by Jamie Begley
Her heart pounded to the rhythm of the roaring heavens above as she gravely waited to hear the voice of the man who had lived, knowing that the next voice she wouldn’t hear would be the one that she would never, ever hear again. The wretched part was that both men had crept into her dark heart over these past few months, and it hadn’t been until last night when she’d been able to choose which one she desperately wanted to hear next.
Maria opened her mouth to speak the name of the man she was beginning to fall in love with, but before she could form the name, a solemn voice stopped her, making her fall to her knees, along with her shattered heart.
Any butterflies left in her stomach turned to ash, and the dusty remnants floated down to the abyss.
Death had decided her destiny.
1
A Last Name that came with a Black Credit Card and a Crown
Putting one slender foot in front of the other, the tiny points of her stilettos clicked on the white tile floors of the school hallway that she once walked across every day for four years. Normal people might have a visceral reaction of going back to high school, but Maria “fucking” Caruso was far from “normal.”
Maria was a twenty-two-year-old, tall, golden-haired, tanned angel who didn’t look like she fell from heaven but from the Victoria Secret catwalk. No, she looked like every man’s wet dream of an angel; a young woman who mastered a look of innocence from her years of modeling in front of a camera but conversely also screamed three letters, S-E-X, at the same time. It was a talent in itself to look like you were the purest and most beautiful thing since the Virgin Mary, while simultaneously sucking a dick. And that was the difference between an angel from a male’s eyes and an angel from the heavens above. Maria Caruso was about as far from a real angel as you could fucking get, and her innocence was about as fake as Tonya Harding’s tears.
Not only was the girl blessed by the fucking Victoria Secret god, she was blessed with a last name that came with a black credit card and a crown. Her father, Dante Caruso, was the boss of the Caruso empire and the current reigning king of Kansas City, Missouri. He owned everyone and everything that resided in the city limits, which allowed her a hundred or so pairs of red bottomed shoes, the Birkin on her arm, and the short, suede, mauve dress that was definitely too much for the current occasion, but she went absolutely everywhere like this. Hell, she would go to Trader Joe’s like this if she ever went to the grocery store herself.
The theoretical crown on her head made her the “Mafia princess.” That nickname made her skin crawl, even if it was true. You see, there were two fucking major problems in her perfect life, and the first one was her crown.
It will never be big enough.
The name Caruso came with a power that had skipped her at birth. It was a power she would never hold, because between her legs was a kitty, not a wolf. What the world didn’t know was that she wasn’t a kitten who needed a pretty little tiara and bodyguards who watched her every move. She was a fucking lioness, and she would take a fucking lioness’s side in killing a wolf any day.
However, the mafia’s traditions had been passed down for generations, and all this lioness was meant to be was a mob wife, unlike her three brothers ….
“Where’s Dad?”
Staring at her little brother with his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the concrete wall beside the classroom door, she hadn’t noticed how much older he had started looking lately until she saw him here in Legacy Prep’s halls. “He’s busy.”
“Lucca couldn’t come?” he asked next.
“No, he’s busy, too.” She narrowed her eyes down at him. “Leo, did you do something you don’t want me to know?”
He slightly shook his cute face, causing his dirty-blond hair to ruffle a little. “I didn’t think I did anything wrong. Usually, Mr. Evans’s is pretty cool—”
“Kayne Evans?” Maria’s heart thumped once in her chest, reminding her that she actually had one.
“Yeah …?” Leo stared up at her with his deep blue eyes. Only being a sophomore in high school, he still had a growth spurt or two left in him to reach his sister’s height in heels. However, he did already carry her wickedly good looks. So much so that he gave a young Leo DiCaprio a run for his older self’s money.
I knew he was my favorite brother.
Rubbing her pouty lips together, she made sure her lip gloss glistened. Having had men look at her since the age of thirteen, she knew where they couldn’t help looking first—if they looked at a woman’s face, that was.
Her little brother’s brow furrowed, confused at what exactly she was doing.
She raised her manicured hand to his silky, blond hair, ruffling it like she always did and putting his thoughts on pause.
“Do me a favor and wait here, and I promise not to tell Dad whatever it was you did,” she whispered to him so her bodyguard a few feet back couldn’t hear.
It took him a few seconds of wondering what the hell she was up to before deciding. “Deal.”
Putting her hand on the doorknob, she turned it after another thump of her cold heart. Quickly opening it she went inside, then closed the door sharply behind her as Leo went to stand in front of it, so her suit was stuck waiting outside.
With her heels clicking in the confines of the classroom, a pair of golden eyes looked up from his desk and to the tanned, shiny legs that didn’t belong to an underaged girl in this school.
Looking at the man she had dreamed of since meeting him, she could only form two words.
God damn.
2
Exactly the Way You Dreamed of a Hot Teacher Doing It
“Ms. Caruso.” Kayne quickly cleared his throat before standing up from behind his desk. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Our father’s caught up at work,” she told him, barely noticing the slight change in his appearance upon seeing her. The stern marks that lightly etched his face suddenly disappeared, knowing she must have caught the way too-fucking-hot-for-a-high-school-English teacher off guard. Smiling, she was sure to remind him of their previous two meetings, letting him know they were on a first name basis. Truthfully, she was dying to hear her damn name pass his sexy lips again. “And just Maria.”
A hot as hell smile tilted his lips before he nodded in understanding. “Maria, then.”
Christ, that smile mixed with her name almost took her the fuck out.
“And your mother couldn’t make it?” he asked.
“No.” That was the second major problem that made her perfect life … imperfect. “She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t … I wasn’t aware.”
“It’s all right. It happened a long time ago.” It did, when she was fifteen to be exact, and the way the creepy old men had treated her at her mother’s funeral had made her about as uncomfortable as Kayne was now with how comfortable Maria was about telling him her mother was dead.
Walking over to the student desk closest to his, she took off her nude, faux fur jacket, revealing that to-die-for suede, mauve dress underneath before sitting down at the tiny desk that she had once been forced to sit at. “But I’m here,” she let him know with a wave of her hand that this “parental figure” was as good as he was going to fucking get.
He went around his desk, still a bit off guard by her presence. “Sorry, this is very unusual. Any way I could possibly reschedule with your fath—”
“He’s very busy, so how about you tell me what it is Leo’s done and I promise”—she held up two slender fingers and twirled them together—“to tell him. I’m sure he’ll either call you or carry out the correct punishment.”
“All right.” Clearing his throat again, he took a step back to casually sit on the edge of his desk. Yes, exactly the way you dreamed of a hot teacher doing it.
Oh, hell yes, she liked the scenario she was in now.
Staring up at the sexy AF teacher from her desk, she took in the view in all its glory, from his buzz cut hair that barely revealed the s
light blond tint to it that was missing, to his close shaven, darker beard, all the way to the white button-up shirt that showed the muscles he was hiding underneath when he moved. It was like the beginning scene straight from a cheesy porno. The only thing missing was the trashy school girl outfit, because the sexual tension was definitely there, at least from her end.
“Now, what is it my brother has done, Mr. Evans?” Maria had been unable to resist from calling him that.
“Please, call me Kayne.”
The way he said it as he smoothed his navy tie down his abdomen just confirmed a few things. One, they were indeed on a first name basis. Two, the sexual tension was very much on his end, too. And three, he wasn’t comfortable with her calling him by his last name as she sat in this desk. Telling her that he wasn’t into the teacher/student role play shit, and she kind of liked that. A lot. It not only showed respect to his profession but to the fucking law that teens and his students weren’t his thing.
When she had first met Kayne, she had been disappointed, wondering why the hell she couldn’t have been lucky to get him as a teacher when she’d attended school. Hell, her attendance would have been through the fucking roof. In fact, she would bet every pair of her Louboutins on the fact that the rise in the attendance of female student at Legacy Prep had soared after Mr. Evans was hired. But now Maria counted her blessings, knowing that the door of whatever the hell “this” was between them would have been shut, locked, and bolted.
“Leo seemed to be preoccupied with texting a girl in my classroom today. I confiscated his phone for the day and would appreciate it if he kept it in his pocket during my class.”
Maria slightly furrowed her brows at finally hearing what it was that got her baby brother in trouble enough to warrant a visit. Never knowing what to expect from a Caruso, it was honestly … nothing, considering her and her brothers’ track record at this school had warranted every faculty member to despise the name Caruso until their last dying breaths.
Her oldest brother, Lucca, had set them up for failure the day his psychotic-teen-smoking ass walked through Legacy Prep’s door. Then, when she finally entered high school, well … she wasn’t much different, just less secondhand smoke. She was followed by Nero, who had every girl crying underneath him or crying to get under him. And now Leo. He might have been cursed with beauty like the rest of his siblings, but that was where the similarities ended.
Seeing her confusion, or lack thereof, he stood and walked back behind his desk to open the drawer to take the phone out from its jail cell. “It’s now policy here that the parents must come to retrieve confiscated phones in hopes of keeping cell phone usage down.”
“Oh, okay.” Somewhat understanding, she couldn’t help laughing at the attempt to keep teens, who were obsessed by the little five-inch screens, off it. “Is it working?”
“Well, it’s certainly made it a pain in the ass, not only on the students but the parents.”
Maria laughed again, this time harder at his joke, along with the little curse he let drop. Oh God, she never laughed at a man’s joke.
Walking around the desk again, he now stood over her, holding out the phone for her to take.
There was just something about Kayne … It was the way he carried himself that made him different than all the men whom she had ever been around, and in her father’s line of work, there were a lot. There was no shortage of good-looking men around her, but none had piqued her interest even slightly. Sure, she might have thought she was too good for them … but so fucking what?
Kayne, however, wasn’t only different than the Mafiosos, there was a presence about him that made the air around him thicker. Being within that one-foot vortex now, she could feel the air being slowly sucked out from her as she stared up into those molten gold eyes of his.
Reaching up to take the phone from his hand, she was sure to let her fingers touch his, wanting nothing more than to touch him again since their first meeting and repay the favor …
…Fiddling for another minute after hearing her bodyguard incessantly banging on the girl’s bathroom door, she decided it was time to step out. It was Nero’s high school graduation. She grabbed her purse, then put one pump in front of the other.
“Shit! Goddamn …” The cursing from the deep voice trailed off as the man started mumbling to himself.
She quickly dropped her purse and touched a man’s raised arm, which was holding the side of his face. “I am so sorry. Are you okay? I completely forgot those doors fly open like that.”
Hearing the muffled laughter, she shooed her watchdog away to go laugh somewhere else.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He said it like he was trying to shoo her away, as well.
Dang, I hit him really hard.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Here, let me see.” She grabbed his wrist with her other hand so she could assess the damage she’d done to his face.
“I said …,” he began harshly as he dropped his hand from his face to look at the woman who’d nearly knocked his brains out. Looking at her, he seemed to have lost his train of thought. It took him a moment before he cleared his throat to change his tone. “I’m fine, really.” He smiled at her.
She stared helplessly up at him, her eyes unwilling to move away from the liquid gold.
Feeling his strong arm under her hands, she realized his body definitely wasn’t bad, either.
Oh gosh. She quickly pulled her hands away from him, trying not to smile in embarrassment from touching him longer than she should have.
She finally moved her eyes away from his. “I-I’m sorry. I feel terrible that I hit you.”
Did I just stutter? Being flustered in front of men was something that never happened to her.
“It’s really okay. It was my fault. I usually walk farther away from the door, but my mind was somewhere else.”
She smiled back at him. It made her feel instantly better to hear his genuine apology. “There’s no mark yet, but I hope it doesn’t bruise on you.”
“If it does, it wouldn’t be the first.” He started to lean down toward the floor. “Here, let me get that for you.”
She watched him pick up her purse off the floor and felt his gaze on her brand-new nude pumps that she had pulled out of the box that morning. Her body slightly tingled as his eyes rolled over her as he stood up straight. Thank you, Christian Louboutin.
He held her purse out, and when she grabbed it and touched him, she noticed the size of his hand spanned the whole purse.
“Thank you.” Her hand began to tingle when she slid it off his.
“You’re very welcome ….”
She swept her gold-colored hair behind her ear, smiling. “Maria.”…
…“I’ll be sure to talk with Leo,” she promised sweetly, a promise she might or might not keep.
Still holding on to the phone, it was Kayne who pulled away this time. Seeing his lingering touch, she knew he didn’t want to pull away any more than she did. It had felt so wrongly right every fucking time their hot skin touched.
“Thank you,” he said after he did that thing again where he cleared his throat.
Not wanting to press her luck any longer that Leo could keep her bodyguard on the other side of the door, she stood, showing off her best feature yet again—her legs that made her practically as tall as him in her heels.
She had to give the teacher credit as she took her time putting on her faux fur jacket. He had the willpower to keep his eyes tastefully above her neck, which made him a fucking saint on account of the tiny bead of sweat that was beginning to form at his brow.
“I hope to see your father here in the future.” He made it clear it was a one-time only deal for Leo. “But I’d love to see you again under different circumstances.”
“Me, too.” Maria smiled before walking away. She would give the one-of-a-kind designer purse away just to have his eyes on the back of her head right now.
“Goodbye, Ms. Caruso.” The words left his mouth when she opened
the door to the possibility of prying ears.
The way he said it held a promise that this impromptu meeting wouldn’t be their last, and it had sent a shiver down her freshly shaven, exposed legs until it pricked every hair up.
Considering the crown on her head, this was a very dangerous game she felt was beginning to start in her bones, but … she could play it.
Turning back, she gave him a wink that only he could see. “Goodbye, Mr. Evans.”