Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
“It’s paler, yes. But you have that dark hair—I thought you could be Italian the first time I saw you at the bar.”
The way he was looking at me made me squirm. “I’m not, though.” My mother had some French and German ancestry. And she’d told me that my dad’s people came from Ireland a long time ago.
Rocco grinned. “Nobody’s perfect.” He slung on a jacket and took a final look around. “You’ve got my number. Call if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
Rocco left, and I tried to regroup my thoughts. Then I headed toward the younger DeLuca, the one who was far less complicated to talk to. Even if the conversations were mostly about prehistoric reptiles.
Tommy’s enthusiasm lasted for hours. It made me worry that the child was starved for attention, but that wasn’t quite it. He told me about the boy next door he played with after school. And at one point, he mentioned an Uncle Julian, so I was right that he considered his father’s best friends as part of the family.
So maybe what he was missing was a woman who paid attention to him. That made me feel a bit strange. I wasn’t really the maternal type. Most female bartenders weren’t. But still, it was fun hanging out with the boy. Tiring, but fun. The only arguments we had were over his bedtime, and since I’d anticipated that, it didn’t catch me off guard this time.
Tommy’s steady flow of words—and dinosaur facts—had kept my mind off bombs, police interviews and enforcer confessions. Most of all, they kept away the memories I had from being with Rocco in his living room last time.
But once I finally got him to stay in bed, the preoccupation with my current situation returned.
The biggest question was what might happen once the mafia enforcer returned.
What would I do with him later?
Ask him about his job? No. That felt pointless, and possibly even dangerous. Everyone was responsible for their choices. Rocco had made his own. Though they weren’t the choices I would’ve made, there was no way I would lecture him on how dangerous his line of work was. I was sure he knew that much better than I did.
Fool around with him? God, that sounded so tempting… Having those big hands on my body. Have them touch all my sensitive spots. Staring at him while he rubbed my clit. Seeing the desire in his eyes, just like the other night.
A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts and gave me cause for concern at the same time. I went over to the front door and stood on my tiptoes to look through the peephole. Fortunately, the man outside wasn’t from a rival mafia family, ready to gun us down.
It was Julian.
I unlocked the deadbolt and undid the chain.
“Hey,” he whispered, looking over me. “Rocco got detained. He sent me back here so you could leave.”
“Like arrested?” I said, louder than I meant to.
“No.” Julian stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “As in held up.”
I relaxed, even though “held up” could have more than one meaning. Julian’s relaxed demeanor convinced me that nothing bad had happened to his friend.
“Thanks for coming,” I told him, keeping my voice down. “I’ll just get my things.”
Julian followed me into the living room. The overhead light revealed something on his left cheekbone. It was a small cut, in the middle of a nasty bruise. “What happened to you?” I asked, raising my hand up to his wound. His short beard tickled my palm.
He reached up and cupped his hand against mine. “Maggie.” He whispered my name, his nose brushing my forehead. Our gazes locking, I felt sparks of electricity running down my spine. “I keep thinking about that kiss.”
“Me, too,” I admitted, as his gaze dropped to my mouth.
But this was wrong. A few minutes ago, I’d been thinking about sharing some kind of intimacy with Rocco. But Julian was just so damn tempting—and that was even before I knew he’d taken out the guy who’d been heading for my bar with a bomb.
In an instant, he threw his long arms around my waist. Before I knew it, he was picking me up off the floor with ease. Our mouths smashed together in a passionate kiss, and I hooked my legs around his hips. He spun us around, my back hitting the wall next to the door with force. I snaked my arms around his neck. We were in roughly the same position we’d been at the bar the other day, but everything about this kiss was different.
He'd been thorough and methodical when he kissed me before. Unrushed.
That wasn’t the case tonight.
He nipped at my bottom lip, his right hand traveling down past my hip. He cupped my thigh and squeezed, the feel of his muscled body against mine igniting my desire. My skirt rose up a few inches, and he ground his erection into me.