Page 38 of Lovely Venom

He knows about the torture tunnel, but I doubt he knows about this apartment. Hopefully, he didn’t see Connor’s motorcade of guards just now.

Hearing the front door close, I leave the closet. In the living room, I creep to the window and watch a massive pickup truck disappear out of the courtyard and into the street. Damn, I didn’t get a make or a model.

I should leave.

But I don’t.

Not yet.

Because I want to know more about Connor Quinlan.

And something tells me I’m going to enjoy this.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Connor

Headlights flashing in the rearview pull my gaze from the road. I catch myself staring at an asshole in a Lamborghini who cuts me off.

I miss driving a sports car, but I retired mine when I stepped up to lead the killing arm of Quinlan Empire. There are a lot of rich pricks in Manhattan, but not a lot of Lamborghinis.

In my Ram 1500 Rebel pickup, I let the guy speed by me and hope any cops along this route hop on his tail and stay the fuck away from me. I don’t want to be followed to the address Rhys texted me.

At an extra-long light, kept red so firetrucks can scream by, I take a moment to catch my breath from coming all over myself a few minutes ago. My blood is still running hot. My body is still tense.

From her.

Storm. Not her real name, I’m sure. But it’s cool and mysterious like her. I’m tempted to go back to Dirk to add storm clouds around my snake. It shocked the shit out of me to not only see her tonight but to have her sidle up next to me and pretend not to fucking remember me.

She was supposed to be just another mindless fuck I usually walk away from. Finding out she was DEA gave me pause to keep looking for her. But seeing her at the gala, it all came crashing in on me.

She’s fucking mine.

What a turnaround from the hot mess I met that night in June. Tonight, she was all smooth hair, lipstick, and perfume with a hint of that lingering scent of cinnamon apple shampoo.

She makes me feel alive. She makes me want to strip away every brutal, bloody part of myself and just be a man again. Not a mob boss. Not a killer. A guy she met in a bar and fucked for a few stolen hours. She made me forget the weight of my last name, the expectations of me, and my hunger for vengeance.

God, I remember her raspy voice telling me to fuck her deeper, but tonight her soft-spoken questions and fake outrage when I told her what I wanted from her have me wondering if I remembered that night wrong.

Then she choked on her drink. Right there, the porcelain doll chipped. Christ, I liked watching her falter, knowing I’d shaken her. I want to do more than shake her. I want her under me again, clawing at my back, moaning my fucking name. We exhausted each other last time, and she took the hint when it was time to leave, but tonight she left before I was ready to let her go.

After showing me two sides of herself, I don’t know who she really is. She’s chaos wrapped in something beautiful. Sharp enough to cut me open, yet cunning enough to make me crave the pain.

Christ, I’m catching real feelings for her like all three of my brothers in the last few years.

Seeing Rhys parked on the street he mentioned in his text, knocks me back to the here and now. He’s leaning against his Audi, and I ease my Ram behind him.

He didn’t attend the fundraiser and is wearing the same black jeans and a casual button-down from earlier. Only now, he’s also wearing a light jacket to conceal weapons.

Rhys takes one last drag of a cigarette burning between his fingers and waves me over.

“Got another one of those?” I ask when I reach him.

“Women don’t like men who smoke,” he says, as if he’s keeping up the habit to stay single.

“Women like your neighbor?” I take a blunt from his pack, some brand he gets in the post from Dublin by the carton.

Rhys snorts a rare laugh. “I can light her on fire and—”