UNPROTECTED: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance (Hanley Family Mafia)

by Zoey Parker

  Her frightened glance flicks to me.

  “Boss,” Pip says.

  “So, is he?” I demand the glass partition, “Is my friend going to be ok? How serious is it?”

  Miss Marple is trembling and I’m enjoying it. Let her tremble. Let her tremble and whine and call whomever she needs to, whoever’ll be at the other end of the phone her hand is inching toward.

  I will see Jaws if it’s the last thing I do.

  “Boss, he’s going to be okay,” Pip says, his low voice steady and sure, “You saw him. It was just his upper leg. He’s going to be okay.”

  “Still waiting for an answer,” I say, my voice even louder now, blaring out over all the others, rendering the room to a mute box.

  The trembling bitch grabs the phone, and I grab my gun in my pocket.

  We stare each other down, her livid, trembling, pink flab of a face and mine, smiling at the wreckage I will make of this place if she calls security, if she doesn’t tell me what's going on with Jaws.

  “Gabe,” Pip barks, his hand gripping my wrist, stepping in front of me, forcing me to look at him.

  “They’ll get the cops involved, kick us out. Maybe even worse”

  He says the words slowly and they sink in slowly, the bars of a cell sliding into my slow-nodding head, sliding through the fire in my veins, unclenching my knuckles off the handle of my gun.

  “Take care of him,” I say to Pip, and stride out of the waiting room without another word.

  Chapter 18

  Toni

  He’s late. He’s never been late before.

  I check my phone for the fourth time in the past minute, then remind myself: you’ve only met him two times before, and the first wasn’t planned. You’re being stupid, there is no “always” with someone you barely know.

  Still, with everything that’s gone down these past few hours, I’d be stupid not to be worried.

  I had to block Carlos’ number on my phone, he’s been calling me so much.

  I already got his and Clarence’s 20 other panicked messages: that our office was found, that none other than Gabriel Pierson and his men came knocking, guns in hand. That Carlos and the others barely escaped at all.

  It took all I had to respond merely with: Do what you have to. Get out of there. Will discuss tomorrow, after Carlos basically ordered me home.

  I’m not his puppet and I didn’t ask for this. And if I need a night off to get away from all this insanity, then I’ll take it.

  I check my phone again and sigh.

  Is sleeping with the enemy really getting away from it though? And, more than that, how can I think that Gabriel’s coming here is anything other than the Grand Finalé to his retaliation stunt?

  You better be there by 11:30 was the text he sent me half an hour ago.

  And I am here. Waiting. Terrified. Alone.

  Hands snake around my waist, and I freeze.

  What if he feels the gun?

  “An on-time kind of girl, I like that,” he whispers in my ear, his hands shoving my pelvis to him, “I’ve got some big plans for you tonight.”

  A shiver of excitement goes through me.

  I want to find out these big plans and yet, finding out may be the death of me.

  ###

  His hand in mine leads me up the stairs, through the door on the side marked: CN TOWER.

  Funny, you almost miss it beside the big overblown restaurant and souvenir signs. Maybe that’s the point: misleading unwary tourists into purchases instead of experiences.

  Then again, it’s easy to spot others being misled; it’s not always so easy when it’s yourself. What would others see when they looked at my life?

  A frightened fool, walking straight into the trap? A clueless idiot, not asking questions when her albino enemy opens the door easily, even though it should be locked, even though the whole place should be closed? Walking, no questions asked, toward her doom.

  “So, you own the CN Tower, basically?” I finally ask.

  We’re weaving through the lobby, which is basically a sea of shop stands, everything indistinct and similar in the dark.

  “Even better,” Gabriel says with a smirk, “I own everything.”

  “Oh really?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

  He shoves me to a sunglass stand, his hand right between my breasts.

  “Really.”

  Several frames rattle to the floor. We stare at each other for a minute, then he removes his hand.

  As I lean over to pick the fallen frames up, he chuckles, pats my butt.

  “You’re so… good.”

  After I’ve returned them to their spots, I turn to him and envelop him in a kiss.

  Then, breaking away, smirking myself, I say, “You have no idea.”

  Gabriel pauses, cocks his head at me, but says nothing. His hand grasps mine once more, leads me on further, past more stands toward the elevator.

  With everything so perfectly preserved and empty, it’s like we’re in a ghost town, in the aftermath of an apocalypse.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Gabriel says, “Sometimes I pay people to go in their buildings when no one’s around, just to walk, think. There is something bittersweet about being alone in so much space.”

  He falls silent, as if remembering I’m here.

  When he stops, his hand slides to my leg, then freezes.

  “You didn’t,” he says, a smile playing on his lips.

  His hand slides up further, feels the top part of my stockings, then the strap of my garter and snaps it.

  “I did,” I say, my gaze locked on him as I roll up my skirt to reveal both garter belt straps.

  His hand locks on my skirt, and mine locks on his shirt.

  “Not yet,” I say, backing away.

  His grip on my skirt doesn’t budge.

  “Now,” he says, letting go, striding over to the elevator and jamming the button.

  The doors open and he shoves me through.

  Coming in himself, he presses another button, then goes to the back and sits down.

  His gaze flicking to me, he pats the ground beside him.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  What if this is it? What if he’s going to kill me, here in this high-speed elevator, then throw my body off the CN Tower? What if this is it?

  He pats the ground beside him again, while I stare at him. His hand isn’t in his jacket, which is where I know he keeps his Glock.

  Hopefully the dark is obscuring the fear on my face.

  Suddenly, he throws himself upright, hits a button on the elevator. The elevator shrieks to a noisy halt.

  Gaze locked on me, he goes and sits down in the same place as before. Pats beside him again.

  “Don’t make me ask you again.”

  I sit down beside him.

  My legs spread out in front of me, over the clear panel in the floor, where I can see 50 feet down.

  He runs his hand over my stockinged thigh. Over the thin gauzy black material, then under it.

  He runs his hand back down, all the way to my feet. My shoes slip off, one after the other, and on his latest stroke, he runs his hand up further this time, over my knee to my uppermost thigh. It enlaces itself over the strap, then slides up further, reaches the garter strap. Snaps it.

  “What’s the occasion?” he asks.

  “You,” I purr, pressing my lips into his neck.

  He slips his hand up further, and feeling the silk edge of my panties, grabs and pulls.

  “Gabriel…” I protest.

  But it’s too late. By now, my teal silk G-string is halfway to my feet. Slipping it over my toes and away, Gabriel tucks it in his pocket, says, “Don’t worry, you won’t be needing this.”

  Then both hands slide back up my legs, over my velvet skirt this time, teal too. Grab the waistband, slide it down.

  “Or this.”

  “Gabriel,” I breathe, my whole lower body exposed now.

  I want to tell him to stop and h
urry up and take me, here now.

  But he’s in a trance; it’s as if I haven’t spoken at all. His hands are moving in a leisurely rhythm, sliding up and down; his only acknowledgement of me is a vague smile as my body shudders with enjoyment.

  God, I’m really wet already.

  Each stroke, his hand travels up a bit farther, presses down a bit deeper. Until his fingers are rippling over my breasts, at my ruffle sleeves, pulling down one than the other off my shoulders, over my upper arms, elbows, lower arms, hands.

  “Or this.”

  Sleeves now off, then the whole shirt leaves the same way as my other clothes, his hands sliding it oh-so-slowly down, over my chest, my waist, my hips, down over my still-stockinged legs, over my feet.

  The hands toss it aside, pick up where they left off, stroking, feeling every inch of me, my toes to my heel to my calves, my knees, my thighs, my pelvis, my now bare belly, my bra. They go everywhere but where I want them to – need them to, my dripping wet pussy.

  But as I grab at them, the hands taunt me, won’t even let me touch myself. They stop at my shoulders, slide along the lacy bra straps to the back, undo the clasp. Then, grasping one bra cup, they drag it down the same way, the same moan-inducing path, down my belly, over my pussy, over my legs. He tucks my bra into his other pocket. Then rises.

  Looking down on my now fully naked form, the stockings the only clothing left, a smile forms on his lips.

  He takes a few steps back, half-lidded gaze still on me.

  “Get up,” he says.

  I do.

  “Don’t move.”

  I freeze.

  His gaze envelops me lazily, starts at my stockinged feet, sliding up and up, pausing on the garters, then on my pussy, sliding up further, pausing on my tits. It stops on my lips.

  He strides forward, takes me in his arms, murmurs, “I just want to enjoy you. Won’t you let me just enjoy you?”

  He kisses me, a soft wet breath of a kiss.

  I pull away, murmur back, “I want you.”

  “Do you?” he asks, then, shoving his hand between my thighs, a finger between the lips, “Or does she?”

  We freeze, both of our faces registering confusion at his words.

  “Both,” I say softly.

  He nods, face still puzzled.

  I clench myself around his finger, and he smiles.

  Takes one of my breasts and starts playing with it, shaking it, then stroking it, then kneading it, all the while his finger jerking in and out, lazily, unhurriedly, torturously.

  Then he slides the wetness to my clit, starts rubbing it in soft, slick circles, the same circles his other fingers are drawing around the nub of my nipple.

  Moans bubble out of my lips.

  “I’m going to make you cum, and you’re going to like it,” he hisses in my ear.

  He hoists me up and to the floor, his fingers pressing into my clit deeper now, moving faster, while his other hand grabs at my breast, squeezes it, slides over my nipple until it’s hard again.

  Jesus, he knows just what to say, just what to do. It all feels so... good.

  I lose myself in the feeling, the building, surging storm in my pussy, the husky tones of my moans, that seem louder than ever before, my half-closed eyes that flicker slivers of sight, all I can see is that satisfied smile of his as he ratchets up the pace more and more, until his finger is nearly digging into me and my whole body is quivering with it and he tugs at my tit and digs into my clit at the same time and I’m over the brink, in it, in the stream of pleasure, immersed in it, my vision is exploding colors, and, all the while he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let up his circling, grabbing, pulsing in the slightest, while my body thrashes with it, with “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  And then I’m a crumpled-up ball, cold, except for the hands that never left.

  A button’s pressed. I’m lifted. I open my eyes.

  “You don’t get this in the tour,” Gabriel says, carrying me into a room with a long line of harnesses attached to the ceiling.

  We must be at the top now. Where they do the Edge Walk. Where there’s no barriers between you and the open air… and falling.

  Gabriel puts me down and, as if reading my thoughts, gestures to the harnesses.

  “Feel free if you’re afraid.”

  And that’s when I remember that I don’t have my gun on me anymore. Or any clothes, for that matter.

  Gabriel drops my clothes with a clatter. Clothes that shouldn’t clatter.

  He glances at me, cocks his head.

  “What do you have here?”

  I’m mute with fear as he crouches down, lifts my jacket, shakes it. Flips it over, slips his hand in, finds it. My little Colt pistol.

  The gun I shouldn’t have. The gun that will give me away.

  Gabriel raises it, points it at me, his face expressionless.

  This is it.

  But then he laughs.

  “What, you’re a cop?”

  His voice is suddenly cold.

  “No-no,” I’m sputtering, stepping back.

  Gabriel tosses the gun back onto the pile of clothes, laughs again.

  “Don’t worry. If you were a cop, you would’ve been dead already.”

  He walks up to me, eyes glittering.

  “I don’t take well to being betrayed.”

  His hand slides over my side.

  “Or not getting what I want.”

  My body trembles, but with what I’m not sure.

  He strides to the clear glass door, presses the button beside it.

  As it slides aside, a cool breeze beckons us out.

  In the doorway, Gabriel turns to me.

  “You coming?”

  I look from the harnesses to Gabriel’s easy smile.

  He’s right. He already could have killed me a hundred times; why do it now?

  I walk up to him, take his hand and let him lead me out.

  One foot out the door, the sight stops me in my tracks.

  Spread out before us is a symphony of light and color, little speckles of luminescence spread as far as the eye can see.

  It’s beautiful. It’s more than beautiful. It is heartbreakingly gorgeous. It’s… there are no words.

  “Toni,” Gabriel says.

  He’s gone and sat down on the edge. His legs are dangling down over the city 350 or so feet down.

  I stand there.

  I stare at this carefree, trusting, strong, vulnerable man, and I think: One push.

  Yes, one push. That’s all it would take. For me to end this fight, end all the Piccolo business problems, end this man.

  But I look at the brilliant white head, smiling at me with an ease that can’t be faked, and I know. I can’t push him when I want to kiss him.

  He pats his lap and, carefully, I make my way over to the edge and sit down beside him.

  He lifts me onto him, spreads his legs so I’m in between them.

  “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” his murmur asks my ear.

  “Thank you,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion.

  I still can’t take my eyes off of the view.

  It’s so staggering. The immensity of the city, the play of the light and the reflection, this tableau of little life extending so far and wide. And us up here, so small and insignificant and yet, lucky – undeniably, incredibly lucky.

  “Toni,” Gabriel says, gesturing down, “You see down there - further down the tower? That’s the revolving restaurant. 360, I think it’s called.”

  I nod.

  “Next time I’m going to take you there,” he says.

  As he scans my face for the answer, I try not to let how I really feel show.

  But he sees it immediately. The easy smile on his face slides off.

  I look away, back to the city. To my wonderful home. Toronto. Where I grew up.

  Then I look back to Gabriel, who’s looking less and less pleased the longer I take to respond.