Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 282(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ELENA
Back “home,” I stand at the edge of my bed and look at the suitcase I packed before we left for the date. That was the bad thing I did. I went around the townhouse collecting every valuable I could get my hands on: ornaments, silverware, and even some of Dario’s jewelry. I stare at it, wondering what to do. During the car ride home, I felt closer to him than I could’ve imagined earlier today. His kiss still lingers on my lips.
I spin quickly when there’s a knock on my door. “One second.”
“It’s me.” Dario’s voice is urgent. “Can I come in?”
“I …” I’m hiding the suitcase, but I don’t want to lie to him. He’s shown me every aspect of his existence, even the ugliness. I drop onto the bed next to the suitcase. “Sure.”
He hurries into the room, clearly about to say something. Then he stops when he sees the open suitcase glimmering with valuables. “What’s this?”
“My contingency plan,” I say. “I packed it earlier, before the date.”
“You …” He narrows his eyes. “You were going to leave me?”
Something in his tone sends me surging to my feet. I grab his arms, feeling his strength, his throbbing muscles like he’s burning up at the idea of me running away from him. “This is all an act, remember?”
“No,” he snaps, wrapping his arms around me. At the restaurant, he was respectful about kissing, but now he pulls me right up against him and crashes his mouth fiercely against mine. I gasp at the suddenness of it, and then something deep inside wills me to sink against him.
He growls through the tight press of our lips. We collapse onto the bed together, the suitcase slipping off and the clatter of jewelry sounding on the hardwood floor.
“You taste perfect,” he growls, his eyes flooded with the same intensity I saw in the farmhouse. It makes me wonder what he came in here to say. “You taste like mine.”
He kisses me again. I can’t ask him to stop. I don’t want to. Even if I did, the lust pulsing through my body wouldn’t let me. His firm chest grazes against my nipples as his hand slides up my leg. I open my legs, the physical sensation burning away the nerves, doubts, and memories for now.
When he reaches my sex, I grip onto his neck, digging my nails in. “Not yet,” I say breathlessly in a stolen moment between the kiss.
He stares down at me. “Were you going to leave me?”
“I was just being smart,” I tell him. “I didn’t know I was going to—”
“Say it,” he snarls. “Say it, Elena.”
“Want you again.”
“I never stopped wanting you,” he says, his lips feeling electric.
I wrap my arms around him, and this time, I initiate the kiss. I bite his lip as pure passion swells inside of me, the heat and the closeness making me oh-so wild. It’s as if I’m going crazy, like he’s making me crazy. We only stop kissing when his cell phone rings. He answers it. “Yeah, okay. Soon.” He ends the call.
He stands up slowly as if it’s difficult for him—like being apart from me causes him physical pain. “I didn’t come here for your perfect body. I didn’t come here to claim my perfect virgin.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I came here to tell you you’re going to join your aunt and friend in a safe house outside the city.”
I jump to my feet. “What’s happened to them? Are they okay? Is Aunt Rosa safe?” My mind swirls with sickening images, the most grotesque, nasty things. It’s the sort of thing I would’ve found difficult to imagine before the slaughter at the farmhouse. “Dario!”
“They’re safe,” he tells me, taking my hands. “They’re on their way there now. My men have found the leader of the Romanos location. We’re getting ready to move in and wipe the bastard out once and for all.”
“Wipe him—”
“Execute him,” he growls with wildness in his eyes. “I’m going to kill him, Elena. If that means you can’t look at me, kiss me, or …”
“Say it. Say you won’t care. Say you’ll do it anyway.”
“It will destroy me,” he snarls. “I never knew how much I could care. I never knew I had it in me. If you told me that, it’d wreck me, but I’d do what I’ve done my whole life and ignore what I want. I’d do the right thing by the Family. This bastard, his location wasn’t the only thing I learned.”
He turns away, shuddering, looking for a heartbreaking moment like a lost little boy. “Dario?” I murmur, walking around him so we’re facing each other. I take his face in my hands so he can’t look away. “You can talk to me.”
“I don’t want to burden you with this.”