Reading Online Novel

Kon (Trassato Crime Family Book 2)(12)



He tugged me toward a half circle table with a dealer on one side and six men clad in everything from jeans and leather jackets to starched suits on the other. One empty chair sat directly in the middle of them.

Lucky me.

He pulled out the chair and gestured for me to sit. “Gentlemen, this is Carmela. Treat her well or you’ll answer to me.”

A chorus of greetings echoed in my ears, but I couldn’t look away from Kon. I yanked on his arm, pulling him closer to me, which only served to make me entirely too distracted by his lips and too blue eyes. “Are you leaving me here?”

“For about a half an hour or so. I need to do the rounds, then I’ll come and get you, and we’ll go out to dinner.”

My fingernails dug into the threads of his black collared shirt. “No. I don’t want to play. I’m not a big fan of wasting my money.” While I loved a good card game, I couldn’t afford to lose any money. I was saving every dollar from my side business to move out of my mom’s house again. I had a taste of independence before my dad died with my own life and apartment in the city. I needed that again or I’d lose my mind.

“No problem.” He pulled a money clip from his pocket and plopped a wad of hundreds on the table in front of me. For a beat, I stared, unmoving. His tattooed hand captivated me, so large, and strong. I couldn’t look away from the tiny stars, crosses, and swirling designs.

I opened my mouth to object, except I didn’t have the chance. His head dipped closer, and his lips were on mine. I stopped breathing for a fraction of a second, and I fully intended to break contact, only I didn’t. The increasingly familiar pull between us dragged me under like quicksand.

One graze, and I startled, electricity crackling through my nerve endings. A quick nip of his teeth, and he stole my breath. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. I didn’t know how much time passed with his mouth lingering against mine, his exhalations becoming my inhalations. My head buzzed and my lips tingled, but worst of all, he tasted good—full and smoky, like whiskey and sin, except a thousand times more lethal. One of my hands cupped the side of his face, silently willing him not to stop. His stubble felt like sandpaper beneath my fingers.

After months, maybe years, of feeling nothing, I felt a spark of something and my heart softened a little toward him.

Fuck.

“Good luck, solnyshka,” he whispered as he broke away, his voice rough and low. It vibrated through me from the top of my head all the way to the soles of my heel-clad feet, rippling into the floor, and I felt unsteady for a beat like my entire world had shifted without my permission.

“Are you ready to play?” the dealer asked, his translucent blue eyes frosty.

“Yes.” I swallowed back my confusion, mentally chalking up the whole moment to being an emotionally starved psycho who fabricated feelings in my head, kind of like the emotional equivalent of a mirage in the desert.

I peeled five hundreds from the pile and slid them across the table. With magic-like hands, the dealer replaced them with a stack of chips. Not knowing the table betting limit or minimum, I glanced at the man next to me and matched his bet.

Cards swooshed from the dealer’s hand, brightening the emerald green table with splashes of red. Within minutes, I got lost in the strategy of the game, deciding whether to hit, stay, split or surrender.

“Hey,” the man adjacent to me said.

“Hi.” I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, but otherwise kept my attention fixed directly in front of me. He looked like a meathead with a dark unibrow and rubbery lips.

In less than thirty minutes, I had burned through half of my money. I hoped Kon didn’t expect me to pay him back.

“So you and Konstantin Trincher, huh?” My hand froze mid-swish of my finger as I requested another card from the dealer. He leaned closer to me, and I nearly gagged on the tangy scent of his cologne.

“We’re friendly.” I shifted closer to the man on the opposite side of me, my foot bouncing up and down under the table. “That’s it.”

“You look familiar.”

I ignored him and snuck a quick look at my new card instead.

Busted.

I signaled to the dealer that I was out.

“Yeah. I get that a lot.” I didn’t, but I had no intention of prolonging the conversation with this man.

He squeezed my upper thigh under the table, and I nearly jumped out of my seat. “I find that hard to believe. You don’t see eyes like yours every day.”

I scoured the room, desperately looking for Kon. “Well, thanks. I guess.” I pushed my chips across the table. “Cash me out.”

He stretched out his arm along the back of my chair and tugged on a strand of my hair. “Where are you running off to? This was just starting to get good.”