“How can you when you were just pushing me away? You told me you didn’t want to be with me until after my divorce was final and I wasn’t your client anymore. Everything you’ve worked for?—”
“Will be fine.”
“Are you guys going to kiss or what?” Sully cuts through the moment, followed by a sharp thud when Cecilia smacks his chest with the back of her hand, reprimanding him with a “Sully! Stop it.”
Sending Sully a glare, I push to my feet abruptly, grabbing onto Luciano’s wrist as I do, tugging it roughly. “We need to talk.”
Turning on my heel, I cross my arms over my chest and start toward the staircase.
“But wait, what about the rest of the story?” Sully’s voice lifts over the music.
“Shut up, Sully,” my best friend snaps at him, just as I start my descent downstairs.
I don’t bother checking to see if Luce is following me. Even if he isn’t, I need some air. My story may not be done, but it’s all I’m willing to tell at this moment. They know enough. The rest I haven’t even fully figured out yet, and while I might confide in Vinnie and Cecilia later, I don’t feel like explaining everything to the men who, frankly, I don’t even know very well.
Pushing through the crowd of people along the edges of the dance floor, the vibration from the music slams into me as I try to swim upstream in the sea of partiers, most too drunk or high to even notice I’m doing my best to weave through them. When I’m three steps away from the door, the bouncer presses his palm into it, giving me just enough room to slide through.
Once outside, the cold New York air assaults me, feeling like a personal vendetta against my hot skin that’s sticky with sweat, but for the first time in the last thirty minutes, I’m able to breathe.
Then, as I let my eyes fall shut for a moment, my lungs fill with an icy reprieve, and a hand flattens against my neck, pulling me back into someone's chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Raina’s body tenses as I pull her against me, nuzzling my nose against her cheek. “Shh, baby, it’s just me.”
She relaxes at the sound of my voice, but not a moment later spins in my arms, pinning me with a stare so cold it rivals the chill in the air. “Youloveme?” she spits. Fire burns within her gaze, the embers sparkling through her sky-blue irises. “I’ve been dying to hear you say that foryears, and you have the audacity to tell me in front of all our friends, in a fuckingclub? That’s the ‘I love you’ I get from you, Luciano Paladino?” She jabs her manicured finger into the center of my chest, pushing me backward a few steps.
A laugh catches in my throat, but I swallow it down when I see she’s serious. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I hold her close.
My touch doesn’t ease her irritation though. She looks like she’d be happy to murder me with her bare hands and send me to an early grave.
“I…uh…” This wasn’t how I imagined it would go. There wasn’t a plan; in fact, there wasn’t even a full thought process from realizing I was in love with her and have been for quite some time to deciding to tell her and everyone else.
It just happened.
“You...uh…” she mocks, jabbing her finger into my chest again before gripping the fabric of my shirt between her fingers. Her skin is warm beneath my lips as I lean down and press them against her neck, peppering her with soft kisses as she continues to chastise me. “For a lawyer, you’re not very smart sometimes. And I mean that as an insult.”
“Insult taken.” I run my knuckles down the side of her delicate cheek, and she sighs. Her eyes glitter as she looks up at me. I can see the moment the irritation leaves her. Now it’s time for my apology. “Look, I know you deserve better than how I just told you that, but it doesn’t take away from how I fe?—”
“Shut up, Luce.” Crashing her lips into mine, she tosses her hands around my neck, ceasing the conversation. A soft moan rumbles through her and instantly stiffens my cock. What I wouldn’t give to be buried deep inside her right this moment.
Unable to resist her, I let my hands roam down her body, over the curve of her phenomenal ass, until I’m gripping the back of her thighs to hoist her into my arms.
Her mouth parts and I slip my tongue in as I walk us away from the muffled noise of the club and the line of people hoping to get in. Once we’ve rounded the corner, I press her against the side of the concrete building and bury my hand in her blonde tendrils, wrapping them in my fist. Tugging her head back, I deepen the kiss, groaning into her mouth as she pulls me closer.
“Take me home,” she pleads. “I need you. Now. So either take me home or take me further into this alleyway. Your call.”
“I prefer the alleyway,” a sharp tone emerges from the shadows, and my head snaps toward the sound of the voice. Before I can fully process what’s happening, I’m being tugged by the collar of my shirt away from Raina, forced to release my hold from her thighs as I stumble over my own feet, trying to catch both myself and her.
As I stagger, a fist collides with my ribs, causing me to double over, grunting in both surprise and pain. “What the fuck,” I grit at the same moment Raina’s scream pierces through the air. I have half a second to look up to see the man from earlier readying another punch.
The world spins on its axis as everything happens in the blink of an eye. Movement catches in my peripheral and I tilt my head and watch as a second man steps out from the shadows of the alleyway with a sinister smile on his face, his eyes roving Raina’s body.
My blood turns to ice.
Over my dead fucking body will I let either of these men touch her.
“Go,” I command through clenched teeth as the first guy takes another cheap punch to my gut. “Get back inside the club, Raina.”
