Page 24 of Joey

“Why not?” She blinks at me, her eyes wet with unshed tears. Fuck, she’s far too young and innocent for me. I’ll go straight to hell for even touching her, but I can’t shake off the belief that is burned into my mind—into my soul. Joey Moretti is mine. She has always been mine.

I dust my knuckles over her cheeks. “My kind of love isn’t the type you’re looking for, Joey. You deserve so much more.”

She narrows her beautiful eyes at me. “Who said anything about love?”

“You think that we could just be about sex? With a history like ours? I’ve known you your whole life. I’ve loved you for most of it. You think I would stop just because we were fucking?”

Tears spill over her cheeks and she swats them away. “That’s a whole different kind of love you’re talking about.”

“Is it?”

She ignores the question, her body tensing under me. “Why do you get to tell me what I deserve? I choose my own life, Max. Don’t you dare try to tell me this is for my own good.” Her cheeks are flushed with outrage. She hates being treated like a child, but that’s not what this is. She has no idea what she’s asking for. If I took her to my bed right now, I’d never let her leave.

“You make your own choices, Joey, but I can’t be one of them. I’m sorry, baby.” I kiss a tear that rolls down her cheek before I climb off the bed and walk out of her bedroom.

I hate that I’m hurting her like this, but better she suffers a little pain right now than a whole fuckload of it later on. Better that she never has to deal with the man I really am.

Because if I ever hurt her for real, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

ChapterTen

JOEY

Damn Max DiMarco!

Who the hell does he think he is, fucking me the way he did and then telling me we can’t do it again? Then telling me he loves me! Of course he does, but not the way I want him to. What the actual fuck? Asshole!

I guess I should’ve told him I was a virgin, but then he probably wouldn’t have touched me at all. It’s one thing to have a quick fuck with your best friends’ kid sister, but to take her virginity… No way Max would have gone for it if he knew. He’s too damn principled. Gah! Trust me to fall for a man who thinks nothing of cutting out people’s eyeballs on a daily basis but draws the line at dating his buddies’ sister.

I close my eyes and I’m right back in that alley. With Max’s hands on me. Calling me baby girl. Squeezing my throat. Tugging my panties aside and touching me. I’ve gotten myself off plenty of times before but never has my body responded the way it did to his touch. The climax that man wrung from my body was nothing short of life altering. The fresh memory makes heat sear between my thighs, and I squeeze them together. I feel sore and tender, but not uncomfortably so. It’s actually kind of comforting in a way—a reminder of what we did. A reminder that I’m no longer a virgin and that the man who took it from me is the same guy I fantasized about for the past six years. A man I thought would never ever go there with me.

A smile spreads across my face. Max lost control earlier. I made him do that. And if I made him do it once…

* * *

“Hey, sweetheart, Monique is here,”Kat says, popping her head around the door to the den.

“She is?” I wasn’t expecting her today, but of course she’ll be here to find out what happened after Max marched me out of the club.

Max! The ache between my thighs has been there all day, a constant reminder of what we did. Every time I think about what happened last night, I feel a slick of arousal between my thighs. Max DiMarco took my virginity, and it was hotter than I had ever imagined it could be. Then he went and ruined it all by being Max.

“Here let me take Gabriella,” Kat offers with a smile.

I give my niece a soft kiss on her bald head. “Bye smooch.”

A few seconds later, Monique sashays into the room in a cloud of Dior perfume and flops onto the sofa beside me. As soon as Kat closes the door behind her, Monique nudges me in the ribs. “So?”

“So what?”

“What happened last night after Max got all psycho on your ass?”

“He did not get psycho on my ass.”

“Uh, yeah, he did. He hauled you out of there so fast.”

“He was just pissed about something,” I say dismissively.

“About what? Have you been naughty, Joey Moretti?” She giggles like we’re still in high school.