The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3)(128)
Tino was going to have to figure something out really soon, or he was going to end up doing porn like Bobby. Sounded dramatic, but it wasn’t as if guys like them knew how to f*cking date.
The thing was, after the fallout, and dealing with the unexpected surprise of his brother signing him up to be a hired killer, Tino gave up sex. He didn’t know how to operate in the world without someone telling him who to f*ck and how.
Except Tino liked to f*ck.
That was the first thing he’d discovered after giving it up. He missed it. Not all the bullshit, especially not Mary, but being with a woman—hell, yes, he missed it. His biceps were more ripped than ever, because he liked to switch hands jerking off and pretend it was someone else.
Who the f*ck was he kidding?
He liked to pretend it was Brianna.
He was aching for the sex because it fueled his Brianna fantasies. That was how he’d learned to deal with the bullshit in the first place, and it’d obviously been a great coping mechanism because he was going f*ck crazy without it.
He missed pretending it was Brianna’s hair he was pulling, her * he was licking, her body quivering, and her voice calling out his name.
This babysitting gig was a bad idea, even though the don hadn’t really given Tino a f*cking choice in the matter. He didn’t have long enough to build up his defenses against her. Not even close. He found himself teasing Brianna just to see her blush. He pushed her just to see how far he could go. How bad he could be with her. All the while thinking of other ways he could get her cheeks pink. He was raw and on edge, and tonight especially his fingers were itching to touch her.
Just a little bit.
A taste.
To make her look hot on that dance floor, with those tiny tendrils of red hair that escaped her ponytail clinging to the curve of her neck that he wanted to bite and lick and mark until everyone in this club knew she was his.
Even if he was the last f*cking man who should be touching her.
He wanted to know what tattoo she’d gotten. It was like undiscovered treasure. A tease. One more thing that made Tino feel like a wild animal, released out into civilized society after life made him completely feral. They had him on a leash. They thought he only barked when they needed him to scare someone or bite when they needed a problem to go away, but they didn’t know he was protecting the ship for Nova, not them. He had a cause, and it had kept him focused for two years, but now they’d thrown Brianna in the cage with him when he’d spent all that time staying away.
It scared the shit out of him, because Brianna was f*cking ripe.
At eighteen, without any real boyfriend for the last two years of high school, sexual frustration was bleeding from her pores. Tino was trained to sniff out the need. The desperation. To prey on it. To make her ache for him enough to lie, steal, and cheat for it, and Tino was fueling the flames on purpose. For a long time it was survival—knowing someone wanted to buy him meant terrible shit wasn’t going to happen—but now it was an instinct.
He just couldn’t f*cking stop himself from doing things like taking off his shirt when she was around. It didn’t matter if it showed his holsters and weapons. Tino knew the danger tasted good, even when it shouldn’t, especially to a good girl like Brianna.
He tried to rein himself in, always playing the game of blow, booze, or jerking off to keep himself in line, but sometimes it was hard.
Tonight it was f*cking impossible.
Then the music switched; the sexual twang of a guitar echoed over the dance floor when they’d been playing nothing but salsa and merengue all night. The throb of drums being replaced with something softer, more sensual, and Paco pulled Carina close, like a man who knew what the DJ just gifted him with.
All Tino could think was…
“Fuck, no.”
He said it out loud as he got up and left his drink on the bar.
Tino ignored his sister and Paco, effectively failing at babysitting as he came up behind Brianna on the dance floor. He grabbed her arms to pull her back against him and glared at her friend Aaron over her shoulder.
“Get lost.” Tino didn’t give the blond a second look. Instead he leaned down and buried his face in Brianna’s hair. He let his breath hit her ear, making her shudder in his arms as he asked, “Still want me to dance for you?”
Tino ran a hand down her arm and over her hip possessively, before he caressed her bare thigh underneath her dress as the sound of the bachata played in the background. The anthem for lovers everywhere that Tino really had no business dancing with Brianna to, but he’d stopped playing by the rules a long time ago.
He tugged her hair with his other hand because he wanted to feel it in his fist. Brianna rolled back against him, putting her hands on his hips behind her, thighs spread, letting him press his leg between hers. He was f*cking rock hard, watching her straddle his thigh in that tiny black dress.
Tino slid his hand higher on her thigh in the two seconds it took Brianna to decide if she was going to move against him. Her skin was f*cking smooth as hell. This wasn’t good-girl smooth. It was hooker smooth. Like a woman who relied on her body to survive, and something about it sorta f*cked Tino up.
He took the job of making a woman look good very seriously.
Like protecting the ship, it was life-and-death.
For a long time, Lola had depended on him for it as much as he had depended on her. He knew it wasn’t Lola in his arms, he was highly aware it was Brianna, but it was always something more than pleasure for him.