Marked For Love (Mob Romance) (13 page)

And neither had she.

So, here she sat in her room, curled up in the bed, wondering why the hell she hadn’t taken the steps to save her own life. It was obvious that no one else was going to do it.

She listened to Matteo, Gio and Vicente speak in low, muffled voices beyond her room. Grace hadn’t seen any of them in the time since the invader had struck, and now wondered if she ever would again. Her two weeks were up. Who was to say that Vicente wouldn’t just step into her room and kill her once they got word from her father?

The three men lingered in the living room for another hour before drifting off to their beds. Vicente usually had first watch over her in the next room. She had learned to identify the sound of his movement in that he was catlike – barely emitting a signature at all. Gio was louder, his footsteps more heavy, while Matteo had a quick, unmistakable stride.

However, tonight, she didn’t hear the door to the room next to hers. Instead, her own door swung open, and she sat up, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the figure in the doorway.

Vicente wore only a pair of dark slacks, his magnificent chest and broad shoulders utterly bare. For a moment, she just stared, taking in the beauty of his form – from the dark coins of his nipples to his slender, tapered waist and the light dusting of hair that disappeared below his waistline.

His hair was still damp from the shower, and once he stepped into the room, he shut the door behind him soundlessly, before striding over to the side of the bed. Grace steeled herself. She didn’t see a gun, but she was sure that wasn’t the only way Vicente knew how to kill someone. However, when the man stepped up beside her bed, his form thrown into sharp relief by the low light of her lamp, she saw no firm resignation on his face.

Instead, she found herself privy to something she thought she’d never witness: Vicente appeared utterly lost. He gazed down as her small form wrapped in the coverlet, his dark eyes glimmering with indecision. Swallowing thickly, Grace looked back at him as her heart did a little jig in her chest.

She couldn’t have killed him. Even as she’d pointed the gun at the assassin, she’d known she couldn’t pull the trigger. How could she take the life of someone who’d barely lived?

Grace would admit that she knew close to nothing about Vicente – but she didn’t have to hear his story to look in his eyes and see that killing was the thing he did best – even if it wasn’t what he wanted to do most.

“Why?” The question left the man in a hoarse whisper, and Grace swallowed thickly before rising onto her knees on the bed to face him. As always, the heavenly smell of him enveloped her as she raised her hands to cup his jaw, his stubble abrading her soft palms.

“You wanted to die.” Her words were steady – a statement, rather than a question.

“Everyone dies.” The man’s dexterous fingers wrapped around her wrists, but didn’t remove her hands.

“You wanted
me
to kill you.” She corrected softly, the heat from his body making her lightheaded.

A beat passed in silence before a tortured expression flickered across the man’s face for a split second – so fast Grace thought she might have imagined it. When he spoke, however, she knew that she hadn’t.

“Better you than
him
.”

Him? Him who? Slowly, Grace drew the man’s face down to touch her lips to his lightly. She had craved the feel of his body against hers ever since the first time, but now, she sensed he needed it more than she did. For a moment, Vicente’s lips were stiff and unresponsive against her own. Then, all at once, as if some invisible switch had been thrown, the man crushed her against him with a low groan, his tongue pressing past her lips to stroke over hers.

Grace moaned as heat raced through her like liquid fire. She clung to him, shuddering as he ripped her nightgown from her a moment before his mouth began searing its way brusquely over her jaw and throat.

The desperation with which he held her to him was enough to make her knees weak. The man nipped at her shoulder before his fingers found the soft folds between her legs, sliding over them almost possessively. Grace hadn’t expected so intimate a touch so soon, and a keen of awareness fell from her lips as he stroked her.

“
Tranquilo
.” The word was a low demand in her ear. “Hush.”

Then, his mouth lowered to her breast, where his teeth and lips found her nipple to worry until the flesh was erect and sore from his ministrations. Vicente’s tongue circled the aching bud before he tugged at it, sending pinpricks of divine pleasure-in-pain through her system.

He was rough. Rougher than any man had ever been with her – and she relished every moment of it.

Vicente’s mouth moved to her opposite breast, taking the nipple between his lips as he parted her lower folds, plunging two thick fingers into her weeping passage. Grace bit her lip, stifling a moan of pleasure as he teased her with the torturous, slow thrust and withdrawal of the digits within her. The young woman’s hips bucked against his hand as he stimulated her, and she struggled to keep from making any sound that would alert Gio or Matteo to what they were doing.

Her thighs quickly slicked with the product of her own arousal, and a low, almost inaudible sound of need escaped her. Vicente’s mouth raised once again to her neck before taking her lips in a fierce, insistent kiss that stole her breath. When Vicente’s teeth caught her lower lip, sucking it into the heat of his mouth, Grace’s lower muscles clenched reflexively around his invading digits and a muffled sound of approval reverberated through her.

He withdrew his fingers , eliciting a soft whine from Grace before lifting them to his mouth to taste. The young woman flushed as he sucked each finger clean, his dark eyes glinting in arousal a moment before he reached for the fastening of his slacks.

The assassin delved into his pants, withdrawing a substantial erection that throbbed in his fist. At the sight of it, Grace’s belly clenched in anticipation. She didn’t want him to be gentle. She didn’t want a lover’s caress. She wanted him to make her feel alive – for as long as he could.

Reaching down, she curled her fingers over his, stroking him as he stroked himself. Vicente reached down with his free hand to curl his fingers into her behind, his eyes sliding closed as he fondled her. His expression was almost pained as he clutched her to him. For close to a minute, he allowed her to touch him, her entire body taut with expectation as she caressed the rigid heat of his arousal.

Then, all at once, he pushed her so she fell onto her back on the bed before taking a firm hold of her thighs and yanking her to the edge. He impaled her in a smooth motion, sliding so deep that Grace gasped, her back arching at the searing heat that penetrated her. Her fingers curled tightly into the coverlet as he withdrew, before thrusting even deeper, jerking her hips abruptly against his own.

Grace shuddered, choking back a cry. Vicente held her pelvis flush against his, fucking her in short, almost punishing strokes that had her writhing against the feather mattress. She wanted to scream, to claw at him and to moan his name until she came apart, but she couldn’t utter a single word; and so the pleasure bottled up inside her, swelling dangerously as Vicente drove her mad with the slide of his body against hers.

He made her feel an abandonment she’d never encountered before, where the needs of her body outweighed those of her mind. All she wanted was for him to continue – for him to fuck her into a blissful coma where the troubles of the outside world ceased to exist. When he lifted her hips from the bed, changing the angle so every thrust threatened to draw a scream of pleasure from her, Grace’s back arched almost painfully, her entire body tensing in anticipation of the earth-shattering orgasm to come.

Reaching down, Vicente touched her clit- rubbed his thumb brusquely against it so she came apart on a stuttering gasp, her entire body trembling as her inner muscles clamped down spasmodically. Above her, Vicente groaned, thrusting one last time, deeply, into her quivering passage before filling her with his seed.

When Grace finally eased back down against the mattress, she was utterly boneless. She rolled over onto her side, preparing to sleep, her body more sated than it had been in a fortnight. She waited sleepily for the soft click of the door that announced Vicente’s exit, but instead, mild surprise filled her when the Italian lifted her with one arm, turning her to settle her back against the pillows on the right side of the bed.

Then, all at once, the hard warmth of his body was sliding against hers as he joined her. Grace knew better than to question him. Questioning Vicente sent him to a place in his own head she suspected he didn’t enjoy. Instead, she lay her head back against his shoulder as his arm wrapped about her waist, pulling her tightly against his chest. He said nothing, merely closing his eyes as he held her, and Grace found herself slipping into a deep, inexorable slumber.

One in which dreams of murder were blissfully absent.

The young woman woke blearily a few hours later to the buzzing of a phone. Reflexively she reached for her own to shut it off. What was it with people and calling her at the ass crack of dawn?

When her hands found nothing but the smooth expanse of an empty pillow, blue eyes opened wide.

The buzzing wasn’t her phone, but Vicente’s. The man had left his position at her side to perch on the edge of the bed and answer it. Grace’s back was turned to him, and she didn’t move, instead merely listening to the conversation he had in Italian. The musical language flowing from Vicente’s lips did more to her recently sated sexual appetite than she might like to admit, but before she gave in to such urges. Grace found herself instead considering the gravity of the situation.

No one called
her
at four am unless it was an emergency.

So she could only imagine who the hell would call
Vicente
at this hour.

The conversation continued for about five minutes, before he hung up, placing his phone on the bedside table. For a moment, he said nothing. Then, he turned to face her, and the somber expression on his face made her heart stop.

“Your father refuses to pay his debts.” The young woman’s eyes widened in horror. “Giorgio wants me to bring you to him.”

Grace began to tremble uncontrollably.

Though she had known this was how things would play out, all Vicente’s talk of men valuing their women and father’s valuing their daughters…it had given her the slightest inkling of hope. Of course, now, that hope had been utterly dashed. She drew in a slow breath, trying to calm herself.

“Why does Giorgio want me? Is he going to kill me?”

Vicente’s gaze searched her face, from her mussed hair to lips still swollen from his kisses, before looking away. “He will make you wish he had.”

Sick nausea clenched the young woman’s stomach as she covered her mouth with her hands. Jesus
Christ
. What happened to putting a bullet in her head? To ending it mercifully? “Why?” She managed to choke. “My father won’t pay. There’s
nothing
he could do to make him pay.”

“But he will try.” The words left Vicente on the barest of whispers. “For half a million dollars, he will certainly
try
.”

Grace felt as if she might faint. Her mind whirled, frantically searching for a solution to her impossible plight. She could try to escape. Heaven knew this was probably the most unprepared she would ever catch Vicente. If she ran for it, there was a slim chance she might make it far enough to call for help.

…but then what would happen to Vicente?

He had been charged with keeping her – the hostage valued at five hundred grand. She had no idea what his relationship with this Giorgio was like, but if the man was a power-hungry mob boss, she doubted he’d just let Vicente off unscathed.

He might even kill him.

Unlike Vicente himself, Grace was not a killer. Could she really flee knowing it might be the death of someone else?

She fought a brief inner war with herself. This man had kidnapped her. He could kill her without a second thought. Why should she feel any sympathy for him? The fact that they’d slept together didn’t mean anything explosive. They’d both been frustrated – it had been a result of them being shut up together.

Why shouldn’t she run, and save herself?

Biting her lip, the young woman stared at Vicente, trying to turn her heart to stone. Who was he to her, really? A stranger? A criminal?

“You want to run.” She jerked as he voiced exactly what she’d been thinking, his gray eyes like steel. “Why don’t you? You might make it.”

Grace swallowed thickly. Was he saying he’d let her escape? That he’d look the other way? Or simply that he’d shoot her in the back – a merciful death in the face of what awaited her at the hands of Giorgio Acconci.

“He’d kill you.” Vicente stiffened as she continued. “If you lost me, he’d kill you, wouldn’t he?”

Terse silence filled the room for almost a minute. Then, “He might.”

Grace stared at him – a man who spoke of his death as easily as if he were discussing the weather. Then, slowly, she shook her head. “I won’t run.” A knot of apprehension formed in her stomach and she tried not to contemplate what horrors might await her. “If Mr. Acconci wants me, I’ll go quietly.”