Page 106 of Dirty Mafia Torment

Suddenly, it hits me. No. No. No. One damn kiss, and I tossed my heart down the rabbit hole. I’m a lost and confused Alice, and he’s for sure the Mad Hatter.

Let that kiss mean something more than a mistake.

“That was fun,” he says, voice low, rough, and distant. Pulling away like what just happened was another day at the office. For him, it likely was. If he really, truly wanted me, he’d be thinking Fina and not pasta.

“Should we eat?” he asks. His question’s a slap in the face.

He didn’t kiss me back to claim me.

He kissed me back because it was easy.

A flush creeps up my neck, hot and sharp. I feel ridiculous. Angry. Twenty all over again.

What was I thinking?

Do I even know this man at all?

He’s all rough edges and mixed signals. Every time I start believing something’s real, he slips through my fingertips.

I offer him my frostiest look.

His forehead furrows into a deep V.

Good. Feel that.

My voice is calm when I speak, not reflecting the disappointment eating me up inside. “Your dinner is getting cold.”

I came here simply for sex. Forgetting to consider one important truth: nothing between Renzo and me has ever been simple.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

RENZO

“Know what your problem is?”

Fork raised, I’m midbite when she hits me with her question, as if she’s laying a trap, as if her kiss earlier wasn’t enough to drive thoughts of escape away.

I’m not going anywhere. Despite how it’s taken the good part of an hour for her to stop tossing poison darts my way.

Fina doesn’t understand the power of delayed gratification—not yet. Once I hose down, rinse off today’s sweat and grime, and then bury my face between her thighs, she’ll thank me for it.

Despite her displeasure, she’s still here, “fulfilling her obligations”—which is what she so bitingly told me earlier—but mellowing as the light fades.

“My problem?” I force a laugh. “Pick one.”

“You’re too smart.”

“If I were so fucking smart, would I be trapped inside a barn and pissing in a bucket all day?”

The key for my shackles is now inside my pocket, where I placedit after it fell into the hay while we were lip-locked. She’s yet to discover it’s lost. So goodbye bucket; I can escape at any time I want.

I continue eating, giving nothing away.

She continues prying. “No one’s told you before?”

“Too many times I lost count.”

She looks hopeful, the earlier spark in her eyes returning. But all this psychobabble and digging deep into my bullshit is uncomfortable, especially coming from a woman who’s been riding my tail for years. “Smart is usually followed by ass.” And then, in true smart-ass fashion, I gesture to her half-empty plate and repeat her warning from earlier. “Your dinner’s getting cold.”