His expression sparked with dry amusement. “What, you think I shoot someone every time I eat lunch?”
I lifted a shoulder, biting my bottom lip.
He stared at me, and me at him. This conversation was doing nothing to ruin his appeal. He was slightly sweaty, grease-stained, and tattooed. None of which I thought I could appreciate until now. This strange attraction sank so deep, my cells shifted and grew heavy as they soaked it in.
“The only acts of violence I’ve committed this week have somehow revolved around you,” he pointed out.
“You mean last night when you promised you wouldn’t do anything? Was that one of them?” My words were sweet as I tilted my head.
“Wasn’t it you who called me a cheat, Elena?”
I wasn’t even sure how he did it, but my name rolled off his lips in a low, suggestive drawl that ghosted across my skin like a shiver. Heat ran between my legs.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
I grew flustered. “You know what you’re doing. Stop.”
He walked toward me with a car part, setting it on the workbench. My entire side tingled at his proximity a couple feet away. I turned in his direction and leaned my hip against the table. I didn’t know what I was doing in here, watching him work, but it was almost . . . thrilling. Like living on the edge. Who would rather sit in the car?
He took a similar-looking part out of a box. I couldn’t believe he did his own mechanic work. I guessed even men like him had to have a hobby.
“What are you doing with Benito?” His tone seeped with indifference, but interest shone through.
“We’re going to a pool party.”
After a moment, he said, “Tyler Whitmore’s, I imagine.”
“Yeah—” I froze. I knew this interaction was going over too smoothly. “Why do you know his last name?”
“You can find out anything these days, Elena.” He said it with a dark edge, while wiping his hands off.
My teeth clenched. “I didn’t ask how, I asked why.”
His gaze came my way, hard and intimidating. “I’m marrying into your family. That makes your business now mine.”
“No, it doesn’t.” My eyes narrowed. “That makes Adriana’s business yours, not mine. I have plenty of men in my life already.”
“Guess you got another.” His words were deep. Smooth. Final.
I opened my mouth to say something—something about how much I disliked him—but before I could work out my thoughts into coherent words, he told me, “Maybe rethink what you’re about to say.”
I closed my mouth. He was so confident, unconcerned, while my stomach twisted with worry for Tyler. The last thing anyone wanted was their full name on Nicolas Russo’s radar. Frustration clawed beneath my skin. He’d come and butted into my life like he had a right to. He would make a disaster of it.
I couldn’t keep it in.
“Have you always been unhinged? Or is your controlling, delusional nature a product of inadequacy?” I said it sweetly. Sweet as poison.
He continued tinkering with his part, his gaze staying focused like he hadn’t even heard me.
I had to admit, it felt good to get that off my chest. Great, actually—
A cool rush of shock flooded me as he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me within a foot of him. My heart was in my throat and my eyes squeezed shut, because I didn’t want to see how he was going to kill me. All I felt was warm skin and a tug on my dress, and then his hand slipped from my nape and he was gone.
After a couple seconds, I opened my eyes to see him walking away with a part in hand.
I stood there, frozen.
“Never really thought about it,” he drawled. “But I guess I’ve always been.”
Feeling something out of order, I glanced down.
My lips parted in disbelief. He cut my bikini strap.
I had a feeling this wasn’t even because of the comment; he just didn’t want me to go to that party.
Benito’s voice filtered into the garage, though I couldn’t see him over the car. “I used your kit under the sink to fix a couple stitches. Hope you don’t mind.”
I tried to catch my breath and collect myself while they talked for a moment. I slipped my bikini top off under my dress—it was worthless now. I wasn’t a girl who could go without a bra. Not to Benito’s standards, but close. I’d have to cross my arms the whole way home and tell my cousin my strap broke. He’d believe me, and he wouldn’t even notice anything. Men were oblivious.
“You ready, Elena?” Benito asked. “Let’s go.”
“Coming.”
As I passed Nicolas and noticed that Benito was preoccupied with texting next to his car, I tossed my bikini top under the hood. “Don’t psychopaths like souvenirs?”
The tiniest hint of amusement pulled on his lips, and one grease-stained hand fisted the white fabric before I left the garage.
Benito sat in the driver’s seat, sunglasses on. “Sorry I took so long. ‘Bout fucking passed out fixing a stitch.”
As I imagined, he never noticed my missing bikini top. Didn’t ask questions about the broken strap. He only took me home. But before we reached the red front door, his suspicious gaze burned my face. “What’s on your neck?”
I wiped the spot, coming away with a smudge of grease. Unease leaked into my blood. “Um, I don’t know.”
He didn’t respond, didn’t hear my heartbeat ricocheting in my chest. Though, something dark crossed his expression before I could disappear upstairs.
I didn’t ask to get manhandled by Nicolas Russo, by my sister’s fiancé. But the one unfortunate truth I was scared Benito might read on my face was . . . I liked it.
“I want to live my life, not record it.”
—Jackie Kennedy
I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK this attraction was my punishment for him. This was karma. While he had touched me, I’d wished for someone else, and that someone came in the form of my sister’s fiancé.
The rest of Sunday passed with nothing but humidity, icy air-conditioning, and thoughts on my mind. Before him, I was a virgin, had never even kissed a man. An entire world of lust and sex had always been there, but I was unaware until I’d stepped into a low-income apartment holding the hand of a man I hardly knew. He didn’t know the Sweet Abelli, and, to me, that was all that mattered.
When I walked out the door, with that broken chain lock and a cheap ring on my finger, it was as a different woman, with a stain of red I could never remove, and a deeper, darker desire in my blood. Once you set foot into that hazy, carnal corner of the world, you couldn’t go back. The ingenious part was that you didn’t even want to. I attributed this to my problem and came to terms with the small fact that I was losing my mind.
When I’d heard my future brother-in-law in the foyer a few minutes ago while doing laundry to pass the time, I’d gone out of my way to cross his path. I hadn’t needed a drink of water, and I certainly hadn’t needed to wear the tiniest pair of shorts I owned while getting it. I was close to crossing a line, but I didn’t know how to stop myself from toeing the edge.
I understood my attraction to the man. His hands were rough, his voice deep, his presence commanding . . . he checked all the boxes I needed but didn’t want.