Ruthless Pleasures With Mafia King

Chapter 3 Episode 3

I’m suddenly powerless to do anything that he doesn’t tell me to do. Can’t wait, can’t think, can’t argue, can’t flee. I can only receive things, isolated little sensations that come and go like passing clouds.

He smells nice. Kinda minty.

He’s tall, too. Very tall. Some might say too tall. Not me, though. I wouldn’t say that. I’d say he’s a very good height.

I follow his gaze down to realize I’m death-gripping my own pinky finger. It’s going a weird purply-white at the end from lack of circulation. I let him uncurl one digit at a time until I’ve given up the grasp and he’s got my sliced hand cradled in his palm.

He turns on the sink with his free hand and checks the water a few times until it’s warm enough. He looks at me. “Don’t scream. They’ll think I’m doing something I shouldn’t be.”

Before I can ask who “they” is and question whether maybe they’d be right and whether this whole situation is in fact a bad idea, he passes my hand under the faucet.

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from screaming. White-hot pain flashes through me—but only for a second. Right on its heels is a warm ease.

I can unclench. I can breathe.

“I don’t like blood,” I explain sheepishly once I open my eyes again.

The man is looking at me, appraising, calm. “Could’ve fooled me.”

I bite my lip so I don’t laugh. “I’m a better reporter than I am an actress, I swear.”

“Is that so?” He arches a brow. “Let’s see it. I’ll give you an exclusive.”

Frowning, I look him up and down again. “Please don’t hate me for asking this, but should I know who you are?”

“You wound me.” He touches his chest playfully for a second, then shrugs. “Or maybe you flatter me. I’m used to fawning people blowing smoke up my ass. ‘Willfully ignorant’ is a nice change of pace.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

Chuckling, he stoops down, opens the cabinet beneath the sink, and withdraws a first aid kit. How he knew it was there is beyond me, but he did it so casually that it’s like he just expected the world to provide him what he needed and so it provided. I have to blink and knuckle my eyes until the amazement recedes.

“No,” he replies as he unclasps the kit and starts to pull out bandages, gauze, and disinfectant. “A compliment would be me telling you that you look f*****g stunning in that dress. Calling you ignorant was merely an observation.”

I slap his chest with my good hand. “Ass!” I cry out.

“Now, it’s my turn to ask if that’s supposed to be a compliment.”

I’m not sure whether I want to laugh, scream, strip, or escape. It’s just that something about this man is too smooth to be real. He quips, but it’s not quippy; he rescues, but he’s no white knight; he reaches into empty cabinets and retrieves first aid kits that, logically, simply should not be there.

My mouth opens and closes while I try and fail to process the gray-suited enigma who’s currently pouring hydrogen peroxide over my cut. For a professional wordsmith, I’m really coming up short on insightful things to say here.

He doesn’t seem to mind my goldfish impression, though. He just loops gauze around my finger, followed by a bandage. His touch is surprisingly tender.

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” I manage finally.

“No,” he agrees, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t.”

“Do I have to beg?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“Only one way to find out.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners, the only sign that he might be smiling. That mouth remains a cruel s***h of bourbon color nestled in the forest of dark beard surrounding it.

“Does this whole mysterious stranger act usually work for you?” I ask, aiming for sardonic but landing somewhere closer to breathless and giddy.

“I wouldn’t know.” His eyes meet mine, and there’s that dangerous glint again. “I’ve never tried it before.”

“Absolutely.” He crowds me closer, still holding my hand. His hips kiss mine just as the small of my back kisses the sink behind me. “But you knew that already.”

I should back away. I really, really should. Everything about this man is a red flag. Charisma is a red flag. Cleverness is a red flag. Being that stupidly good-looking is like a whole flagpole’s worth of red flags.

But I’ve spent my whole life running from dangerous men, and something about that gets exhausting after a while.

Maybe that’s why I don’t move when he reaches up with his free hand and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. Or maybe it’s just because the bathroom lights are hitting his eyes in a way that makes them look like Arctic ice at midnight.

“Your friend did a nice job with these braids,” he murmurs, fingers trailing down one plait. “Shame about the one coming loose.”

I blink. “How did you⁠—?”

“Your dress is safety-pinned in the back, which means it doesn’t fit, which suggests you borrowed it from someone. The braids are too complex to do yourself, and they’re actually even in the back, and I’m fairly certain you don’t have eyes in the back of your head. So I took an educated guess.”

“I… You… Are you showing off?”

“Maybe.” His hand settles at the nape of my neck. I can feel my own pulse hammering against his palm. “Is it working?”

My throat is dry. “That depends on what you’re trying to achieve.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up, and I realize I’ve never been more aware of another person’s lips in my entire life. “I thought that was obvious,” he says.

I laugh deliriously. “There is not one single, solitary thing about you that is obvious.”

“No? Then let me be clear.”

His face is so close to mine. It’s all I can see, all I can possibly bring myself to care about. I’m bathing in his scent as his lips draw closer and closer.

And closer still, and closer still, until⁠—

We spring apart like teenagers caught behind the bleachers. My mysterious stranger’s face transforms instantly, that almost-softness hardening into marble as he turns toward the door.

He doesn’t have to say a word. The newcomer takes one look at us—me with my bandaged hand and flushed cheeks, him with his thundercloud scowl and general aura of Do not f**k with me—and backs right out again.

When the door clicks shut, we both exhale. But the tension doesn’t go away. Something lingers in the air between us, electric and unfinished and dangerous as all hell.

“You should go,” he warns, though it sounds like it costs him something to say it.

“Yes.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Because if you don’t leave now, I’m going to kiss you. And once I start, I’m not going to want to stop.”

He’s right. I should go. I take a half-step toward the door, then pause and turn back. “What if I don’t want you to stop?”

His face is half-shadowed. A dark pit where his left eye should be. “You should be very, very careful before you say things like that to a man like me.”

I look at him. His head almost brushes the ceiling and his shoulders seem to span from wall to wall. I was spot-on the first time: he’s a bad idea made real. Mama would’ve whispered a scary fairy tale about him. He’s a beast, a golem, a dark prince who curses everything he touches.

I look at the door. It’s there. I could grab the knob—avoiding cutting my hand on it this time, preferably—and twist. I could open it. I could leave.

But whether it’s masochism or recklessness or just plain old stupidity, something compels me to turn back instead. To open my mouth, and to tell this demon…

In two strides, he’s pinning me against the wall. One hand tangles in my hair, ruining what’s left of Gina’s handiwork. The other hand grips my waist and bunches my dress into a disaster of borrowed silk. His mouth crashes into mine like storm waves breaking on a levee.

I’ve been kissed before, but not like this. Never like this. He kisses me like I’m air and he’s drowning. And God help me, that’s exactly how I kiss him back.

When I gasp, he thrusts his tongue past my teeth and claims my mouth. I moan and let him.

“Last chance to run, ptichka,” he growls.

In answer, I drag him back down to me. The sink edge digs into my back as he lifts me onto it. My dress rides up my thighs and his hands follow, leaving trails of fire on my skin. When he breaks the kiss to trace a path down my neck with his lips, I have to bite back another moan.

“Someone could walk in,” I manage to whisper, even as my fingers work at his shirt buttons.

He reaches past me to lock the door, the movement pressing him even closer. “Let me worry about that.”