Page 32 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

By the time I reached my patio, Tessa softly snored in my arms. The wind picked up, making her shiver and snuggle in closer.

My chin cradled her head as my fingers dug into her thighs and arms. I couldn’t explain it, but this felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Like she was meant to be there, and I was never meant to let her go.

She drowned me in her wildflower scent until I could practically taste it. On a moan, her nose nudged my neck. She murmured random nothings, and I snorted my amusement.

“ Ma petite fouteuse de merde, pourquoi toi? ” I whispered . My little troublemaker, why you?

I nodded to my men standing guard and took her inside up the stairs. At my bedroom door, I paused, glaring at the cherrywood. I wanted her in there. In my room. On my bed, wrapped in my sheets and my arms. In my safe space that no one invaded, not even the maids, except for the house manager.

My cock hardened painfully in my pants. Oh yeah, I could definitely see her in there. Sprawled on my sheets. Naked. Tied up. Presenting on all fours, her pussy dripping wet and aching for me.

She drew me in like a moth to a flame. It made no sense, but I was lost to it. She was the crack in my flawless reputation, and she made me want to jump into the pit it created.

I wasn’t the type of man who fucking hesitated.

I charged. I seized. I damn well conquered.

Hesitation was what got me kidnapped. Hesitation broke my brother.

Hesitation brought down strong men. Except hesitation was also what gave me her.

Now I wasn’t sure whether the ideology my father crammed in my head was the absolute truth he professed it to be.

I never hesitated to follow my father’s orders when he lived, even the last one on his deathbed, against the girl who’d become a part of me for more than a decade. I hated that order, but I obeyed. Without hesitation.

Guilt was another matter entirely, and I carried that on my shoulders ever since.

Maybe that’s why I hesitated with Tessa.

Maybe the guilt was too much to bear. I wasn’t a good man.

I killed and tortured and manipulated, and that wasn’t about to change.

But maybe, just maybe, Tessa was the redemption I never knew I needed.

When she whimpered against my chest, the need to comfort her raged within me.

I shoved my door open and gently laid her down on my bed.

Her body immediately shifted back into me, her sweet scent wrapping around me.

That just made my raging hard-on worse. She needed me.

When had a woman ever really needed me before, not my money, not my position, just me?

She shivered in her wet gown. I peeled it off her and slipped a clean shirt of mine over her head and body.

I imagined exactly what she looked like in one of the pairs of lacy panties I purchased for her.

My dick throbbed painfully. It was a miracle my slacks kept it contained.

Any harder and it would take on the imprint of my zipper.

I didn’t linger. I got out of there. With her recovering from trauma, my desire was fucked up six ways to Sunday.

I stormed through the halls toward my office, away from the little vixen.

Little, that was exactly what she was. Petite, with collarbones on display, with an elegant thin neck, perfect to wrap my fingers around.

To squeeze. I imagined how her sultry, breathy voice would croak ever so beautifully as she begged me. To stop? For more?

My steps widened. I adjusted myself, then accelerated my pace. I needed some relief and quick.

As soon as my office door thudded shut behind me, I released my cock.

It rebounded against my stomach before standing stiff.

My hand wrapped around it and stroked slowly.

She would hold me looser than this, but I’d help her.

She would be gentle, too much at first, until I pinched her nipples and showed her how good some hard pressure felt.

A vision of her on her knees before me sparked to life, her mouth wide, her inhales stuttering with apprehension, those damn eye shields keeping her expressions hidden.

She sheathed my cock with her wet heat, her lips stretched taut around me.

She was hesitant at first, her licks tentative and delicate, until I caressed her cheek and praised how beautiful she looked at my feet, how crazy she was driving me.

Her palms skimmed up my legs and wrapped around my thighs, hollowing her cheeks to draw me in deeper.

I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled out, then thrust back in.

Her imagined moans were surreal, and my head fell back against the door.

Pressure built, driving my strokes faster.

I wanted to come down her throat and watch as she swallowed it down, keeping part of me inside her.

One of her hands left my legs to delve between her parted thighs.

My thrusts got rougher as her fingers slicked through her wet folds.

I was chasing it now, the crest just there.

When I gazed back down for a final glance before she sucked me dry, the eye shields were gone, her vibrant and expressive scarred green eyes staring back at me, teary and begging for more.

Eyes that were so familiar, they were burned into the back of my mind.

Within seconds, I was coming in my hand.

My ears were ringing as I caught my breath. What the hell was that?

A fucking blowjob, an imaginary blowjob of all things, gave me the best orgasm of my life. The few I ever had were subpar at best. Too much touch. Too much intimacy, neither of which I dealt with well.

After tucking my cock back into my pants and cleaning my hands in the en suite bathroom, I collapsed in my office chair and swiveled side to side, flicking my pocketknife open and closed.

In many ways, Tessa remained a mystery. I still had no idea who she was or where she came from.

Only one other person ever made me drop my guard like Tessa did.

Maybe it was Tessa’s green eyes that made me think of Persetta Iannelli.

Or maybe it was the similarities between their mannerisms and expressions.

I squinted at nothing in particular, biting my inner lips.

Or maybe I was seeing similarities where there were none.

Persetta had no doubt changed quite a bit since I last saw her when she was fifteen, coddled in her family’s wealth, safe under her brother’s protection in San Francisco.

The conversation with Renzo Iannelli replayed in my head.

I hadn’t given the discussion a second thought until now.

Something about it wasn’t sitting quite right.

There was an accusation there. More than three years after my last contact with Persy, Renzo’s vehemence had to be about more than a brother protecting his sister’s broken heart. Curiosity drummed in my chest.

Phone in hand, I dialed Franc, the family hacker and distant cousin on my father’s side.

“Boss,” the answering voice croaked with sleepiness. “It’s three a.m.”

“And?”

“Normal people sleep at this hour.”

“And?” I asked with a touch of menace.

Everyone knew they were on call at all hours. Those who couldn’t fit the lifestyle quit it. Those who quit it died for it. There weren’t any happy mediums.

There was some shuffling and rustling on the other side of the line. “Right. Of course, boss. Sorry. What do you need?”

“Get me information on Persetta Iannelli over the last six months. Go further if you have to.”

“The California mafia princess? How extensive we talking?”

“Everything. Every move she’s made, down to what she had for breakfast this morning.”

“You planning on rebrokering the marriage agreement?”

“Franc?”

“Yes, boss?”

“A piece of advice. Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

I hung up and tossed my phone onto my desk, gazing at the leather button-back couch in the middle of my office space with disgust. I’d rather sleep in a chair, watching my vixen sleep.