Bound by Temptation (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles #4)(33)

I smiled. “You haven’t even tasted all of me.” My cheeks flamed when I realized what I’d said and how Romero would understand it.

Romero’s eyes darkened with what I suspected was desire. “I intend to, trust me.”

I shivered. “You do?”

“God yes.” He sighed, then took a step back. “But we need to be careful. This is a dangerous path we’re on.”

“I know but I don’t care. I want this.”

Romero kissed me again. He shook his head. “I don’t know how you did it but I can’t get you out of my f*cking mind. And now this.” He gestured at my bikini. “You’re lucky you can’t read my mind, you’d be shocked.”

“Not as shocked as you, if you could read my mind,” I said with what I hoped was a seductive smile. I turned around and walked away, making sure I swung my hips.



Romero

As I watched Lily prance away, I almost groaned. Her tiny bikini barely covered her perfect butt cheeks and her long legs drove me just as wild. I wanted to read her mind, wanted to find out what she desired and give to her.

Her earlier comment about tasting her had filled my head with images of my mouth on her *. I couldn’t wait to find out if it was as pink and perfect as I imagined it. I wanted to lick her until she begged for mercy.

My pants became uncomfortable and I had to shift to give my cock a bit more room. How would I be able to restrain myself if I kept thinking about tasting her? It had already been difficult enough to lie in her bed at night without those images in my head, torturing me. I knew Lily would visit me again at night. Now that she knew how much I wanted her, she would use her chance.

But I also knew that I needed to establish certain boundaries. Flirting and kissing was still tolerable, though I was fairly sure that Luca and Aria, and most definitely Scuderi, would disagree. Taking things further was something I couldn’t risk. I’d given Luca a promise and I should at least try to keep it to some extent.





CHAPTER NINE


Liliana

That night I crept into Romero’s bedroom again. The lights were out but he was sitting with his back against his headboard. He didn’t say anything as I approached the bed and suddenly I was nervous.

“Hey,” I whispered, then yawned because it had been a long day and as usual sleep evaded me. “Can I come into your bed?”

Romero lifted his blankets. I quickly slipped under them but didn’t snuggle against him, suddenly shy. Romero peered down at me, then he reached out and brushed a few strands from my forehead. I braced myself on my elbows to kiss him, but he shook his head. I froze.

“I don’t think we should be kissing when we’re in bed together.”

“You don’t want to kiss me anymore?” Was I that horrible?

“No, I still want to kiss you and I’m going to kiss you but not when we’re in bed. There are certain boundaries we shouldn’t cross, Lily.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. Maybe he was right. Kissing in bed was only a small step away from doing much more, and some things simply couldn’t be undone. “But can we snuggle?”

Romero chuckled. “I should probably say no,” he murmured. “But I’m screwed anyway.”

He lay down and opened his arms. I inched toward him and put my head down on his upper arm. I wasn’t sure why I felt so comfortable in his presence. I wasn’t someone who liked physical contact with people I didn’t know, but with Romero I’d always wanted closeness.

I closed my eyes but I didn’t fall asleep immediately. “Have you ever regretted working for Luca? As the son of a soldier, you would have had the option not to become part of the Famiglia. You could have lived a normal life.”

“No. This was all I ever wanted,” Romero said. His fingers ran up and down my forearm in a very distracting way but I wasn’t sure if he even realized what he was doing. “I’ve known Luca and Matteo long before I was inducted. I always looked up to Luca because he was older and strong as a bear, and Matteo and I always got in trouble together.”

“I bet Matteo got in trouble and you had to save his ass.”

Romero let out a laugh. “Yeah, that’s more like it. When Luca became a Made Man and when I heard the story of how he killed his first man at eleven, I wanted nothing more than to be like him.”

“You were only eight then. Shouldn’t you have been playing with matchbox cars instead?”

“I always knew I wanted to become a member of the Famiglia. I wanted to be their best fighter. I often practiced with Matteo and in the beginning even with Luca. They wiped the ground with me. But I was a quick learner, and when I was inducted a few years later, only a handful could see eye to eye with me in a knife fight, and I got only better with time. I worked hard.”

I could tell he was proud of what he’d achieved. “What did your family want? Did they try to keep you away from the mob?”

“My father didn’t want his life for me. As a debt collector he had to do many horrible things. But he and my mother trusted me to decide for myself.”

How would it be to have people trust you to make your own decisions?

“This life, does it make you happy?” I asked softly. Sometimes I wished there was an easy definition for what made me happy.