up and pace up and down, my hands firmly behind my back to stop myself from succumbing to this carnal song of need.
I hear Rosie’s mom let out a wavering sob, and Rosie’s voice rises.
“I’m sorry,” she moans. “I don’t know why I got involved. But this is the only way we can stay safe.”
“But why?” her mother cries. “Why would he do this?”
“He says he doesn’t want them to kill a woman,” Rosie says.
“And you believe him?”
There’s a long pause.
My chest tightens, my heartbeat hammering up my throat and through my skull.
This moment will tell me a lot about my queen.
If she says no, it means she doesn’t feel the instant need that has taken possession of me.
If she says yes, then it doesn’t mean she feels it… but it means she might feel it.
“I do,” Rosie says, her voice shaking. “I know how crazy that sounds. But what other choice do we have? If we don’t go with him, Vito will send more of his men, and they won’t hesitate, Mom. They’ll kill us both.”
“Let me speak to him,” she says. “Hey, you, Ryland. Come in here.”
“Mom…”
I move over to the bedroom door, still with my hands behind my back. As I walk over, I take slow, purposeful breaths, intentionally slowing my heartbeat and calming my nerves.
The last thing I need is to be brimming with lust as I meet my woman’s mother—the future grandmother to my
children.
I duck under the doorframe, looking around the small bedroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it’s neat, except for the sheets which are crumpled and reek of sweat.
“Come over here,” she says in a frail but firm voice.
I move to the edge of the bed. Rosie glances up at me, biting her lip, and I have to look away before I lose control.
When she bites her lip like that, it makes me think of how she’ll look when I’m plunging my massive cock inside of her, pushing myself deep until she moans that she can’t take anymore, and then push even deeper.
It makes me think of how she’ll cream for me, a whole river of it squirting down my cock as I take what’s rightfully mine.
No, no.
I can’t think like that, not here.
How does she do this to me?
“So you’re our savior, are you?” the woman says, propping up on her elbows with a visible effort.
She’s thin and nearly bald, her scalp covered in tiny pricks of dark-colored hair. Her eyes are bright, though, and full of protectiveness.
Relief strikes me when I see that in her eyes. It’s good that Rosie has somebody who wants to keep her safe as badly as I do.
“I intend to keep you both safe, ma’am,” I say.
“At least you have manners,” she grunts.
“Mom…”
“What?” she snaps. “Am I supposed to pretend that this is normal?”
“I understand that it’s not,” I say. “But your daughter is telling the truth. If you don’t agree to come with me, it won’t end well.”
“Is that a threat?” she hisses.
“Not from me,” I assure her. “But you are being threatened. And the man who’s targeted your daughter doesn’t make threats idly.”
“Hmm,” she sighs.
“What is your name?” I ask.
“Jackie,” she says. “And your name is Ryland. There, we know each other’s names. Are we going to pretend we’re not strangers now?”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair, but I can’t help but smirk at the same time.
“What are you grinning at?” she says.
I chuckle. “I admire a feisty lady, ma’am, that’s all,” I say.
She smiles for a moment and then turns her gaze away, staring at her daughter.
Maid for the Hitman: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 3