“Please…” I manage to say in a shaky voice.
The hardness in his eyes slowly changes to something that I don’t quite recognize.
“Please what?” he asks. His voice is all gravel. There’s a hint of danger in his words, as if the question is a threat.
“Let me go. I won’t say anything.”
“Right,” he says, smirking with a cocky confidence. He reaches and lifts my name-tag, fingers brushing the soft flesh of my breast as he does. “My name is Vincent Citrione. Now that you know who I am, I can’t just let you walk out of here…” There’s smoke in his voice. Fire. It’s full of all the wrong kinds of promises.
It’s like electricity pulses through me at his touch. Heat blossoms in my chest and my core clenches. Seriously? This guy is going to fucking kill me and I’m getting horny? I don’t care if he looks like he stepped out of a GQ magazine, I need to get a grip and start thinking. Fast.
He cocks his head as he reads the name tag. “Aubriella…”
Hearing my name come from his perfect lips gives me another wave of chills. Jesus. It’s like my body’s betraying me. I know I should run, scream, fight back—something—but all I can do is stand here like a scared child, looking into his dark eyes. I can lose my problems in those eyes. The heat and danger in them overpowers everything else. There’s a promise of power and control, of possessiveness, as if he’s some dark angel who could save me from my problems—for a price.
“This is a media badge.” He holds the badge in front of me with two fingers. Some of the casual ease leaves his face. His features take on a hard edge as he slaps a palm to the wall beside my head and leans in closer. “You’re a reporter? A fuckin’ reporter!” His palm slams the wall again, punctuating his word.
“N-no,” I stammer. “I’m just the sports girl. I-I just,” a shiver cuts my words short. I close my eyes, shoulders pressing in toward my ears.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t put one between your eyes, right fuckin’ now.”
The contempt in his eyes ignites something in me. Maybe it was Jerry Washington or my dad or any of the other fifty minor-disasters in the last week, but I’m overcome by a dangerous level of don’t-give-a-fuck. I’m tired of assholes walking all over me and if I’m going to die, I don’t want it to be while I’m sniveling and begging. I want to bring him down a notch, to stand up for myself and show him that I don’t care if he’s a big bad mafia man. He’s not going to intimidate me.
“Fuck you,” I say. The words come out with a little less enthusiasm than I’d planned, and I have trouble holding his gaze as he glares back at me with so much heat that it’s like looking into the sun. But I do it. I don’t look away. I don’t even blink. I think he might actually kill me right then.
He breaks his glare with an easy smile, stepping back as if to get a real look at me for the first time. He prowls in front of me, tilting his chin down to look at me appraisingly, the predatory grin never leaving his face as he paces back and forth with a languid ease. “Fuck me? Is that a request or a declaration, doll?”
I flush under his gaze, pushing back the irrational desire to feel his touch again. I can’t believe I’m still craving his hands on me when I know he is probably trying to decide if he should kill me or not. Something about the danger gives me a thrill I can’t seem to get enough of, though. Maybe it’s the same craving that has always made me want to step in the middle of chaos to find the story.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I retort, even as my body reacts to him and his manly musk, begging me to reach for him and feel the heat of his skin.
He smirks. The dim lighting casts his features into darkness, making his perfect face like that of a vengeful god. “You sure?” He’s closer now, I can feel his breath against my face.
I swallow, forcing myself to look up at him. The arrogance in his features pisses me off and turns me on at the same time. I want to shut him up, to prove him wrong. Before I have a chance to think of how, his mouth is crashing against mine.
It’s like no kiss I’ve ever had before. There’s no tenderness or hesitation in it. His large, possessive hands roam my body, cupping my breasts like he already owns them, gliding down my back and squeezing my ass. My world closes in around the sensation of him against me, his rough hands claiming me and the wet heat of his mouth against mine, the slickness of his tongue. I kiss him back.
What the fuck am I doing? For a minute, I try to convince myself that I’m only trying this because I think it will get him to let me go, that I don’t really want it. The closeness of his body is doing things to me that no amount of logic can overcome. No, I don’t want to sleep with him. I want him to take me. To fuck me. The thought makes me feel ashamed, but the feeling is somewhere distant, somewhere less urgent and pressing than right now. I just want something real in a life that has been full of bullshit.