Page 56 of The Voicemail

His expression softens again and he stands, pulling me against him. I reach up on my toes and kiss him again, harder this time. Our tongues intertwine and he lets me take over, lets me set the pace of whatever this is.

He makes a sound deep in his chest, and whatever restraint he’s been holding on to seems to snap. He walks me back until his legs hit the desk, then spins us around so he can lift me up on top of it. His mouth is demanding, but careful enough that I know he’s trying to be gentle.

The contradiction undoes me. I feel it too. I want all of him, every part, but I’m also afraid of the pain that may come with that. Still, I tug at his shirt and he lets me. My hands find the button on his pants and he just kisses me deeper.

His hands roam underneath my sweatshirt, igniting my skin wherever he touches it. Another delicious contradiction. I can’t stand the man most of the time, but my skin responds to him like it can’t wait for the next touch.

He reaches behind me to clear off the desk and I hear several objects fall to the floor. It’s all a dull roar, though, when he pushes me back and hovers over me. My legs wrap around his waist and I can feel how hard he is against me.

“I’m wearing too many clothes,” I complain, and he chuckles against my lips.

“I can take care of that,” he nearly growls, and I feel a cold chill as my leggings are quickly removed, followed swiftly by my panties.

When his mouth trails down my throat, I close my eyes. When he says my name against my skin, slow and deliberate, I cling to him like I’m dying and he’s the only cure.

Delicious contradictions. A tension that’s finally snapped. I gasp as he enters me, filling me so perfectly that I forget any man has ever existed before him. I hear myself moan, but the sound feels far away. I cling to the back of his neck as I open myself up to him, until I can’t take another inch of him.

“Fuck, I forgot how good you feel,” he moans into my ear.

I can only respond with an incoherent gasp as he hits a spot that whites out my vision. Our hips find a rhythm and I hold on to him for dear life, terrified of what happens if I let go. Terrified that I’ll never feel this good again.

Then his fingers find my clit and I lose all sense of reality. My back arches and my legs tighten around him, but my body is reacting apart from my mind. Mentally, I’m on another planet, so lost in my pleasure that I’m not sure I ever want to come back down to earth.

18

ALEX

Luca pulls security footage from the bodega outside Maya’s apartment. I watch it until my eyes burn. I have to see what happened. All of it. Where did Tomaso come from? How did he grab Elena? Where did he go after?

Every angle tells me the same thing, and none of it makes me feel better. Tomaso was waiting for her. He pops out of an alley the moment after she arrives, and he’s at her door the second Maya steps out of her car. He wanted to take her while Maya was distracted. He thought he’d catch them off guard.

His movements are precise with no hesitation at all. He was lying in wait, ready to move the second he got the chance. He knew they’d be there. Somebody told him.

Elena fights him for only six seconds before my men show up. There’s no grace or training in it. She’s a scared, desperate woman trying to get away from her attacker. Watching her enrages me. She should never have been in that position.

When Tomaso sees my men, he shoves Elena back hard enough that she nearly falls. DeSantis barely catches her, just as Tomaso elbows Raul in the ribs. That gives him the opening he needs to cut through traffic and vanish out of frame. Based on my men’s reports, he bolted for the subway.

I freeze the video and look at Elena, braced against the side of Maya’s car, her hair fallen around her face. She looks stunned and terrified.

I slam my hand down on the desk hard enough to rattle the keyboard.

“Destroying your computer won’t change the images,” Luca says as he waltzes into the office.

“I assume you’ve watched this,” I say sharply.

“Probably not as many times as you have, but I’ve seen enough.”

“He knew they’d be there,” I say.

He simply nods. “That’s my takeaway too.”

“He knew where she was going,” I say quietly. “He was waiting for her.”

“But if you hadn’t sent a guard after her, he might have taken her. You saved her life, Alex. That’s something.”

I shake my head. “It’s not enough.”

I stand and walk to the window. The sky is already dark, but I don’t remember the sun going down. Time’s blurred since Elena threw her clothes on and walked out of my office last night. I’ve tried to think about anything else, which means I’ve buried myself in the footage. It’s driving me out of my mind.