Page 19 of The Enforcer’s Revenge (Untamed Hearts #4)
He rubbed his fingers over the line of her pussy, teasing her, likely trying to get Brianna to give in and have his way with her because he wasn’t used to her denying him.
When Tino tried to taste her, spreading her and making her stomach muscles clench in anticipation, she fisted his hair and pulled him back so that his head was resting against her thigh instead.
They lay there for a long time, both of them high-strung for very different reasons.
She caressed him, too. Brianna traced the scars on his back, feeling them like hundreds of tiny threads of pain.
She used it as an anchor when the small voice in the back of her mind told her this relationship had skated past healthy before it even started and was well into completely fucked up after two years in.
It didn’t matter because this was Tino.
They were allowed to be fucked up as long as they were together.
Then Tino’s touch got a little softer, running up the long line of her other leg, from her ankle to her hip in a gentle lover’s caress.
It was similar to how she touched his back as if he was memorizing something, looking for an anchor.
Then he palmed her ass and whispered into the early morning darkness, “You have nice glutes.”
“Thanks.” She smiled. “I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
“You have nice legs, too.” Tino used his hold on her ass to pull her tighter against him. “Sexy dancer legs.”
“You like dancers?”
“Yeah.” He lifted his head on her thigh, giving her one of those dazzling, bright Tino smiles that could steal her breath without warning.
“I like this dancer.” He kissed her Omertà tattoo and then rubbed his thumb over it, staring at it in the semi-darkness.
“Only this one. You’re my dancer, aren’t you?
Amore mio . My baby. My Bri. I feel good.
It has to be you doing it. You make me feel good. ”
“It’s probably not me,” she argued, but refrained from saying it was likely whatever Carina crushed up and put in his tea.
Mostly, she was just glad to have him back.
Even if she had to buy the clarity with more drugs, Tino saw her again.
He knew it was Brianna loving him. “I’m pretty sure it’s something else. ”
“No, it’s you. I know it’s you. Bad night.” He groaned and pressed his face into the crease of her thigh like he’d never left to begin with. “Jesus, Nova’s been planting all sorts of ideas in Carlo’s mind about bullets and evidence. Paranoid motherfucker. There’s just not enough fucking blow.”
So, it was cocaine he was buzzing on.
Brianna was silent for a moment, realizing that whatever Carina put in his tea was also loosening his tongue.
His words were a little slurred, obviously hazed by a unique combination of drugs that were the unexpected key to a vault Tino kept locked down tighter than the Federal Reserve, a key that should probably have stayed hidden.
Brianna was just going to ignore the comment about the bullets.
“Bad night,” he whispered again. “Eat a bullet kinda bad night.”
“Tino,” she snapped when those words hit her like a knife in the heart. “You?—”
He put his fingers over her lips before she could lecture him and said, “Suck them.”
“Fuck you, suck them. You’re not supposed to ever say shit like that.” She shoved his hand away. “You promised you’d come to me if you were thinking about it.”
“I’m here,” he reminded her. “And I feel good. You heal me.”
“Carina put something in your tea,” Brianna admitted, though she wasn’t positive he’d remember the confession. “Benzos. Whatever the hell that means.”
“No shit?” Tino rolled over, his head still on her thigh as he looked up at the ceiling. “She must’ve stolen them for her mother. Mary eats benzos like fucking candy, and now we know why. Minchia , they mix nice with blow.”
Brianna’s body got tense at the mention of Mary, the woman who brainwashed this beautiful man in her arms and set into action a series of horrible events that forced Tino into being a hitman, whether he wanted to be or not.
“I gotta get Dr. Acciai to write me a script for Valium,” Tino mused to himself.
Oh .
That’s what benzos were.
If anyone deserved Valium, it was probably Tino, but she still had to say, “It's probably a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“You were just telling me about bullets. You shouldn’t take anything that lets you do that. What if it was someone else besides me?”
“Oh fuck, I told you about that. I’m sorry, baby.
” Tino stared at her, his dark eyes wide.
“Cazzo, those fucking Russians, so hard to kill,” he mumbled, looking back to the ceiling again.
“It’s not like you can just take a knife to them.
You gotta shoot ’em from a distance and hide the evidence.
Fucking evidence. I hate the Bratva. Dunno why the Don keeps getting in these pissing contests with them.
Goddamn bullets. I’m making Nova cut the next set out. ”
Brianna gagged when she realized what he meant.
She closed her eyes, trying to fight the image that one statement had created. And she fought doubly hard not to think about the hands caressing her bare skin cutting bullets out of dead bodies, but it was impossible.
“You should definitely skip benzos,” she said with grim certainty. “Never take them again.”
Tino just hummed in agreement.
Then he was quiet, and it took her a little while to realize he’d fallen asleep. If only Brianna could be so lucky. She lay there for at least an hour, wide-eyed and paranoid.
Eventually, when she was sure Tino was sleeping deeply and not having any sort of medical emergency, she rolled out of bed again.
They had a machine to check for government-placed listening devices, and Brianna made a beeline for it.
The entire building was under video surveillance—inside and out—and guys watched those particular feeds 24/7.
Cosa Nostra was good at protecting their compounds from outsiders, including the government.
They hadn’t found a bug once in all the years she lived there.
She still scanned the entire apartment.
The sun was up by the time Brianna got back in bed with Tino, finally content that the only one who knew his dark secrets was her. It should make her feel better, but when sleep finally claimed her, Brianna dreamed about dead Russians and bloody bullets instead.