I decide to go for broke. I’m diving in, head first.

  “Sexual favors would work,” I quip, allowing the faintest hint of an accent to tinge my words before I can stop myself. It’s part of the appeal, I tell myself. Seductive and mysterious. I was born and raised right here in Boston, but he doesn’t need to know that. I want to distance myself from who I really am.

  Tomorrow, I’ll leave. That’s the beauty of a casual one-night stand. He has no expectations I’ll stay, so I have no fear of hurting… him or me.

  Wait. Sexual favors, I said. Does that sound slutty? Of course it sounds slutty. I wanted to sound flirtatious, but the line between slutty and flirtatious can sometimes blur.

  I want to slam my fist in my mouth to shut myself up. Too late.

  “Sexual favors?”

  “Mmm, if you want to get back in my good graces.”

  Who am I?

  But the next moment, his resounding chuckle tells me I answered correctly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mario

  My mama says I came out of the womb flirting with the doctor who delivered me. “You winked at her, Mario,” she insists. “Winked at her.”

  They say Italian men learn the art of flirtation at a very young age, so what can I say? I was born with it. It’s who I am, who I’ve always been, and I can’t help it. Women are so beautiful. So delicate and soft and intriguing.

  I love women of all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life. Tall ones and petite ones, thin ones and curvy ones, young ones and older ones, women who flirt and women who keep things close to the vest. The feminine race was God’s gift to men, and if other men are too dumb to see it, that’s their fault.

  I look at the woman beside me and smile to myself. She stood at the edge of the cliff as if she’d been waiting for me. I can tell already she isn’t the type of woman that needs to be rescued. No… not her. She’s too independent, too wily. I saw the way she took in details with a quick snap of her glance, how she weighs her words before she delivers them. She isn’t a woman to be rescued but a woman to be caught.

  And hell, am I the guy for the chase. Mamma mia.

  “Cold?” I ask her. She shakes her head no, but doesn’t reply. It’s a chilly spring evening, and I’m a bit surprised she says she isn’t cold, but maybe she doesn’t want to admit weakness. That wouldn’t surprise me. There’s an air of quiet confidence about her, a silent statement of her independence. I love that.

  A good guy would ask for her name, but exchanging names implies something I’m not gonna offer: commitment on any level, and a personal invitation to know each other.

  A shrink might say I have trust issues, a fear of commitment. I prefer to think I like the mystique of anonymity. I like keeping to myself when it comes to being with a woman. You start sharing names, then the next thing you know, they want you to celebrate the two-month anniversary or whatever the fuck, or they want to get a puppy with you, and before you know it, they’re tagging you on social media and bam. You’re tied down with a kid and rings that might as well be goddamn handcuffs.

  I like options. And casual sex is way, way underestimated.

  I check the rearview mirror purely on instinct and see no one following us. I had a good night tonight, and it ain’t gonna end now.

  “Where were you coming from, dressed like that?”

  She gives me a smile that should unnerve me, but only excites me. “I just came from a funeral.”

  I feel my eyebrows rise. “Did you? You wear a dress like that to a funeral, you’re celebrating that person’s death.”

  A flare of surprise registers in her eyes before I look back to the road. Bingo.

  “You’re a smart man.”

  I ignore the compliment and try to piece a bit more together. “The closest cemetery’s two miles away. You walk?”

  “Walked a while, yeah.”

  I don’t respond at first, and for half a minute wonder if I’ve made a mistake picking her up. Is this girl gonna be trouble? I decide to probe a bit more.

  “So what’s a girl like you doing alone at the top of a cliff?” I decide to push a little. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were getting ready to jump.”

  She doesn’t laugh.

  Shit.

  I look at her sharply. The sun sets behind her, her long blonde hair whipping around her face in the wind. She wears a bright red dress that’s wrapped and tied to her, accentuating every curve and valley. Full breasts, a trim figure, and legs for goddamn days. Her red lips pull together in a pout.

  Any woman that wears a bold red dress to a funeral is making a silent statement she’s likely ready to back up. I’m here for it.

  No, she doesn’t look like someone about to make a drastic life decision with disastrous results. She looks… bold. Defiant. As if the universe has told her what to wear and how to behave up to now and she’s given it a final middle finger fuck you.

  “I thought you were gonna make up for your tardiness, sir?”

  Fuck it, I love the way she flirts with me. Something tells me she’s sharp and witty, and I love to watch the way her eyes take in every detail in here.

  I love driving in a sweet ride with a sexy woman beside me, but I’m looking forward to sitting close to her so I can fully look into her eyes when we talk.

  When we fuck.

  And we will.

  “How so?”

  She sighs and moves a little closer. I let my fingers graze the sweet, supple skin of her inner thigh, a third date move but hell, we know we’re hooking up. It’s why we’re here. She moves closer to me, and my dick jerks. Fuck it, I’m gonna have her tonight, and I will make it so worth her while.

  “By not asking me any more questions.”

  “Any more questions?”

  “None. Not a one.”

  I won a race tonight, and even though I didn’t need that money, thirty grand in cash is in the back of this car burning a hole through my proverbial pocket. It pays racing heavy hitters and power players.

  Almost met up with Dario and Sergio in town, but Romeo, my oldest brother and our Don, called them back to my family’s home, The Castle, on business. Didn’t call me, but he likes to give me time to get over my jet lag before I go back to work.

  Doesn’t stop me from racing. Fuck, I love to race, and I missed it when I was in Italy.

  So I ended up alone on the town, since all my brothers have decided to get married and have wives and kids and shit. My brothers and I don’t have a lot of friends outside the brotherhood, for good reason. Someone learns about something they shouldn’t, you have to knock them off, and that ain’t fun.

  “No more questions,” I repeat, mulling it over, but what I’m really doing is going through the possibilities of why she’s ready for a hookup. She doesn’t look easy, though there’s an eagerness about her that tells me she wants this. I’d bet she’s never so much as had casual sex in her life. Even the way she flirts is hesitant, almost guarded.

  The funeral, then…

  I know what it’s like to bury someone. I know what it’s like to see someone’s life end and know with certainty that yours will, too, and you don’t know how or when. It gives you a sort of… permission. To not let anyone or anything hold you back.

  Not that I ever have.

  Well… I’ve had my moments. My father always tried to rain on my parade, because he never really liked me, so he gave me shit from time to time. Lectured the fuck out of me about responsibilities and settling down and loyalty to the family. I learned to deal with it. To tune him out. When my brother Romeo took the throne as Don, he picked up where our father left off for a while, but soon changed. He saw that my aversion to commitment and following the status quo had jack shit to do with my ability to complete a task.

  I’ve learned life lessons. I may be younger than my brothers, but I get shit done and they can depend on me. But my feeling’s this.

  You see someone in a casket and you know that will be you one day, so why the fuck aren’t you living your life now? Like every goddamn day to the fullest? People complain about shit like traffic and work and bills, but they miss everything. They don’t see the pale sprouts of spring poking their heads up through the cold dirt, or breathe in the fresh salt air at the ocean’s edge. Everyone tells me I don’t take life seriously enough, but my feeling is they’re the ones that are gonna frown their way to their fuckin’ graves. Me, I love life.

  I know what they all think. That I shirk responsibility, that I don’t like commitment, that I sleep around because I don’t want to settle down. But I don’t care what any of them think or say.

  I’m the one that lives his life. I’m the one that does whatever the hell he wants, and the only person I answer to’s my brother and my Don.

  I live for the rush of adrenaline. The first kiss. The way you can make a woman smile and purr with the right words and touch. I love using every method of persuasion I have until she’s eating out of the palm of my hand. I like giving them pleasure and reveling in their responses.

  Women are such delicate, beautiful creatures. I don’t want to cage them, I like to see them fly. I just like to visit a little while before their flight. Give them a little resting place to flutter their wings before they soar.

  “No more questions,” I repeat to myself. “Then I can’t ask you if you’re hungry but can tell you that I’m starving.”

  “Well, those kinds of questions are okay,” she says.

  “Ah, so we have rules,” I say with a smile, nodding. I carefully watch her reaction.

  She’ll know soon enough—very soon—that I’ll treat her well, but I’m the one that makes the rules. Still, I let her have her way for a little while.

  I detect the faintest trace of an accent and wish I could put my finger on it. Something… European. With her blonde hair and bold attitude, it wouldn’t surprise me. Swedish?

  My brothers would kill me for picking up a chick like this, for not knowing who she is or not having any more plans but to make her moan, to taste her pussy, and to feel those fingers of hers in my hair.

  But it isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

  “So, Little Red Riding Hood.”

  She wrinkles up her nose. “Not sure if I like that.”

  I squeeze her thigh. “Maybe I have rules, too, doll.”

  She parts her thighs a little. Ah. She definitely wants a little adventure, then.

  “And what might your… rules… be?” she asks.

  “You do what I tell you and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” she says with a laugh like champagne, bubbly and decadent. “You can do better than that. That’s so Fifty Shades.” She says it like it’s vanilla.

  Ah. A woman comfortable with a little power exchange, then. Good.

  The road dips down, and the speed picks up.

  She liked when I took back a little of the control. They’re like that, girls like her. They like to push, to poke a little, to see what they can get away with.

  But deep down inside, they don’t want control. They want to lose control. They want it taken away from them so they can feel the exhilaration of letting go, of being swept away on a rollercoaster of emotion.

  You learn a little bit about the female gender when you study the hell out of them.

  “Alright, doll, I’ve got a pair of handcuffs in my jacket pocket.”

  “Next to your gun?” Her words are a challenge, a dart thrown at a target. When I don’t respond right away, she misses the mark and I stay in control.

  I smile at her. “Of course not. Everyone knows you keep your cuffs and weapons separate, baby.” I cluck my tongue at her and shake my head. Time for another test. “But be careful. Being nosy might mean Daddy might have to punish you.”

  I feel the shiver run through her and push a little harder. Ah, yeah. She’s got the taste for a little kink.

  “Get the cuffs, doll.”

  “You want me to cuff you?” she teases.

  Push, push, push.

  I squeeze her thigh before I give it a little teasing slap. My fingers tingle where I spanked her. She draws in a quick breath, then melts a little closer to me. “Who’s driving this car?” I ask, my voice calm and steady, belying the pounding of my heart. I want her so badly it’s all I can do to keep from pulling this car over and seducing her right here, right now, spreading my jacket on the back seat of this car and making her scream so only the ocean hears her.

  “You,” she breathes. “You’re the driver of this car.”

  I nod slowly, so her words settle over both of us.

  “Get. The. Cuffs.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  I shake my head from side to side. “Daddy won’t be very happy with you, now will he? Don’t you remember what happens to bad girls?”

  Her throaty chuckle travels all the way to my dick. I watch as she gets up on her knees and leans over the back of the seat. I quickly give her a sharp slap to the ass that makes her squeal and moan. I palm the cheek I just spanked.

  “Let’s see ‘em.”

  She turns back to me with the cuffs in the palm of her hand.

  “Shh,” I whisper. I hold the cuffs in my right hand, feeling the cold weight of them, and imagine what I’ll do with her later. For now, I just wanted to see if she’d do what she was told.

  I slide the cold metal along her naked thigh before I slide the cuffs into my pocket.

  “Ohh, you’re sneaky.”

  “And you’re naughty. That’s a dangerous combination.”

  She sidles up next to me, her body flush against mine. “And what are you going to do about that?” She swallows. “Daddy?” I can tell by her tentative voice this is the first time she’s played this game.

  Time for a little taste test.

  I pull the car over under the cover of trees, down a side road she probably didn’t know about that popped into view when I needed it. I park the car, shaking my head from side to side.

  “Now what have we here?” she asks, her eyes alight with excitement. “Little Red Riding Hood’s alone with the Big Bad Wolf?”

  “Little Red Riding Hood’s going to learn how to behave herself.”

  I turn to her and tug her onto my lap so she sits sideways. I love the feel of every inch of her, the pulsing energy between us, the way her breasts heave when she draws in a breath. I lower my mouth to her cleavage and slide my tongue along her naked skin.

  She throws her head back with a throaty moan, her hands tightening around my neck. I let my hands rove over her body as if memorizing her, warm pulsing energy at her back and ass, then up my hands go again, caressing, kneading, as I lick the valley between her breasts. Her skin is sweet and salty, kissed with sea air.

  With one tip of my finger, I ease her full breast out of the top of her dress and weigh it in my hand. Fuck all. She’s not wearing a bra. Her full, dusky nipples are hard and taut, begging to be sucked and licked. “Fucking perfect,” I groan. She’s like a goddamn motherfuckin’ centerfold.

  I lower her into the crook of my arm and suckle her nipple while I part her legs.

  “Oh, fuck,” she groans, her body going pliant beneath me.

  “What will I find,” I whisper in between another lash of my tongue along her nipple, “if I touch between your legs, baby? Are you wearing any panties?”

  She squirms and moans. “Do thongs count?”

  I shake my head from side to side. “They do.” I cluck my tongue. “And you’d be punished for that, too, you know. Wouldn’t you? Didn’t I tell you no panties tonight?”

  “Maybe… maybe I wanted to be punished,” she whispers on a groan. I love how she goes right along with it, as if reading my mind.

  I grind my hips against her ass. My cock’s so hard it’s painful. She knows every step of this dance. It’s like we’ve been partners forever, gliding across the dance floor together in a sexy rumba.

  My throat tightens when she arches her back, baring her neck to me. I kiss sweet, sensitive skin until I get to her earlobe, then flutter kisses along her jaw after a quick nip there.

  I chuckle. “If I were a vampire, I’d turn you right now. Drag you over to immortality.”

  “What if I’m the vampire?” she asks with a throaty chuckle that makes my dick throb. “What if I turn these tables?”

  “Try me,” I breathe in her ear. I move my hands to her wrists and flex my fingers in warning. She giggles when I tickle her side, then moans when I return to her breasts.

  “And what would I find,” I ask, while I drag the flat of my tongue down her neck, kissing my way to her other breast. I take her nipple between my teeth and press down, eliciting another moan while she squirms. “If I parted your legs and dipped my finger past that thong? Would you be wet for me?”

  Another low moan. “So wet. Oh, God. So fucking wet.”

  Truth.

  I ease the cuffs out of my pocket while she’s drunk on arousal and finger her second breast while I lick and suck the first until she sighs and squirms, her arousal intensifying. I shift her ass back and lift the edge of her skirt. I drag my thumbs along the soft silk between her legs and feel how damp she is.

  “Hands over your head,” I whisper. I ease back so there’s room for her to lay down, and when her hands go over her head, I click the cuffs in place.

  She freezes.

  “You did not,” she whispers. “You just cuffed me.”

  I don’t imagine that thread of fear I hear in her voice. Or is it anger?

  She has no idea who I am. No idea what I’m capable of. Little does she know I plan on keeping it that way.

  “I did.”

  “What… will you do now?”

  “Shhh.” I put my fingers to her lips. “No more talking. Lay just like that.”

  If there was room in here, I’d have my face between her thighs right now, but it’s tight quarters. I’ll wait until I get her to bed for that. For now, I press my fingers to her pussy and circle her clit.

  She opens her mouth to say something and freezes. I shake my head to remind her, no talking. “Just like that. I’m gonna—”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21