“Go back to sleep, malyshka.”
My heart began to beat again.
“Oh, my gosh,” I breathed heavily in relief. “I thought you were a serial killer.”
A low chuckle came from him. “Not too far off.”
The fifty-pound blanket was only his arm around me, and the heat—that was all him, pressed up against me. No sunlight came in through the window, but the room was still lit. He’d left the bathroom door open and the light on, like I did every night. The thoughtfulness made my heart feel heavy in my chest. But now that I wasn’t alone, it seemed embarrassingly bright in here.
I swallowed. “I could probably sleep without the light, if it’s keeping you up.” Just the thought started a cold sweat beneath my skin.
“It’s not.”
I didn’t know if I believed him, but I forgot about it when I realized he was hard. A rumble sounded in his throat when I shifted and rubbed against him. God, the man was so warm and half-naked, just the press of his body against mine sent my toes curling in pleasure. If I’d known it felt this good spooning with Christian Allister, I would have climbed into his bed years ago, just for this.
I couldn’t help but roll my ass back against his erection. He grabbed my hip, and I thought he was going to stop me, but instead, he grinded me harder against him. Heat drifted and tightened between my legs as I rolled my hips, in nothing but the rustle of sheets and the sound of our breaths.
I turned in his arms, and he rolled onto his back as I straddled him. He ran his hands up my thighs, his half-lidded eyes taking in my naked body.
My gaze dropped to his lips. I couldn’t believe he’d never kissed another woman but me. The man had volunteers lined up from here to China, for goodness’ sake. Though, I had to admit, the fact I’d been the only one—his only experience in that department—was incredibly hot.
Surely, he’d had to put in an effort to keep from kissing the women he’d dated. One would think it’d be easier just to kiss them, and to me, that meant he had a resilient motivation. I knew it wasn’t germs. A couple of the times he’d gone down on me, the man had ventured lower, to a hole I’d never let another touch before, and I doubted he’d just gotten lost. But somehow, I knew, if I wasn’t careful with my questions, they would blow up in my face.
I ran my hands up his chest. “What do you do for the Bureau?”
“Whatever they want me to do.”
“So . . . say they told you to go set fire to the old lady’s apartment next door.”
“I’d set fire to her apartment.”
I swallowed, and the next question came out a little breathless. “Say they told you to kill me.”
I met his gaze.
Possessive blue flames.
And something morally ambiguous.
His hand came up to my throat and his thumb brushed across my pulse. Then, he lightly squeezed. “I’d have to decline.”
The pressure building in my lungs released with my next breath, and I forced a small smile to my lips. “Because I’m too much fun?”
“Because you’re mine.”
My smile fell.
The heat of his stare seeped into my chest, weighing it down with warmth. I slid my hands to the sheets on either side of him and pressed my front against his. I was so much smaller than him, and there was a vivid contrast of my olive skin and his lighter tone amongst waves of chocolate hair and black tattoos.
“Tell me why you kiss me,” I breathed against his lips.
I thought he might answer me this time.
He didn’t.
He rolled me onto my back and made me forget my own name.
“So, do you have a day job . . . or do you just sit around like a superhero villain in your suit and tie, waiting for them to tell you which old lady’s apartment to burn down?” I asked him the next morning, while I still lay in bed and he was buttoning his shirt.
“I have a day job, like most adult Americans,” he said, amused. “I start back tomorrow.”
I pursed my lips. “Was that a dig on me, Officer? I’ll have you know, I have a very busy schedule as it is. You’re lucky I can even pencil you in.”
On his way out of the room, he grabbed my ankle and dragged me down the bed toward him. His voice was rough as he pulled my face up to his. “Move shit around if you have to and pencil me in for tonight.” Then, he kissed me, placing a sharp nip on my bottom lip.
When he left, I fell back to the bed with a sigh and a smarting lip.
I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.
A stupid smile overtook my face.
He got home around eight o’clock that night and stopped short in his bedroom doorway. I was lying on his bed on my stomach, with my feet in the air and my ankles crossed. Naked.
It was bold.
And it was scary.
My palms were sweaty, and my heart galloped at an inconsistent pace.
I lifted a coy shoulder. “I wasn’t sure if this appointment was casual or black-tie, so I decided to come with a blank canvas.”
His gaze coasted the length of my body so heavily it brought goosebumps to my skin. Walking toward me, he stopped in front of me at the foot of the bed and ran a rough palm across my cheek. If I wasn’t mistaken, the smallest tremor ran through his hand.
His voice was soft, but the finest threat wove through. “I can find anyone . . . anywhere.” A thumb brushed my jawline. “Makes me a desirable person to have around. Antonio showed his interest in a partnership, but I had enough obligations and didn’t want to get mixed up with the Italians. I was going to meet with him and decline. But then I saw you.”
My heart went still.
“I sought you out, just to see if you were as interesting as you looked.” His grip on my face tightened, like he was angry that I had been. “And I agreed to work with your husband. You fascinated me, but I began to hate you, too. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I couldn’t have you. And you were so fucking beautiful.” His thumb ran down my lips. “Then, you were single, and I’d already made you hate me, too.”
I swallowed as his hand slid down my throat.
“It was a relief, malyshka, because we were everything wrong for each other. But nothing has ever felt more right than finding you like this in my bed.”
I didn’t say anything, because the words became wedged in my throat.
“Come shower with me,” he said roughly.
He pulled me to my feet, and I padded into the bathroom behind him. In the shower, he pressed me up against the wall, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and then he showed me just how right we fit together—in one way, at least.
I woke up in his bed the next morning to an awful grinding noise. Glancing at the clock, six a.m. stared back at me in ungodly red. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my face to mute the annoying sound.
He’d kept me up until after two in the morning, running his hands and mouth all over me until it felt like I’d been turned inside out, bringing that raw and elusive feeling to the forefront.
The line was blurring.
But it was like trying to stop a train with mere willpower at one-hundred miles per hour.
When I’d tried to return to my own bed, his response had been a simple, “No,” and then he’d wrapped an arm around me, and I’d forgotten why I wanted to leave in the first place.
Getting to my feet, I opened his dresser drawer and slipped on one of his undershirts. I found him at the kitchen counter, already dressed in a suit and tie, pouring green liquid into a glass from the blender.
Amusement filled his gaze at my moody expression.
I narrowed my eyes further. “Since all your other women must have been too scared to inform you, I will. There’s an unwritten rule—nobody starts the blender until the sun rises, and even then, if it’s not margaritas, other conditions apply. Like green, Christian. Liquids should never be green.”
“You have never looked more beautiful than you do right now, malyshka.”
I fl
ushed, my heart growing ridiculously warm. “I’m trying to be annoyed with you, if you can’t tell.”
He smiled. “Ah, my mistake.”
I swallowed. Shifted. “Do you eat?”
He raised a brow, consuming that glass of green yuck in one drink.
“Like, solids? Or do you blend all the children’s souls beforehand?”
He rinsed his glass out and then put it in the dishwasher. How very neat and tidy. It felt like I was messing up his space just by standing in it.
“Yes, I eat.”
He grabbed my hips and set me on the island, spreading my legs to stand between them. He slid his hands up the sides of my thighs, and the warmth of them made me shiver.
I bit my lip. “Italian?”
“It happens to be my favorite.” He sucked on that sensitive spot behind my ear, and every vein in my body melted into a puddle at his feet.
“What about allergies? Do you have any?” I gasped, as he pressed his hard-on against my clit in a slow roll. “Well, besides affection, warmth, and sunshine?”
His chuckle was low and dark. “Keep it up, and you’ll be too sore to make me dinner.”
I hated that he could read me well enough to know I was excited to cook for him, while I still knew nothing about him.
“I should warn you, though, I don’t usually cook for men. It’s just too much of a risk they’ll fall in love with me.”
“I thought you were a gambler,” he drawled.
All I could respond with was a low moan, because his fingers slid inside of me and then he fucked me so hard I could still feel him hours later.
I had therapy at ten and felt guilty every time I had to evade the topic of Christian and this just sex relationship. I didn’t want anyone to pop this exciting, sex-crazed bubble I was in, least of all Dr. Rosamund. I wanted to enjoy this while it lasted because I knew it wouldn’t be forever. We were everything wrong for each other. He was going to realize nothing had changed eventually.
I just didn’t know at the time it would only take a few days.
I made dinner at my apartment because I was too afraid of leaving even a speck of flour on Christian’s sparkling countertops.
I stared at him intently from the other side of his kitchen island while he took the first bite. A half-smile pulled on his lips, but he otherwise ignored me and ate in silence.
My chest grew warm at his expression. “You love it, don’t you?”
A playful glint in his eye. “It’s all right.”
I grinned. “You love it.”
I walked around the island. “You’re not feeling light-headed when you look at me, are you? Or maybe warmer than usual?” I put the back of my hand to his forehead, as if I was checking for a fever. “What about your heart? Has it started beating?”
He was amused. “Actually, I have been feeling a bit different.”
My eyes widened in alarm.
Then, he grabbed my hand and pressed it against his hard-on.
I shook my head with a laugh, shoving him in the chest and turning to walk away, but he caught my wrist and pulled me closer to say in my ear, “It’s delicious, malyshka. Thank you for making it for me.”
His words settled like molten glass in my blood.
I didn’t sleep in my bed that night.
Not the next night.
Or the next.
I STOOD IN FRONT OF my closet, sawing my lip in nervous deliberation.
Why had I agreed to this?
Because he was annoyingly persuasive, that’s why.
The night before, I was sitting cross-legged on his couch watching one of my “trashy” TV shows, while Christian sat at the island and talked on the phone. As soon as he ended the call, he said, “I need you to go somewhere with me tomorrow, malyshka.”
“Where?” I asked absently. Chad was feeling up Rachel, while his wife was next door in the delivery room having his baby.
“A work dinner.”
I faltered. “Like, a Federal Bureau hosted event?”
“Yes.”
I let out a half-laugh. “No way.”
“I always have a date, Gianna.”
I swallowed, hating every word about to leave my mouth. “I’m sure if you put an ad in the paper, you’ll have a variety of blondes lined up down the hall.”
He set his phone down a little more aggressively than usual. “If I wanted someone else, I wouldn’t be asking you.”
“How would you even explain why I’m with you? Some of the feds at this party might recognize me.”
“No one questions me, Gianna.”
“What if they did?”
“I’d tell them to fuck off.”
I sighed. “We haven’t talked about . . . dates, Christian. Don’t complicate this.”
“You’re the only one complicating it. If you can’t handle going to one party with me without expecting a proposal, then just say so.”
Ugh.
He knew I wasn’t going to say those stupid words.
Later, I pushed his meticulously-placed toothbrush an inch to the left in retaliation.
After an hour-long deliberation, I settled on a Marilyn Monroe-esque black sequin gown. Sophisticated but flashy. I smoothed the dress over my hips, relieved it fit.
I was locking my door when he stepped into the hall behind me. Turning around, I quelled the nerves inside me and raised a brow. “Well, does His Highness approve?”
His heated gaze ran down my body, but something besides lust passed through his eyes. Disapproval? Displeasure? Whatever it was, it sent a burst of annoyance through me. I’d even worn my hair down for him, dammit. I spun around to go back inside and slam the door in his face, but he grabbed my wrist.
“No, malyshka, I like it.” He ran a thumb across my cheek. “This is just new to me.” He paused, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “And I haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet.”
“With what?”
“You.”
I still didn’t understand what he meant, but as he brushed a piece of hair behind my ear and told me in a rough voice I was gorgeous against my lips, all my anger escaped with my next breath.
The dinner party took place at the same hotel as Elena’s wedding, but instead of well-dressed Italians filling the ballroom, it was crawling with feds.
Christian laughed at my expression.
My frown deepened. “What if someone arrests me while you’re in the bathroom?”
“I’d bail you out.”
“If you couldn’t?”
“I’d be locked up beside you.”
I couldn’t stop a smile from appearing.
Women stared at Christian like he was the messiah. Married women, single women, old women, young—didn’t matter. Thankfully, only a select few—the bravest ones without a lick of intuition in my opinion—actually approached him. He was polite but distant with them, and I suddenly wondered what he’d be like with them in bed once we came to an end. The thought put a bad taste in my mouth.
“Are your parents as good-looking as you?” I asked him after we’d been there fifteen minutes and the third woman had already come up to introduce herself. For heaven’s sake, couldn’t she see he had a date?
The subtlest tension tightened in his shoulders. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, but a moment later, he said, “My mother was.”
Was?
“What about your father?”
“Never met him.”
Oh. Wow.
“Siblings?” I questioned.
“A brother. As for his attractiveness, I couldn’t tell you.” An annoyed edge wove through his voice. “I don’t sit around and wonder about how appealing he looks.”
Okay.
I’d hit something a little sore. And I knew it wasn’t his pretty face. I’d joked with him about it on many occasions, and he’d always brushed it off with a light shoulder. An awkward tension now lay between us, the kind not even a cleared throat could penetrate.
While Christian went t
o get us drinks, I found our spot at our table. I was already regretting agreeing to come to this party, and things were just about to get worse.
Setting my clutch down, I turned to see where my moody date was in the room, only to come face-to-face with another fed. My gaze slid down his suit that was one size too big, to the Asics on his feet.
“Hi.” He grinned. “I’m Kyle Sheets.”
Smiling tightly, I shook his hand, and replied, “Gianna,” leaving out my last name. I was sure it was associated with too many criminal offenses to count. It was still Marino, and I had no intention of changing it. Russo was the old me, and my maiden name Bianchi didn’t feel right anymore either. Even my name was confused.
“I have to say, you look . . .” He tilted his head. “Familiar.”
Here we go.
I offered a coy smile. “Guess I have a common face.”
“No,” he drawled smoothly, his eyes coasting down my body, “I wouldn’t say that at all . . . So, who are you with?”
I glanced pointedly at the name card beside my purse that read, Christian Allister Guest.
“Ah, I guess I should’ve known.” He looked disappointed, scratching the back of his neck. “Allister didn’t tell me he had such a beautiful girlfriend.”
I somehow doubted Christian would tell this man anything.
Looking back, I should have just rolled with it—the man was clearly trying to find out if I was taken or available. But I was feeling a little petty. Christian knew my entire life story, while I’d only found out he had a sibling five minutes ago. And he’d seemed reluctant to even share that with me. All the words out of his mouth had contradicted this just sex relationship lately, blurring the line into nonexistence, and I needed to take it back a notch.
“Thank you, but that’s probably because I’m not his girlfriend.”
His eyebrows rose. “No kidding? You’re . . . different than the other women he dates. Thought you’d be more serious, I guess.”
“Nope.” I laughed, like that would be ridiculous. The man didn’t even trust me with the basic details about him. “We’re not serious.”
The Maddest Obsession (Made Book 2) Page 26