Bound by Vengeance (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles #5)(8)
It wasn’t the first time she’d said something like that to me but the way she accentuated the word ‘desire’ in her speech made me worry that she knew of my body’s reaction to Growl’s closeness.
She needn’t have worried though. My fear of that man, of everything he stood for and of what he was capable of, trumped whatever small thrill of excitement my body might have felt around him.
Growl
Growl watched them leave the corridor. The door fell shut and he was alone again. Her vanilla scent still lingered in the air. Sweet. Girls like that always chose sweet scents. He didn’t understand why they’d try to appear even more harmless by smelling like a delicate flower.
He pulled at his collar. Too tight. The fabric against his scar, he hated it. This suit, this shirt, that wasn’t him.
The look on her mother’s face had reminded him why he hated events like this. People didn’t want him around. They wanted him to do their dirty work, and they enjoyed talking shit about him, but they didn’t want him near.
He didn’t give a f*ck.
They were nothing to him.
He knew they watched him like a circus animal. He was the scandal of the evening. The sweet-smelling girl, too, had been watching him. He’d seen her and her friends observe him from across the ballroom.
But the sweet-smelling girl had surprised him. He knew her name. Of course. Falcone had talked about her father and her family too often in the last few weeks. Cara.
She hadn’t run away screaming, even though they’d been alone in the corridor. She hadn’t even looked very scared. Of course there had been fear; there always was, but there had also been curiosity. Because he was a monster that they feared and that fascinated them.
He didn’t care. She was just a girl. A society girl with a pretty dress and an even prettier face. He gave a f*ck about pretty. It meant nothing. It was fleeting, could be taken away in a heartbeat. Still his eyes had sought her out several times that evening. He’d imagined ripping that pretty dress off her body, imagined running his not-worthy hands over her curves. Then he’d forced his gaze away and left the ballroom before he could do something very stupid. She was someone he wasn’t meant to have. Someone he shouldn’t even imagine having. She was someone to admire from afar. And it was for the best.
Cara
That day, shortly after we returned home and I lay in bed, my fingers found the sweet spot between my legs, answering to the need that had called to me ever since I’d seen Growl. The cloak of darkness washed away my resistance and my worry of being caught. Even my mother’s words that echoed in my head weren’t able to stop me. ‘Be proper, be virtuous. This is sin.’ The image of that fearsome man had caused a sweet tingle in my core, and I was unable to resist. Wrong, my mind screamed but I banished the thought until finally my body shuddered with release.
But seconds after, a familiar sense of being dirty washed over me. This was sin. Mother hadn’t stopped saying those words to me since the day she’d caught me touching myself two months ago. I’d not given in to my sinful needs since then, until tonight.
I took a deep breath, wishing my heart would stop racing. Wishing my body would stop reminding me of what I’d done.
Ever since Mother had caught me there was a tension between us I could hardly stand. She avoided my eyes as I avoided hers. I was almost glad for my quickly approaching wedding so I’d finally escape Mother’s judgement. I still felt a wave of blatant shame was over me when I remembered that day and the look of shock on my mother’s face. It hadn’t been the first time I’d touched myself but the first time I’d really understood the wrongness of it. I’d sworn to myself back then to never let my body overrule my brain again and now I’d broken that promise. In the protection of the night, I’d dared to let my fingers roam again, all because of a man whom I shouldn’t even think, let alone fantasize about. Wrong.
I was weak and a sinner but in the brief moments of pleasure I’d felt more alive than at any other point in my life.
CHAPTER THREE
Cara
I knew something was horribly wrong as I watched Father during dinner. He had the nervous energy of a trapped animal. Talia’s eyes flitted toward me, her dark eyebrows shooting up in a silent question. She always tried to act like she was all grown up, and yet she still seemed to think I always knew more than her. But there were always more questions than answers in our house.
I gave a small shrug and cast my eyes toward Mother, but her attention was focused on Father, the same inquisitive expression on her face that Talia was giving me. None of us seemed to get answers; Father stared intently down at his iPhone, but the screen remained black. Whatever he was waiting and hoping for, it wasn’t happening. His fingers were tapping an erratic rhythm on the mahogany of our dining room table, a quiet click-click of nails on wood. Father usually wore his nails meticulously short, but whatever was turning him into the nervous wreck before us had made him forget his personal hygiene.
“Brando, you’ve barely touched your dinner. Don’t you like the roastbeef?” Mother asked. She’d spent two hours in the kitchen to prepare our Sunday feast. On every other day of the week our cook was responsible for the cooking.
Father jumped in his chair. His widened bloodshot eyes found Mother, then they registered Talia and me. Unease settled in the pit of my stomach. I’d never seen him like that. Father was calm and analytic. Little could get a rise out of him. But since the party at the Falcone’s, he’d seemed somewhat stressed.