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He might know me well enough to know how I operated. But I knew him even better, and I knew I couldn’t trust a single thing he said or did.
Which was going to make this night very, very interesting.
***
Half an hour later I was sliding my card across the table and leaning toward Anthony. We hadn’t done anything more than catch up and reminisce about some of the things we’d done when we were young, and he hadn’t asked again what I was doing in his bar. He’d been watching me through suspicious eyes, though, and I’d been doing the same thing to him. Neither of us trusted the other, and we were both right on that score.
We’d known each other too long to trust each other.
We’d also known each other long enough to know that if we acted on the tension stretching between us, we’d get in trouble. He was a Massimo. I was a Rossi—or close enough to it. We weren’t supposed to be meeting. We should never be seen in public together. Hell, we shouldn’t even admit to knowing each other. If Sloane and Joseph had been born on opposite sides of the track, Anthony and I had been born on different worlds.
And they weren’t worlds that could match up without the rest of the galaxy exploding.
But I’d never been good at taking ‘no’ for an answer. I didn’t like being told what I could and couldn’t have. And neither did he.
When I leaned closer to him, lips parted in invitation, he took the bait. He slipped his fingers up my jaw and into my hair, curling them to control me and tipping my head. I gasped at the feel of his touch and leaned into him, not bothering to fight it.
I didn’t like to be manhandled but this man had held a piece of my heart for a lot longer than I cared to admit. I missed his touch on my skin. I missed the heat of his skin and the way he always found his way right under mine. I hadn’t come here to seduce him. I knew better than that. But God, it felt good to be this close to him again.
He leaned toward me, pausing when his lips were only inches from mine. “You’re leaving so soon?”
“Have to,” I murmured. “Curfew.”
A slow, lazy smile curled the corner of his mouth and he slipped his lips over mine, kissing me like he’d been waiting for years to do it. His tongue pushed into my mouth, giving me just a taste of him, and then withdrew almost immediately, making the kiss far too short. A tease, just like it always was with him. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark with need. Stormy with want.
“Are you going to come back?” he asked.
Now I smiled. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
I slipped the card closer to him, then disentangled myself and stood. “Then let me know when you’ll be here again.”
I turned and walked away before he could answer, knowing that he was watching me walk away... and knowing that he’d call. Anthony Massimo was a lot of things—slick, charming, untrustworthy—but he also didn’t have any self-discipline.
He’d call. And when he did, I’d be waiting.
Because our short conversation had told me several very important things. Anthony hadn’t cut the family out of his life like he’d wanted to. He was still very close to his cousin Luca, Ercole’s oldest son., and under his uncle’s thumb.
And he knew exactly what his family was doing making so much noise in the city—or he had an idea.
Which just meant I had to get close enough for him to tell me.
Mission accomplished. And it hadn’t even taken an hour out of my night.
4
ANTHONY
I watched the girl walk away from me, hips swinging and shoulders back like she owned the fucking world.
For all anyone knew, she did.
Brooks Peterson. I hadn’t seen her since we were what, twenty-one? Or at least, I hadn’t interacted with her. We’d been acquaintances growing up, always moving in the same circles and ending up at the same parties, and though we hadn’t exactly been friends, we’d definitely been...
Well, we’d moved in the same circles. Could have even been partners in crime if either of us had wanted to admit to it. I’d kissed her on more than one occasion and had gotten into my fair share of trouble with her at my side. I’d even had one memorable night with her, full of hot kisses and even hotter movements between the sheets once I got her back to my apartment. But we hadn’t been on the same side of the line, even then, and I’d known as I was sliding into her, pinning her down on my bed, that we were both playing a dangerous game. At the time, I’d been the son of the second-highest Massimo in the city, and she’d been...
Whatever she was. A friend of the Brennans and the Rossis, and protected by both families. Guardian of Sloane Brennan, pseudo little sister to Joseph Rossi, and of the same age as Michael Rossi. Brooks had managed to cozy up to all of them and gather herself under their umbrella.
