“I think those cavemen were on to something with the whole grab-the-woman-you-want-and-drag-her-to-your-lair thing,” Jules continued. “It loses something when you have to do all the work.
Nico was definitely the caveman type. He’d kissed her like he wanted to devour her. If Frankie hadn’t interrupted them on the street, she didn’t know what would have happened. Once she had a taste of the power and passion he kept so tightly leashed, she wanted more. He was utterly irresistible. Those dark, brooding good looks, his magnificent body, and when he spoke Italian in his deep, sensual voice … Her knees went weak just thinking about him. She’d taken a big risk kissing him on the cheek like that, but when he pulled her into his arms and sealed his mouth over hers, it felt so right.
She didn’t know why she’d run away when he clearly wanted her to stay, only that she’d suddenly felt exposed, open in a way that she’d never been before. He’d breached her walls and she needed to shut them down.
Jules gave her a nudge. “See if I missed anything when I was writing those lines of code to turn our website into an international porn hub and telling the FBI to go fuck themselves.”
Mia startled, and her cheeks heated. “I wasn’t listening again. I’m sorry. I was so busy this weekend, and Sunday after the funeral, I bumped into Nico…” She trailed off, not wanting to say more. But it was already too late.
“Nico? The mob boss dude who caught you in the pen test?”
“Yeah.” She tapped on the keyboard, corrected Jules’ mistakes. “He helped me work on my car when it didn’t start, gave me a ride to my coding class, and then got someone to fix my car while I was teaching and had it ready for me when I came out.”
Silence.
“Jules?”
“Isn’t that the same guy who kidnapped you and tied you up, and you had to escape out a bathroom window? The one you described as the most dangerous and powerful capo in the city and a mortal enemy of your family?”
Mia shrugged, suddenly regretting that she’d finally decided to share the story with Jules. “He was sorry.”
“I’m sure he was,” Jules muttered. “Sorry you got away.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Did he say the words?” Jules lifted a quizzical eyebrow? “Did he get down on his knees and beg your forgiveness? Did he say, ‘Mia, I am so terribly sorry I kidnapped you, threatened to kill you, tied you to a chair and forced you to escape out a window and flee for your life. It was horribly wrong of me. I will never do it again. Please, please forgive me’?”
“No. But he kissed me. Outside the community center. I’ve never been kissed that like that in my life. I didn’t even know a kiss—”
“You kissed an enemy mob boss in the middle of the street?” Jules ran her fingers through the pink streak in her hair, her telltale sign of agitation.
“Technically, he’s a captain, not the boss. I don’t know who their boss is going to be. Probably his cousin, Tony, because he was the underboss and usually the underboss becomes boss. And we were on the sidewalk, not the middle of the street. His bodyguard was standing right there. And yes, he’s a Toscani. It was a bit of a risk—”
“A bit of a risk?” Jules voice rose in pitch. “Not that I understand Mafia politics, but I’ve seen West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet. They don’t end well. And the Godfather movies? Even worse. There are no happily ever afters. No running through a field of flowers or riding off into the sunset together. No saying ‘I do’ and nine months later out pops a baby mobster and all the Mafiosos drink champagne together and dance the Macarena at the christening. It’s all bullets and cement shoes and fish in newspapers and horses’ heads in the bed and people killing themselves because their true love is dead.”
Laughing, Mia stabbed her fingers on the keys. “Maybe things will be different now with the new bosses in place.”
“And maybe you’ll get yourself dead, and I’ll be so damn angry because you know I can’t make it without you.” Her voice hitched, and Mia’s heart squeezed in her chest. She’d helped Jules through a difficult situation shortly after they met online, and when Mia finally scraped together enough money to start up on her own, Jules was the first person she called.
“He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.” Mia gave up even trying to make sense of the numbers on the screen. “He’s strong, powerful, very confident, and very dominating. But he’s got compassion. I saw it the first time I met him, and I saw it when we met again. And he’s got a wild side—he’s a bit of a risk taker. Very intense. He reacts quickly to things. I kissed him and suddenly I was in his arms, and he was kissing me like we were alone. Ravaging might be a better word.”
“You’re playing with fire,” Jules said. “That’s all I’m going to say. Not that you would listen to your best friend.” She hesitated, tapped the keyboard. “Are you gonna see him again?”
“No. Are you kidding?” Mia shivered. “I only just escaped being married off to his cousin like a prize cow. I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone in the mob. Plus, I don’t trust myself around him. I would probably rip off my panties and throw him on the nearest piece of furniture the minute he walked into the room.”
“Sure.” Jules didn’t sound convinced. “Although, if I met a dude so hot he made me want to rip off my panties, I might not care if he was a mob boss or an enemy soldier. Maybe I should stop wearing my comfy cotton briefs in case I meet a man like that. Satin and lace are easy to shred, but I’d probably lose a leg if I tried to tear off my Fruit of the Looms in a frenzy of lust.”
Mia laughed despite herself, and her tension eased. Her phone buzzed, and she checked the screen. Dante. Again. He was probably just stressed about his new role as acting boss. Dante didn’t handle change well, and with their father still in the hospital after the shooting, he had a lot on his plate. Well, she didn’t want to get involved. She tucked the phone away and left Jules to get to work.
Late-afternoon, Chris joined them after spending the day at a pen test out of town. “There’s a guy in a suit downstairs in the pool hall looking for you,” she said, dropping her report off in Mia’s office. “I told him to come up, but he says he’ll wait down there for you to finish. I’m not sure if he’s a client. He was tall, dark, and handsome, but kind of intense, and he had some interesting friends with him—a biker dude, some muscle head in a Giants’ cap, a hot hunk of blondness, and a couple of guys in black.”
“Three guesses who that might be.” Jules snorted a laugh from her desk outside Mia’s office. “Someone liked the amuse-bouche so much, he’s back for more. You want me to hold the fort while you go meet your man?”
“He’s not my man,” Mia called out. “We have a meeting in half an hour, and I have work to do. I’m not going to just drop everything and go running because he showed up.” Did he really think it was that easy? One kiss and she was at his beck and call? What about the family feud, the kidnapping, or the fact he had issued a vendetta against her father that had restricted his movements for the last ten years? What if that’s all Mia wanted? Just one kiss.
After the meeting, she sent Chris and Jules home, and called down to the bartender, a friend who was more than willing to do a little recon for her. Nico was still there, he said. Playing pool with his friends, having a few drinks, and chatting with the ladies.
Clearly, he was prepared to wait her out. Time to take control of the situation. She finished her work for the day and tidied up her office. Before locking up, she pulled out her pony tail holder, and made a quick check of her clothing—black tank top with semi-sheer lace panels on the front and back, black combat pants loosely wrapped in studded belts and chains, and lace-up black leather boots.
Badass. That should put him off if he was here for a repeat performance of what happened outside the community center. Wiseguys didn’t go for punk hackers in thick-soled boots. They went for women who looked hot, dressed well, and could increase their power and status by making other mobsters jealous.
> She made her way down the stairs and stopped in the doorway to the pool hall, looking through the crowd for Nico. She spotted him right away, sitting at a table in his fancy suit, fully engaged in a conversation on his phone, his hands waving in the air as if the person on the other end could see his agitation. Mia drank in every delicious inch of his powerful presence as she walked through the bar to meet the mobster who had come to call.
*
He sensed her before he saw her. The soft thud of her boots, whispers in the air, the intoxicating scent of her perfume. Not wanting to ruin the moment, he kept his eyes averted until he finished his call. When he finally looked up, he saw an angel, dressed as the devil, to tempt him beyond original sin.
“Hello, Mr. Mob Boss.”
Hunger like he’d never known before took over him at the sound of her voice—husky and throaty in a way that made him think about pushing her to places where they would both lose their self-control.
She tapped her foot, and his gaze dropped to her boots. Cristo! She rocked her sexy punk clothes like no other woman he’d met, and more than anything he wanted to get under her skin. He wanted to know what made her tick, what music she listened to, what she liked to eat, and whether her apartment was as offbeat as her clothes. He wanted to know what it was about her that made a powerful Toscani capo with an empire to run want to spend the evening in a pool hall waiting for her to appear.
“Mia.” Her name on his lips was a sensual treat. “You’re lucky I’m a patient man.”
She snorted a laugh. “You are not a patient man. A patient man would have waited to bump into me on the street or at a wedding or a funeral, of which I expect there will be many after people see you here with me. An impatient man lays siege until he gets what he wants.”
“Do I get what I want?” He leaned forward and licked his lips, his entire being focused on her. An entire SWAT team could have run into the building throwing grenades and shooting machine guns, and he would have been totally unable to drag his gaze away.
“Depends what it is.”
“How about you in my bed?” He wasn’t usually so direct with the women he was trying to seduce, but playing it safe wasn’t going to work with a strong woman like Mia. He had to prove himself worthy and he could only do that by taking risk. Although he tried to convince himself he had come to honor a debt, the reality was he couldn’t stay away.
“You’ve wasted one of your three wishes. Try again.”
Nico frowned. “I thought I was forgiven.”
“Because I accepted a ride from you, and you fixed my car? Because I gave you a little thank-you kiss? Gratitude for a kind deed doesn’t equal forgiveness. And forgiveness doesn’t equal sex.”
Sex.
His assessing gaze drifted down her body, taking in the quick flutter of the pulse in her neck, the slight flush on her cheeks, and the bead of her nipples pressed against her thin tank top. He felt the impact of her desire deep in his groin. Fuck. Thirty seconds with her and he was perilously close to losing his self-control. Again.
“Are you done checking me out, Mr. Mob Boss?”
Cristo. Every word from her mouth went straight to his cock. Women didn’t talk to Nico with amused disdain. They didn’t accept his gifts and walk away. They didn’t make him wait three hours in a pool hall for the honor of their presence.
“You are a beautiful woman,” he said honestly. “You deserve a man who knows how to please a woman in bed.”
Her lips tipped at the corners, and she walked without hesitation between his parted legs sending all the wrong messages to the right part of his body. “And that would be you?”
“Yes.”
Heat sizzled in the air between them, and she dropped her gaze but, not before he saw the truth in her eyes. Yes, she wanted him. But she was going to make him work damn hard for the privilege of finding out what she hid beneath those badass punk clothes.
Boldly, he smoothed his hand up her thigh to curve around her hip. Pulling her closer, he gestured her down, pressed his lips to her ear. “You are wet for me, bella. Hot. I hear your need in the quickness of your breath, see it the flush in your cheeks, your nipples tight and begging for my touch, and if I stroked you, gently rubbed my thumb over your clit, you would come for me, and you would scream my name.”
Her breath hitched, ever so softly, and then she pulled away. “Save the sweet words for the women who are awed by your mobster charm.”
“Play nice,” he warned. “I brought you a present.” Nico reached under his chair and pulled out her boot. “I always keep my word.”
Mia’s smile transformed her face from suspiciously annoyed to delighted, in a heartbeat. “A booty call,” she murmured, reaching to take it. “How thoughtful.”
“Ah. Ah.” He held it out of reach. “Where’s my something extra?” No good mobster repaid another without adding a little extra, a premium to compensate the other for the inconvenience of doing the favor in the first place. If Luca had no cash for lunch and Nico gave him seventeen dollars to cover his meal, he would pay back twenty. It was loansharking, but with class, and it was the way their world worked.
She reached for her purse, hesitated, her gaze falling on the pool table. “Care to make it interesting?”
Wrong words to say to a gambling man. Or maybe they were the right ones because his evening plans to pick up the weekly nut from Lennie for the security work they were doing suddenly became a low priority.
“Everything about you is interesting,” he said. “What do you suggest?”
“A favor.” She licked her lips, lifted a perfect eyebrow. “Or can your massive ego handle losing to a girl?”
“I won’t lose.” Nico almost felt bad about the bet. After his father’s death, he had worked his way through his grief in the Vegas pool halls, playing until he was good enough to consider going pro. Not that he ever would ever leave the Mafia, however tempting a civilian career as a professional pool player might be.
She laughed, a low, sexy chuckle that he felt deep in his chest. “So arrogant.”
“You love it,” he teased. “You’ve never met a man like me, a man who can challenge and respect you, a man worthy of a woman like you.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” Her smile faded, and she dipped her head and looked away.
Before Nico could question her further, she leaned over the table to rack the balls, giving him a perfect, beautiful view of her lush ass outlined in black sequined denim and wrapped in chains. Her top rode up, and he caught a glimpse of creamy skin and the sensual curve where waist met hip. Overwhelmed with the urge to touch her, he curved one hand over her hip, rubbed his thumb over the bare skin of her lower back.
She looked over her shoulder, gave him a sultry glance, and ever so slightly wiggled her ass, making the chains on her belt rattle. “Do you like it like this?”
Luca choked back a laugh, reminding Nico that they weren’t alone. Heat flooded his veins, and he was instantly seized with images of Mia down on the table, naked in chains.
“I’ll break,” he said. As if she hadn’t broken him already. After that look, he would follow her to the ends of the earth.
Turning, he took his shot, scattering the balls as he tried to collect his thoughts and focus on the game..
“You’re solid.” She patted his arm, and his muscles went rock hard beneath her touch.
With a quick grab, he closed his hand around her wrist, and pulled her forward. He pressed his lips to her ear, inhaled the soft fragrance of her perfume. “Are you trying to distract me because you’re afraid you’ll lose?”
“I’m practicing my sympathy pat for your bruised ego when I win.” She pulled away, turned so her hip brushed against his shaft, hard beneath his jeans. It couldn’t be anything but deliberate, and his body responded accordingly. Fuck. If he took off his jacket, the entire pool hall would know what he was thinking about the beautiful minx on the other side of the pool table. Maybe that was her plan.
In a rush to f
inish the game, he ran out all his balls without giving her a shot. On the second break, he had to bank in both the four and the five but missed a thin cut on the six down the rail when she bent over to tie the lace on her boot.
Mia arched an eyebrow. “You might have warned me before we started that this was going to be a hustle.” She leaned over the table across from him, her tank top falling just enough to give him a perfect view of the crescents of her beautiful breasts and the enticing valley between them.
A hustle, indeed.
“I know what you’re doing, bella,” he called softly.
Mia took her shot, sank her stripe. “Playing pool?” she offered.
“Playing a game that you aren’t going to win.”
Frankie handed Nico a beer, and he took a grateful sip. But nothing could quench the fire raging inside him. Not just because he wanted her so much that he could barely breathe, but because it had been a long time since he’d played the game with an opponent who challenged him, and who was going to make him work for every minute he got to spend between her pretty thighs.
Mia sank three balls in a row, each shot more difficult than the next. She was a straight shooter, but not a pro, and she was giving him a run for his money, if not through skill, then by unintended seduction. Each time she bent over and wiggled her ass, Nico suffered an exquisite torture as his mind conjured up all sorts of images that involved Mia naked over the pool table with his hands on her hips and his cock deep inside her.
He also imagined beating the shit out of the guys drinking beer in the corner, who hadn’t taken their eyes off her since she’d walked into the hall.
“Do you know them?” He gestured to the men who had drawn his attention.
Mia shot them a quick glance. “Yeah, they’re here a lot. They’ve asked me to join them a couple of times, but I always turn them down. Something about them makes my skin crawl. But they don’t seem to be able to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
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