AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Raven
Nico, then Dominic. This night wasnotgoing as planned.
Nico Costa wasn’t supposed to swoop in. My brother wasn’t supposed to waltz into the club. And I sure as heck wasn’t supposed to be bringing one of the deadliest men in the country back to my hotel room.
“Whatever it takes,” I told Greta, but suddenly that phrase had taken on new meaning. Was I prepared to offer myself up to the man sitting next to me in the driver’s seat of his shiny black car? For a brief moment tonight, after seeing Dom, all I’d wanted to do was run to him and wrap my arms around him. But then he’d looked at me. Not a real look, just a passing glance, really.
If he recognized me, if there’d been the slightest glimmer of recognition in his gray eyes, I would have done it. I’d always had a weak spot when it came to Dom. It seemed even after more than a decade, that hadn’t changed.
But his eyes never swiveled back. Nothing about me had struck a familiar chord. Even Dominic had forgotten me. The truth hurt, but not for long. I’d let the anger consume it, swallow it up, and turn it into something harder.
Then Nico had returned, and he’d ignited a different fire inside me, a fire that was far scarier than the heat of the rage I nurtured in the center of me. This man was like a wildfire, consuming everything in his path.
But every inch of my body was screaming yes. When he touched me, when he whispered in my ear, it sent arousal coursing through my veins like nothing I’d ever experienced. Even now, the air between us snapped with tension. So much so I was afraid if I lit a match, the whole car would combust.
He slowed the car as we approached the parking lot of the Hilton hotel. There were only five miles between the club and the hotel, but had we traveled so far already?
He slipped into an empty parking space and turned off the engine.
It was silent. No purr of the engine. No horns or sirens in the distance. Just the sound of our breathing. His was slow and steady. Mine was not. My breathing was coming a little shallower than usual, making me feel a bit light-headed.
But in the end, it wasn’t Nico who broke the silence.
“Come up?” I asked him. The words came out thick and sultry; I barely recognized my own voice.
Heat flashed in his eyes. He nodded, climbing out of the car and coming around to open my door. My hands were shaking so much I probably couldn’t have opened the door. And just to make sure there was no way to keep my nervousness to myself, he took my trembling hand in his and led the way to the hotel’s entrance.
Inside, he headed straight for the elevator and pressed the button. There was no one around but a receptionist behind the main desk, but I kept my eyes glued to the floor. She had to know what we were doing, standing hand in hand, waiting for the elevator at two in the morning.
The moment the elevator door opened, I fled inside, still hand in hand with Nico beside me, and pressed the button for my floor, trying to escape the woman’s knowing stare. But if I’d hoped to find a reprieve inside the four gleaming mahogany walls of the elevator, I was wrong.
The moment the door closed, he lunged. His free hand was on my hip in a flash, holding me still for him. He slammed the hand he still held over my head and pressed my back hard against the wall with the weight of his body.
He took my lips hard and fast. Not gentle. No beseeching me to open. His kiss demanded my lips part for him, and they obeyed. But instead of delving in, he traced my parted lips with the tip of his tongue, and my body jolted in response. He was doing it again, one moment forceful, the next teasing.
He pressed his body harder against mine, molding my softer frame to his hard planes. I could feel the thick, hard length of him against my abdomen, making my insides clench while warning signals went off in my head. I had no real-life gauge by which to judge, but he was big enough it made me more than a little worried.
He gave me no time to flesh out my apprehensions when all of a sudden, he delved between my parted lips, sliding his tongue along mine. He tasted like whiskey, and it went straight to my head.
He stretched my hand up higher above my head, making me arch into him, pressing harder against him as his tongue glided in and out of my mouth. My breasts felt heavier, and my nipples sent tiny shockwaves of electricity down a line that seemed to travel straight to the apex of my thighs.
His wildfire was consuming me.
It scared me because I’d never felt so out of control. His body, his lips, even the way he held my hand pinned above me; he was the one in control here. He was bigger than me, stronger than me. He could do anything he wanted to me, and that sent a shiver of fear down my spine. What was worse than the fear, though, was that I was quite sure that nothing had ever excited me more.
Without warning, he pulled away, tearing his lips from mine, though he remained so close I could feel the warmth of his breath against my cheek.
“You don’t have to be nervous, Raven. I don’t bite,” he said, meeting my eyes dead-on.
I swallowed hard as he leaned in closer until his lips were right next to my ear.
“Not unless you ask me very, very nicely,” he whispered.
My whole body jolted from the shock of his words, from the brush of his lips against my ear, from the image his words conjured in my head.
The elevator stopped.
The door slid open.
