Page 38 of Niccolo (Mafia Kings #7)

Sofia

H e just would not relent.

If you’d asked me earlier, I would have said such persistent behavior from a man would have turned me off.

But with Niccolo…

I liked it.

Quite a bit, actually.

He kept me on my toes, which wasn’t something any other man had done in recent memory.

“I am interested in something, though,” Niccolo smiled. “Whether we call it chess or a dance, you keep evading me. Specifically, my questions. Why is that?”

My pulse sped up as I realized he was correct.

I’d been reticent with information, and now I needed a reason why.

“Because – just like you – your questions are a bit too forward.”

“Well, ‘forward’ is my middle name,” he joked. “ Audace, audace, toujours l’audace!”

French for Audacity – audacity – always audacity!

“Actually,” I said, “the quote is, ‘L’audace, l’audace, encore l’audace, toujours l’audace.’”

Audacity – audacity – again, audacity – always audacity!

“Ah!” Niccolo said, delighted. “Someone knows their revolutionaries!”

It was a quote from George Danton, one of the architects of the French Revolution.

“Someone else knows just enough to misquote them,” I said with a hint of playfulness.

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” he countered, quoting Hamlet .

“And the devil can cite Shakespeare for his own purpose,” I said, making a play on Shakespeare’s line, The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.

He laughed in delight. “Are you saying I’m a devil?”

“Are you?”

“A handsome devil, some people would say. Hopefully you’re one of them.”

“Jury’s still out on that one.”

“Nooooooo,” he said playfully, as though I had insulted him. “Surely thine eyes do not deceive thee, madam.”

“I’m more about a man’s brains than his looks,” I said coolly.

“Oh – a sapiosexual!”

A sapiosexual is someone sexually attracted to intelligence.

I’d always thought I was asexual, but my reaction to Niccolo’s banter – and his looks – was proving otherwise.

Damn him.

“I am, too,” he said, his voice dropping as he leaned in close. “Sapiosexual, I mean. Which is why I think our connection is undeniable.”

It’s true: I was attracted to him.

The verbal sparring –

His intelligence –

It awoke something inside me that I had never felt, or at least never so powerfully:

Desire.

Which unnerved me.

He was my enemy.

I was here to observe him –

Not the other way around.

“Or do you deny our mutual attraction?” he murmured as he leaned in closer.

“I think…” I said, trailing off.

“…yes?” he whispered, his face so close to mine that I could feel the heat of his body.

“…that you’re no Aurelio.”

His eyes opened wide in surprise –

Until he saw the tiny smile that lifted the edge of my lips.

Then he threw his head back and guffawed.

“Thank God for THAT!” he said, laughing. “I tell you what – why don’t you inform my cousin you’ve found a new date, and you and I can go somewhere private and talk a bit more?”

“Is that all we’re going to do?” I asked sardonically.

“Well, since you’re a sapiosexual,” he said with a grin, “you can consider it foreplay.”

In spite of myself, I swallowed hard.

The sensations I’d been feeling all along…

The heat in my face and chest… the tingling in my nipples…

The surprising wetness between my legs…

It was all intensifying.

I was actually considering it. Slipping off with him to somewhere private, that is.

I knew it wasn’t wise.

In that moment, I wasn’t detached and logical.

I had been drawn in by Niccolo’s words…

His voice…

His eyes.

There was something about them –

The way they twinkled as he looked at me –

The subtle way they undressed me…

And caressed my body.

All of it…

Everything about him…

Made me want to take a chance.

That was when I told myself the first lie.

Maybe I can find out a little bit more about my enemy…

The better to understand how to defeat him.

I looked over to find Fausto and Aurelio, to see if they were watching –

And everything suddenly changed.