Page 3 of Dark Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 10)

That’s just Ant, though. Everything he does is sweet, thoughtful.

Nothing like him.

Ant would never touch me, kiss me, take me the way he did that night.

Is that the reason I still crave him?

The darkness he showed me. The pleasure.

He took what he wanted, what he knew I needed—although I’m not sure how he knew—and gave me something I’m never going to be able to forget.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy,” he whispers, pulling back, cupping my jaw as he stares down into my eyes.

“It’s okay, I get it.” And I really do. He works for the Mariano Family, but he’s also doing his first year at university and he’s in the final stretch to exams. I understand why he needs to put that first. Why he has to put his Family first, because if he didn’t and anyone found out that it was because of me, because of a Cirillo…

I shove reality away, trying to focus on him when he slides his hand into mine and twists our fingers together.

“Come on, I’ve already ordered food.”

My stomach growls on cue.

“Sorry I took so long; the traffic was horrendous.”

“You’re here now,” he says, lifting our joined hands to his lips.

Everything inside me relaxes in his presence. It’s one of the many reasons I know my brother and cousin are wrong.

Ant’s not playing me. He’s not trying to get intel on us, our Family. He’s never so much as asked me anything about my life outside of school or normal stuff. He’s never given me any reason to believe that he wants anything more than just to spend time with me… well, maybe something. But he’s been nothing but a gentleman and followed my lead.

I’d told him the first time we hung out after Halloween when he tried to make a move on me that I wanted to take it slow, and he accepted my request without argument, even though I knew he wanted to take it further.It showed me that he wanted to put my needs before his own.

I wanted it. To be physical with him like that. But afterhim, I just couldn’t.

I’d have compared everything, then I’d get stuck in my own head with the way he did it.

I just needed time to push him and thoughts of that night from my mind like it seemed he did the second he walked out the door.

Discovering who he was and watching him forget it ever happened hurt. Seeing him later that evening while both Seb and Toby were lying in hospital beds was torture, but it had nothing on the way he looked at me like it was any other day, nodded in greeting and then walked away as if I hadn’t come all over his face only hours before. Hell, he could probably still taste me, yet he dismissed me like I was nothing.

Like I was a regrettable mistake he’d happily never think of again.

“What’s wrong?” Ant asks, sensing my mood shift.

“Nothing,” I say, plastering on a smile. “It’s just been a long week.”

“Well then, you’ve come to the perfect place for you to relax.”

We emerge through the trees at the back of the building and find the window to Ant’s ground floor flat open and ready to climb through.

“Didn’t you want to hang out with the guys tonight?” I ask as we come to a stop by the window.

“Over spending time with you? Not a chance,” he breathes in my ear, stepping right up behind me and pressing the length of his body against mine.

I swoon hard as his hands brush up my sides, finally resting on the curve of my waist to help lift me through the window into his room.

It should be a glaring red flag that I can’t just walk in through the front door to be with him. It should be enough to tell me what a stupid idea all of this is. But it doesn’t stop me.

Spending time with Ant is just so easy. He makes me smile, laugh. He doesn’t take life too seriously despite the ugliness of what we’re entangled with because of our surnames, and he makes me feel important, worthy, sexy.