Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
His lips are firm, his tongue soft, and everything about him screams for more. I dig my fingers into his skin. I feel him getting hard against me, and my heart’s racing into my throat. I must be dripping wet right now, absolutely soaked, if I can go by the wild tingle between my legs. God, this is dumb, we shouldn’t do this—
I break the kiss off. It ends abruptly, like it started. He’s looking at me like he’s not sure if he wants to take more, or if he’s about to scare me away.
“I should go,” I say, taking a step back.
“You don’t have to.”
“We both know I should. If someone saw that—”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.” I yank open my car door. He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t stop me. “I’ll see you in a couple days, okay?”
He nods and says nothing, his jaw flexing, and I close the door. My car’s engine starts right up, and he’s still there watching me as I pull away. The kiss lingers, sweet and heavy, and my cheeks are flushed and hot with how badly I want him, but I hear Cormac’s words in my head.
I don’t want Ronan’s family to go through what happened in mine.
The conditions are all there. The pressure is right. And if I do something wrong, like I did with Gregory, I might cause it all to boil over and explode.
Kissing Ronan is definitely wrong.
Which is why I can’t do that again, not ever again, even if I want to.
Chapter 16
Valentina
That kiss nearly broke me.
I can’t stop thinking about the way it felt to have Ronan’s lips pressed against mine and his hands grabbing possessively onto my hips. It was wild, a rush of pure desire straight to my core, and I’m having a hard time getting rid of the aching need still caught in my guts.
It’s crazy and definitely stupid.
Ronan annoys the hell out of me. His stupid cocky arrogance is everything I hate in a guy, especially criminal assholes like him. Yes, he’s gorgeous, and he cares about his family in a way that I find insanely attractive, but that doesn’t change anything. Getting with him is dangerous.
If the problems in his organization find out we were making out in the parking lot? If they saw the way he looked at me before and after? They’d be pretty damn pissed off, like some random Italian girl is coming in from a defunct Famiglia and taking control of their boss.
Ronan needs to stay a business partner.
This mission we’re on is about more than a quick score to me. The remnants of my father’s former crime empire will always be a danger to me so long as they still exist. Dismantling them would be an enormous weight off my shoulders, and yeah, obviously making some money would be pretty great too. But mostly, this is about my survival.
That’s all my life’s been about these days.
I park and climb the stairs to my apartment. I’m tired and distracted, and I barely notice the smell of cigarette smoke as I unlock the door and step inside.
But nobody’s allowed to smoke in my building. So why—
“Hello, Valentina. It took me a while to find you.”
I stand frozen in the doorway. I want to turn and bolt, but Julien’s got a gun pointed at my face as a cigarette burns in his other hand. He takes a drag, never turning his eyes away.
“What are you doing here?” I really need to upgrade my locks. The number of men breaking into my apartment is getting kind of ridiculous now.
“I’m only here to talk.” He gestures for me to enter with his weapon. “Nice place. Shit building. But you have good taste.” He takes another drag. “Stand right there. That’s good.”
I’m in the middle of the living room. The door is mostly shut behind me—but not all the way. I left it cracked slightly in case I get the chance to turn and run away.
Problem is, Julien Moreau is a professional.
He’s another remnant of the alliance my former partner Marco was trying to build. Julien runs the French Connection in this part of town, importing high-quality heroin through secret shipping containers and ports scattered all over the world. The FBI figured the connection got shut down a long time ago—but Julien and his people are working with their contacts in French-aligned Africa to get the drugs flowing again.
From what I hear, business is going well. Julien’s gang is more of a loose confederation of employees than it is a crime family, and in many ways, he’s even more dangerous than Ronan or the Biancos.
“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” I say, trying to mask my fear. The weight of the gun in my bag is both familiar and infuriating—there’s no way he’s ever let me get it even halfway drawn.