More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 13 - January 21, 2025
“And then I’m going to bend you over this instrument and bury myself inside you while you are still coming.”
Fuck, it was gorgeous.
“Break apart. Come for me. And say the name of your capo when you do.”
“You are breathtaking like this. Not because you are naked, but because you are vulnerable and for a man like me? There is no bigger turn-on.”
“I’ve got to fuck you hard,” I gritted out, sweat beading on my brow from the effort of my restraint. “I’ve got to own this sweet cunt, Elena. Tell me you want it.”
“Please, Dante.” “You know I love to hear you say that,” I ground out as I pulled back completely, just the tip of my cock at her entrance. “Say it again, and I’ll show you what it’s like to fuck a capo.”
Giving in to my affectionate impulses, I rubbed my nose into the back of her hair before I stood to help peel her off the piano. When I turned her in my arms, she wasn’t smiling, but there was a softness in her eyes, the gray velvet with contentment. It just about took my breath away. Soft, content Elena. Somehow even better than the weapon of a woman she presented to the world. This Lena was only for me.
I pressed another kiss to her forehead, needing to touch her again.
I didn’t want her to close down just yet, insisting she had to sleep in her own fucking bed and leave me there in a room still echoing with her song, still perfumed with us. So, I tugged her over to one of the couches and then wrapped her in a bear hug before lifting her from the ground and flopping to my back on the cushions. “You oaf,” she protested without fire as she tried to get up. I wrapped my legs around her too, pinning her against me. When she canted her head back to look into my eyes with a raised brow, I winked. “What? Capos need cuddles too.” “Ridiculous,” she muttered, but a
...more
“It won’t be easy, but I promise I’ll do whatever I can to get you free.” Fuck me, but this woman could be sweet under that brittle shell. “I know,” I told her because I did.
“I’m happy,” she admitted after a minute, almost bashfully, adorably girlish. “For a long time, I’ve felt as if I didn’t deserve that.”
“It’s you that’s made me happy today. A man I thought I’d hate is now one of the men I most admire. I just don’t know what that means.”
“You make everything sound so simple when it’s not.” She was right; it wasn’t. But lying there naked and cooling after some of the most intense sex I’d ever had, I couldn’t help but wonder if it could be. If there was a way to ensure we could be happy together for longer. Maybe even forever.
It could have been any man after that to make me orgasm. But it wasn’t just any man. It was Dante Salvatore, the black-eyed capo. How could I have allowed this to happen? I was in no way objective about him as a client anymore.
Dante was one of the best men I knew, and I could admit that now. But he was also, without any doubt, a criminal of the highest order. The old Elena would have wanted him behind bars for life. The new Elena couldn’t imagine even a single day without him. It was a complete mess. Worse, I was worried about him.
Elena was taken. After I’d fucking promised her I’d keep her safe, after she’d finally given in to this simmering, fucking sensational pull between us, and I’d already betrayed her.
“I’m not afraid of a woman, Jaco. Why are you?”
“Better my career?” I bit out, struggling as the plastic ties dug deeper into the bloody mess of my wrists. “I was trying to help the man I love.” My own words rocked through me. Love?
“I’ll warn you once,” a voice said from the top of the stairs. It was cold, low as fog rolling down the treads. “You touch another hair on her goddamn head, I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands and then hand-feed the pieces of you to the neighborhood dogs.”
“Elena, I won’t hurt you.” NO! I wanted to scream. Of course, you won’t, you stupid, gorgeous man.
“You’re okay,” he said in that British-Italian accent I’d once hated. “Io sono con te. I am with you now, si? You are safe, Elena.”
And I knew it then. What it was to truly be in love with someone, body and soul, everything else be damned.
“Sono con te, lottatrice mia,” he said, “anche quando non lo sono.” I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.
“I love him.” Tears formed and broke free of my eyes like diamonds rolling down my cheeks. “I do. I love him. I don’t know how it happened…He just…he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“He’s not anything I ever would have allowed myself to like or know. He’s my client. Being with him risks my career. Being with him risks my life,”
“He has to leave now because of me. He’s going, and I don’t know where or for how long, but I probably won’t ever see him again. And I love him.”
“But I’m not the same anymore. I used to think I knew who I was, but I never felt like this before.” “Like what?” “So alive I burn.”
“Dante,” Elena called as Chen and Beau both emerged from the vehicle and went to the trunk. “I’m coming with you.” My chest was so tight I couldn’t fucking breathe. “I didn’t ask you,” I told her. Because this wasn’t a joke. We weren’t going on vacation to Bora fucking Bora. We were going on the run.
“I don’t care,” she yelled back. “I’m coming.” I stared down at her, thinking that even with wet hair and no makeup, Elena Lombardi took exquisite to a new level. Cazzato, but I wanted her. I needed her. The idea of leaving her behind tore me up from the inside out. But I couldn’t be that selfish.
The smile that spread across her face dazzled me as we moved toward each other, faster and faster. Then she was right in front of me. Elena Lombardi. And all I could think was mine.
“I won’t go back to my life before this,” she murmured into my chest as she hugged me. “Don’t leave me here in this purgatory where nothing makes sense anymore except you.”
“Ti amo,” she told me as if the words couldn’t bear to go unspoken. “I love you, and I’m going with you.”
“Sono pazzo di te,” I told her before I claimed her lips for a bruising kiss. “I’m crazy about you, Elena. But this new life,” I warned her one last time, “costs a pretty penny. It’ll cost you the full price of your old one.”
“Okay,” she said simply when she finished, smiling at me, more serene than I’d ever seen her. “They’re all afraid of you, and they all hate me. What a pair we make. Two villains in love. I’m not afraid of anything that will come at us, Dante. I just don’t want to be without you.” “Then you won’t,” I promised. And I kissed her.
