Page 10 of Sin City Obsession (De Salvo Empire #1)

She blamed the latter on the strong arm still holding tight around her and the scent of him permeating her senses.

Obviously, she couldn’t think rationally in this situation.

Ugh, five minutes with a vibrator would do wonders right now…

Or his fingers. Or his tongue. She imagined his tongue was capable of wonder.

She nearly reared back to smack her head before remembering she was currently resting it on his shoulder. That was anything but subtle .

“Good, send it,” Rocco said into the phone. His tone was still agitated, but he sounded as if he were trying to curb the feeling. He pulled the phone from his ear and tucked it away, but said nothing for several more seconds.

Alessa sucked in another shaky breath. For a moment, she couldn’t remember when she’d last been so unsettled.

The moment passed. It had only been about four months.

There we go. Emotional cold shower. Everything inside threatened to shrivel up, for a split-second, and she held her breath until the pain re-settled where it was supposed to be.

Then she pushed lightly at Rocco’s chest and felt a small rush of relief when his grip loosened, finally allowing her to put space between them.

Not that she knew what she was supposed to say. She had no idea what any of that had meant to him, let alone what it meant to her.

“I may have pushed too hard, too fast,” Rocco said, “but if you think me letting you slip out of my arms this time means this is done, think again.”

Alessa stared at him, feeling too many things she didn’t know how to express.

Most of them confused. “Rocco…” She ought to try and articulate the outrageous way anything at all between them would be too complicated to consider.

She owed it to herself to figure out what his intentions were, if he even had any, or if he was just horny for the new girl.

And she tried not to think about how disappointing that answer would be, despite also seeing how much easier it would be to handle.

“Those addresses you asked for came in,” he said, abruptly changing the subject and shoving his hands into his pockets once again. He shifted his weight, but it was glaringly obvious he was still physically unsettled. “The information should be hitting your email now.”

She opened her mouth to ask what he meant before it dawned on her.

The addresses for the various loan shark types in West Las Vegas.

Yes, work. She’d lost too much time that day.

Whatever the situation with Rocco, it had to wait.

“Great. I’ll get on those.” She moved forward, leading the way out of the room and doing her best not to dwell on how close to the bed she and Rocco had been while they’d been wrapped around each other.

It would have been so easy….

She knew, shamefully, that she wouldn’t have resisted if he’d pushed her onto the mattress.

Or was he more of a thrower? He had the arms for it, but she struggled to imagine that.

She wasn’t a large woman in height or size, but no one had ever tossed her around in that way.

That was probably one of those things the books she read on rare occasion liked to exaggerate.

“I’ll come with you this time,” Rocco declared as they descended the stairs.

Alessa nearly tripped. “What?” She whipped around as soon as she hit the landing, leaving barely enough room for him to finish his descent. “Sir, you—”

Rocco curled a hand around her throat and tugged her close, ghosting his lips over hers.

“Be very careful when and where you address me that way, beautiful. I’m not known for my self-control under the best of circumstances.

” He took hold of her wrist with his free hand and guided her palm over the top of his clothed erection.

“And if you haven’t realized it yet, I have very particular reactions to you. ”

Alessa swallowed hard and tried to tell herself she didn’t feel a thrill at the change in sensation with his firm, yet nonthreatening, grip. Instead, she held his heated stare and pressed her palm down at a slight angle, applying friction to the cock she had previously been rocking against.

His nostrils flared but he made no move to stop her.

“And how am I supposed to know,” she asked, slowly curling her fingers as much as the fabric of his slacks allowed, “what does and does not constitute a ‘particular’ reaction from you?” She smiled and angled her head slightly, until their lips almost touched again. “Sir.”

He growled low, but Alessa moved faster, sweeping her hand up and dislodging his grip of her throat.

She stepped back while he was still leaning forward, and she smirked just a little.

His eyes snapped over to her, but for all his warning, he didn’t look too scary.

She only saw a man she really wouldn’t mind letting pin her to a wall.

Another time.

Other circumstances.

Alessa pivoted in place, made sure to sway her hips, and called back, “I have grueling, unpleasant field work to do. It’s hardly the kind of thing you need to waste energy on.

I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine.” She kind of did want him to insist. It would be different, it would mean more conversation, and it might be fun.

It would also be a terrible distraction.

Rocco made a sound that could only be a hard, probably displeased, grunt. “Fine. Work first. But I’m coming with. ”

A smile tugged at her lips and she told herself not to get too swept up in his words.

Men like him didn’t like to lose. Whether he saw bedding her as the challenge, or proving he could handle a day of field work, or something else, none of it meant the implications of the past several minutes held any significance.

She worked with too many such men not to be aware of that.

He knew he shouldn’t have touched her. Hell, he shouldn’t have gone up to her suite in the first place. But the days when Rocco worried about what he was and was not supposed to do had long gone.

What mattered to him in the moment was that she had responded.

“We stand out like a sore thumb,” Em said as Ignazio squeezed their SUV in between a small POS and a polished sports car. The latter was probably specifically tricked out for street racing, based on the paint job and choice of accessories.

Ignazio killed the engine. “We stood out the second we turned into the neighborhood.”

Rocco frowned and let his gaze drift out the tinted window at his side. It wouldn’t be the lingering stare of passersby they needed to worry about, of course, but he took a second to scrutinize the punk leaning against the gaudy racecar, anyway .

Alessa released her seatbelt. “If you boys are uncomfortable, feel free to wait in the car. I’ll be back when I’m done.” She popped her door open before any of them could respond.

Ignazio made a sound almost like a groan, but opened his door.

Rocco didn’t wait for Em, knowing the larger man would follow his lead, and stepped onto the curb.

Like hell he was letting that woman strut through the Westside without backup.

No matter who she worked for, and how much they trusted her, she was one person.

One incredibly sexy, fearless person who didn’t know her way around.

“Yo, old timers,” the punk near the racecar called, already gesturing between the vehicles. “You touched my car.”

Rocco frowned.

“We did not,” Em replied.

The punk—a boy who might barely have been old enough to drink, with light-hued dark skin and features suggestive of mixed ancestry—made a motion like he was puffing himself up.

All he succeeded in doing was emphasizing that he didn’t know how to dress, as his pants slipped and his duster dropped off one shoulder to reveal the wife beater beneath.

He couldn’t have been more of a cliché if he’d tried. “I said —”

“We heard you,” Rocco interrupted, taking a single step forward to tower over the thug. He narrowed his eyes. “But you won’t be intimidating or threatening us out of money. And if this SUV has a single scratch on it when we come back, you will be the one to pay for that, do you understand?”

The boy hitched up his shoulders. “I ain’t scared o’ you, geezer. ”

Em reached around Rocco, took hold of the punk’s nearest arm, and spun him until the boy was bent backwards against the passenger side of his own car. “You need to learn some manners.”

“H-hey!” The boy did his best to wiggle free, but Em’s grip was iron. “Lemme up, asshole! You’re gonna dent my car!”

“You’re the only one touching your car,” Em replied. He shoved the punk up another inch, until the boy’s sneakered toes were scraping the concrete.

“F-fuck, that hurts!”

Rocco shifted his weight but made no effort to approach the pair. “Consider this a lesson,” he said. “Don’t start stupid shit just because the gun in your pants makes you feel big.” He turned toward where Alessa waited, leaning against a sign post. “Leave him, Em.”

The sound of a body hitting pavement and less-than-muted cursing assured Em had done as told, as always.

Alessa’s gaze lingered past Rocco for a beat longer before shifting to him and she straightened. “Letting him off easy?”

Rocco offered her a grin. “That’s up to him.” He found himself suddenly compelled to reach out and curl an arm around her, to hold her against his side as they walked. And the idea that maybe she wouldn’t appreciate that sank like a lead weight in his stomach.

He needed to figure out more than whether or not she would let him into her bed.

Hell, if he only asked for sex, he was pretty sure he knew how she’d answer.

But it wouldn’t be just sex. Because if all he wanted was to fuck her before any other dick in Vegas could catch her eye, he’d have pushed harder .

Rocco shoved his hands a little deeper into his pockets and kept his glare forward as they approached the corner building containing the business they were searching for.

His father had always said one day he would find a woman who grabbed him by the balls and didn’t let go, and that was how he would know.

He remembered how she’d teased him not an hour earlier. How she’d run her palm up his length and curled her fingers half around him despite the stretched fabric of his pants in the way.

He’d never realized his father was a fucking prophet.

Rocco barely noticed Ignazio slip ahead to pull open the glass-paneled door, but he caught himself in time to sweep an arm forward and flash a smile Alessa’s way. “Ladies first.”

She made a show of rolling her eyes before leading the way into the moderately sized establishment.

He let his gaze drop to her ass for a beat before following after her.

The lobby space spanned the width of the building and was decorated in hues of green and black, giving it a pricy industrial look.

Definitely in keeping with the company’s name, and implicit logo, GreenLight.

There were three people in line, none of them standing patiently and one attempting to one-arm a restless toddler into holding still.

Two people worked behind the front desk, one seemingly consumed by something on the computer.

And a security guard already eyeballing them sat in another chair, against the far wall, his cheap uniform bulging to accommodate the muscles he was surely proud of beneath .

If Alessa took any of that in, she was subtle about it. From Rocco’s perspective it looked like she might have thrown a glance at the line at best before striding straight up to the desk, without any regard for how her actions would upset the waiting customers.

It was exactly what he would have done.

In fact, he made to follow in her wake when he noticed the bodybuilder-drop-out push to his feet and start forward.

Rocco tilted his head, a silent command for one of his men to intercept, and positioned himself enough that between the three of them Alessa’s path would remain clear. She was going to ruffle some feathers, but that was what they were there to do. So he intended to make sure she succeeded.

The security guard glared out at them from over a formerly broken nose. He had a scar at the corner of his lips from an old gash. The man had obviously seen at least one violent fight, some years before.

But looking tough and being it were not always the same thing, and Rocco didn’t intimidate easy, so he raised his chin to emphasize his superior height. Because he could see in the guard’s eyes they were not going to get along.