Page 15 of Niccolaio Andretti (The Five Syndicates)
I want the world to pause for just one darn second, so I can stay forever in this moment, where a man I’m attracted to is looking at me like he’s attracted to me, too.
Is that too much to ask?
“Why are you here?” he asks again, taking another step toward me. “What’s your angle?”
My eyes widen, but I don’t take a step back as he invades my personal space. And for a split second, I relish in the proximity, allowing myself to succumb to the bone deep ache I feel for him. But God help me, I won’t let this man see how much of an effect he has on me.
“What?” The word escapes my lips as a whisper, because I have no clue what he’s talking about.
My angle?
Surely, he’s not referring to my gold digging. Because what stranger, even him, would be so forward in such a line of questioning? He may as well have said, so are you a gold digger or what? But something tells me that’s not what he’s asking me, which leaves me with one word—what?
“Why are you here?” he repeats slowly, like he thinks little of my intellect despite his knowledge that I attend Wilton for law. “Why are you in this neighborhood?”
I tamper down my racing heart, which is pounding at our proximity. At the fact that, if I breathe too hard, my chest would brush against his body. It takes me a second to register that he repeated himself, and when I do, it takes me another second to realize what he may be talking about.
If he’s involved in the mafia, he’s likely paranoid. I’m a stranger, an unknown entity, and I’m in his terrain. But… I’ve been sleeping at John’s for about two months now, and he’s just now confronting me? That doesn’t make sense.
And how have I only just recently met him?
I met Dex my second day sleeping over at John’s, yet it took two months to finally meet him. That means he’s either never here or always in his home. Either way, he’s involved in criminal business, so I shouldn’t be indulging him and his invasive questions.
But I do, because I can’t stop myself with him, and I don’t know why.
I reply, “I’m here for John. I’m with John.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to convince myself or him.
Probably both, because I don’t want to be with John, but I can’t be with someone like him.
There’s a centimeter of space between our bodies, but when he leans forward, he extinguishes it. And that first contact between us has my senses soaring. Waiting. Anticipating. His face slants towards mine. Slowly. Teasingly.
Seconds pass before his lips brush against my jaw, and then he’s trailing a teasing path up the sensitive curve of my neck with the very tip of his nose, his touch so, so light but so, so there.
And when he finally reaches my ear, he opens his mouth, his lips brushing sensually against my delicate skin, and whispers, “I can feel you reacting to me. I can feel your nipples, stiff against my body. You want me. You’re not interested in John. I’ll figure out why you’re really here.”
He steps back from me immediately after and walks away.
Even though he’s gone, I can still feel him, pressed against me.
And his words?
I have no idea what they mean, but I do know that it doesn’t bode well for me.
Chapter Seven
Anger is one letter
short of danger.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The darkness is welcome.
It is my freedom.
It is my friend.
