Dirty Indiscretions: A Dark Mafia Romance

by Roxy Sinclaire

  I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn't laugh at how surprised she was, arranging my expression into one of mock hurt.

  "Why, Elda," I murmured, teasing. "Why do you look so surprised? You're hurting my feelings."

  She blinked, and a light flush painted her cheeks. "Well, can I help it? You don’t seem like the type to sit for hours in a dancing class. To be honest, I suffered through them in my younger years but only because I was forced to."

  She was entirely serious. I couldn’t help laughing. "It's not that bad. Though I will admit, I was bribed into taking lessons."

  She looked cautiously interested. "What could possibly make you do anything you don’t want to do? I can't think its money."

  There were a lot of things, one of those things was even the reason why I worked for Greco. Once upon a time I used to be respectable—if not quite a respectable citizen—before I turned into a mafia boss's pet. It wasn’t exactly my dream job; I didn’t think it could be anyone's unless they were born a psycho.

  I didn’t let her see any of that or the turmoil my emotions had suddenly been rolled into, keeping a teasing smile on my face.

  "I was told it was a good way to get girls," I told her honestly, shrugging. "Not that I ever needed help in that department, but it was something I could use to impress women. What guy could resist that?"

  "A smart one?"

  I laughed, having to work to keep it quiet. "Elda, I am insulted! Are you implying I'm not smart?" My smirk sharpened despite my teasing tone. I didn't want her to misunderstand.

  By the way, she pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing on me, I didn’t think that would be a problem.

  "I think you're smart, Luke. Very smart in fact, too much so for both your good and mine."

  Her tone matched mine, but my own eyes narrowed at the words. I held her tighter in my arms. She let out a soft gasp as our chests met and pressed a little closer, but I didn’t let it distract me.

  "Enough about me. I'm just as curious about you, if not more so, Elda."

  Caution crossed her face, and she settled her expression into a calm smile, her eyes giving nothing away.

  "There really isn’t anything interesting about me, Luke. I'm nothing but an average girl."

  I snorted. "Average girls don’t look like you do, or appear at these kinds of parties. Try another one."

  "I don’t know what you're talking about," she said breezily.

  I tightened my arm for a moment before relaxing again, but it was still tight. We practically had matching faces by this point, pleasant with just a hint of a smile. To anyone looking, we were just dancing and having a boring conversation while trying to look like we were paying attention to the other.

  "How about we start on why you're here when I know you're not on the guest list."

  She let her eyes widen. "There was a guest list? But I didn’t see anything at the door."

  "Not at the door here, no. But you see, Elda, this is an island. A very private, very heavily secured island, no matter how lax the security looks with all these guests here. To get here, you must pass by the port, the only place where you'll find a boat to get you across. You don’t even get that unless you were vetted beforehand."

  I paused, waiting for her to add something. She just watched me with that fake pleasant face. I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or annoyed.

  "It's not exactly an easy party to crash. I don’t know why you would go to such trouble, but I would really like to know why, please."

  "But Luke, I don’t know of this guest list you speak of. I got news about this party from a friend, who also happens to be a friend of the family, and I decided to attend. I got on a boat at the port just like everyone else, I had absolutely no problem. And we were led up from where we docked to the entrance, and we all just walked inside."

  "There's a guest list, Elda. I saw it."

  Technically, I'd only perused it because I wasn’t stationed at the door. No one was, really, but for a couple of men to guard the open doors into the foyer, look over the people going inside and close them once the last of the boats had been brought in.

  But my memory was impeccable, and there weren’t so many names on the list that I would forget one. Certainly, not a name as unique as Elda Abba—it wasn’t exactly an everyday name, many would consider it old-fashioned, if not just odd, not even in a pretentious crowd like the one I found myself in.

  "Fine, I'm not on the guest list," she admitted. "By the time I heard about the party, there wasn’t time to get an invitation. But it was such a good opportunity and I was free…"

  "So, you were in the neighborhood and you dropped by?" I didn’t hold back on the skepticism, or the suspicion.

  "Really, Luke, you make it sound like a crime. A friend asked me to this party and I said yes. I didn’t realize until afterward that I needed an invite, and by then it was too late to get one."

  "It kind of is a crime," I pointed out. "It's not quite breaking and entering, but being here without permission is the same as trespassing."

  Not that the boss would ever go to the cops for something like that. It would be kind of hilarious if he did. I didn’t think there was a precinct in the US that didn’t have someone aware of who he was. His activities weren’t exactly hidden, there was just enough never proof to get him locked up.

  Her smile sharpened, just a little, but I was looking for something, and I caught it. I waited for her to say something, whatever other excuse she could come up. But she said nothing.

  "Elda," I began, making my tone serious. "Why are you on this island?"

  "I don’t know what you're talking about."

  "Don’t play dumb." I changed tactics. "What's the name of the friend that invited you along?"

  "I hardly think it's any of your business. They didn’t make it, anyway, and because they already had an invitation… something came up and my friend was unable to make it, so I borrowed it."

  "Is this friend a woman?"

  "Why is that important?"

  "I can imagine you walking in here under some woman's name easier than a man."

  The smiled widened. "Don’t you know? It's not so uncommon to find a woman with a name predominantly considered masculine. It's all the rage nowadays, or so I hear. Pity, my mom didn’t get behind the trend."

  "Your name is pretty," I said honestly, and added, "and very unique. I can count on one hand exactly how many Eldas I've heard of, and I would have four fingers left. If your name was on the guest list, I would have seen it. But it wasn’t," I said pointedly.

  She looked amused. "Do you realize you have an accent?"

  I rolled my eyes, spoke dismissively, "So do you."

  It was distinctly Italian, hard to miss, but then I'd found myself around it a lot in the past few years.

  She ignored me. "I didn’t notice it before because I was… distracted. But hearing you talk so much, this close, I think I can hear it."

  I gave her an indulgent look. I worked hard to get rid of my accent, long before I left home and got recruited into the army. Though I didn’t properly refine it until later. After I left, I learned a lot of different accents because I moved around a lot before I thought it was okay to settle.

  "Your accent, is it Irish?"

  I knew it was a distraction tactic, but it worked, my face going blank with surprise and caution. She, of course, took it as my confirmation, her lips curving up in a smirk.

  "So, I did read you right. It's incredibly faint, but I seem to be paying you extra special attention tonight, Luke Bable."

  I clenched my jaw, feeling a little disturbed. The surname Bable wasn’t exactly common, but it wasn’t quite so obscure someone wouldn’t have come across it, no matter how slim the chance. She could have made a guess and had the possibility of getting it right. If she'd taken the cue from my name, though, she would just have said British. Singling out that my accent, no matter how faint, as Irish was a little too specific for my taste.

  Still, she could hav
e been taking a shot in the dark, in which case, I'd essentially shot myself in my own foot by reacting to it. But no one had associated me with the country since I left it, and I was ashamed at how shaken it left me. And she'd said it with such confidence, I'd had no reason to assume she was bluffing.

  With how I reacted, I might as well have shouted the answer in her face.

  It was entirely possible the accent was still with me, but I never let it out. I was entirely too relaxed and not on my guard around this woman, or as she'd said earlier of me, she was just too sharp for both her good and mine.

  I lost my composure, and with it, my patience.

  "What are you doing crashing a wedding and looking like you belong here?" I asked, bluntly.

  If it were just a normal party, she could have bluffed her way out of it, but she was certainly not invited as only family and friends of the family were in attendance. Which meant she must have sneaked in somehow.

  The kind of people that did that sort of thing, were people like me. People with something to do—that was not legal—in a place that they were not invited. That would, potentially, leave something lost or someone harmed.

  I narrowed my eyes, holding her tighter again, and I congratulated myself for not letting her body distract me. Instead, I felt the firmness of it against my own, remembered what her legs felt like under my palms beyond the soft skin. Her body was toned and though that wasn’t so suspicious, a lot of women exercised, it got me to thinking.

  And that was when she ruined whatever serious atmosphere I'd been building, leaning her body fully into mine until I held most of her weight, her face coming too close to mine. I was too easily distracted by her, her scent alone shorting out my brain functions and reminding me of the position I'd literally had her in not an hour ago. A position I wanted to have her in again—any position would do for me, really.

  "Come one, Luke. Aren’t you getting to be just a little too curious?"

  "Curious about what," I muttered, trying to talk myself into arranging my thoughts into something appropriate.

  She got even closer, though it seemed impossible at this point; I didn’t think there was even room for air to pass between us. Her hands moved from my shoulder blade, her arms wrapping around my neck as her lips moved to my throat.

  "Ask me, Luke," she whispered softly against my skin, making me shiver.

  "Ask what?"

  I could feel her lips curve into a smile against my neck. Her arms blocking her movements from the other dancers, because she parted her lips against my skin, lightly sucking at my throat. I jumped a little, almost breaking us out of rhythm and bumping us into another couple, but I saved it with another spin. I only had the barest attention to our surroundings; she was taking over all my senses.

  "You want to know what I'm doing at the wedding, right?"

  Her arms readjusted as she moved her mouth higher, her lips wrapping around my earlobe, nipping a little with her teeth and licking away the light sting. My body shivered.

  "I could show you if you wanted."

  I must have been more distracted than I thought, it took me way too long to realize that she was, essentially, flirting with me.

  It was working.

  Chapter 8

  Elda

  I was, in a way, trying to trick him. If anyone noticed what we were doing, no one cared, and Luke didn’t stumble again.

  He was affected, I could tell and I was very pleased with myself, but I couldn’t remain unaffected, either. I could feel my nipples harden as I pressed into his chest, my body growing warm, desire building up.

  My attraction to him was strong, too strong, and I wanted more of him.

  I didn’t go for mediocre men, but it wasn’t a term I could associate with Luke. He was big and hard all over, and all I could think was having him over me, under me, pressing me into whatever flat surface was available and having his way with me.

  He certainly had the looks. Not classically handsome, but the term certainly applied with his firm chin, angular jawline shadowed in dark fuzz, his dark brown eyes. Even when he was looking at me like he wanted to get me alone somewhere and tie me down so he could interrogate me, all I could think of were all the other things we could do with either one of us tied up.

  I wasn’t particularly vain, though. Looks were okay, but looks were not all I looked for in a man. I never stuck to any one man for long anyway, so that was never a problem for me. I liked my men interesting. The kind of interesting that held my attention long after first impressions ruined whatever fantasy I built up in my head from just looking. And to determine if they were good for a fuck. I had to admit, I usually fell for dangerous men, with personalities that matched the world I'd immersed myself in because it allowed me to let go. I didn’t like suppressing myself for the sake of my partner.

  At first glance, he looked more like a fantasy, but I could sense there was more to him than met the eye. I knew he was dangerous because he worked for Greco, but my tastes were not that simple. A man could be dangerous without being interesting to me at all, but Luke had both.

  It was messing with my mind.

  "Do I have to ask really nicely, first?"

  His voice brought me out of my distraction, and I gave his fleshy earlobe another light suck, before releasing him and pulling back, just far enough so I could meet his eyes, but close enough that we were still breathing each other's air.

  It took me a moment to realize he was flirting back, and a smile, wide and genuine, curved my mouth without my permission.

  "I don’t know. I like the look of you, I might just let you off easy."

  His eyebrow went up, eyes lowering to my lips. I licked them automatically, and his eyes grew hot.

  "So, you're only with me for my looks?" he murmured.

  "You caught me," I whispered back.

  His eyes slid back to mine, and I could feel the blush rise in my cheeks, my lips parting as my breath came a little heavier. I knew he wanted me back, just as much as I wanted him. We were pressed too closely together for me to not feel the growing hardness against my lower abdomen, and I knew even without that, but feeling his obvious physical reaction that he couldn’t control had me throbbing in need, moving around fluidly was becoming difficult.

  "Can I say something?"

  "What?" I asked, curious, not in control of my thoughts enough to realize I was probably setting myself up for another interrogation.

  He surprised me. "It was a lie when you said you were average."

  My eyebrows shot up. "Yes, you established your opinion on the matter already."

  His arm tightened around me, so tight I couldn’t breathe, and he had nearly all my weight against him as I went to the tips of my toes, my legs at this point just following his. It lasted for just a second, but I was extremely aware of his hard body pressing against mine, and the strength of it, that we didn’t break out of rhythm again and it was because of his effort.

  "There is absolutely nothing about you that is even remotely average."

  The heat in his eyes and the seriousness of the words clashed as he let me breathe again, and I knew he meant the words in every way possible. I admitted to feeling a little flattered, but only in my head.

  But I caught the glint in his eye, in that moment when I was practically at his mercy I realized something more about Luke. He was absolutely my type, and he might just be more dangerous than I thought.

  I'd assumed he was one of the low workers in Greco's empire, but what if his role was a lot bigger than that? Someone as smart, as strong as he seemed to be, wouldn’t just be doing grunt work. If he was just part of the security team, would he be allowed to dance with a guest?

  I didn’t think so.

  But Greco wasn’t a man that surrounded himself with many people that could come close to being his equal, not having them so near, unless it was an outside alliance. Of all I'd been able to find out, I was positive about that.

  Was he Greco's hitman? That idea alone, that Greco
would let his hitman appear at a wedding was almost ludicrous, but what did I know? He would be a man not many in the organization knew, one of the men Greco let get closest to him out of all the men in his ranks. No one could give me a basic idea of what he looked like, so few even knew of him, just that there was someone.

  I felt a shiver run down my spine as I realized it wasn’t entirely out of the question.

  I didn’t have proof to verify it but considering the weight of the situation, I didn’t need to. The best way for me to get out of the wedding alive was to stay with Luke.

  "Let's get out of here."

  I felt my eyes grow wide in confusion as he pulled me out of my thoughts with his sudden declaration.

  "What?"

  "I have a room here, it's upstairs and out of the way. We could go up, have some fun…" he smirked. "You won't even have to hold in your screams."

  My body shivered, and for a second I wasn’t sure exactly what screams he meant—screams of pleasure or of horror?—but then he led us into another spin that let me feel his erection press firmly against me, and I remembered why I planned to stick to this man anyway.

  "Let's go."

  He grinned for a second, fiercely, before his face settled into a faint, pleasant expression, and he steered us toward the edge of the dance floor. When we were right at the edge of it, he stopped pretending we were still dancing and released me, taking my hand and pulling me behind him.

  Chapter 9

  Luke

  I was being careless, but I didn’t care. With the current mood, no one in the party was going to be surprised people were sneaking off, they'd be too busy themselves anyway. I led her out of the room, heading for the stairs hidden around a corner.

  There was no one on this side of the room, there didn’t need to be. No one was stupid enough to go snooping in Greco's room, even if half of the people present didn’t know about his more interesting activities.