She Left Her Cheating Fiancé, Then Met the Mafia Boss Who Wanted Her novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Back Seat

Dominic Falcone drives Ariella away from the grey-suited man and tells her plainly what he wants; she sets her two rules, feels his thumb on her lip, and invites him up to her suite after Ethan's frightened text.

I did not get in his car.

I stood on the wet sidewalk with my coat half on.

My heart was going hard.

"How do you know my name?" I asked.

"I own the building you just walked out of," the man said. "Your fiancé's name was on the booking. Yours was under it."

"Ex-fiancé."

"That too, I heard."

Behind him the black sedan idled at the curb.

A driver sat behind the wheel with his eyes straight ahead.

Across the street the grey-suited man stood under an awning, rubbing his wrist and watching us.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"Someone who won't touch you again."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one you get tonight." He opened the back door and held it. "Get in, Miss Hayes. The rain's coming and he isn't leaving."

My phone buzzed.

It was Lark again: Where are you? I'm four minutes away.

I looked at the grey suit.

He looked back at me and took out his phone.

I got in.

I slid to the far side of the seat and held my bag on my knees.

The man folded himself in after me, and the car pulled away from the curb.

Up close he was bigger than he had looked on the street.

His shoulders took up the rest of the seat.

The tattoos ran out from under his cuffs and over his knuckles, black lines I couldn't read in the dark.

He smelled like cedar and cold air.

"I'm Dominic Falcone," he said.

I knew the name.

Everyone in the city knew it. It was on the hotel on Fifth, and on the steakhouse where Ethan's boss took clients.

It was also the name people said quietly when they didn't say the rest.

"You're the one they whisper about," I said.

"Yes."

"Are you going to hurt me?"

"No."

"Then say what you want. You didn't break a man's grip on a sidewalk for a stranger out of kindness."

Something moved at the corner of his mouth, and it was not quite a smile.

"No," he said. "I didn't."

"So?"

"I want you near me. I saw you in that room on the feed and I haven't thought about anything else for an hour."

"You watched my engagement party?"

"I watched you put the ring in his glass."

"And that was the part you liked."

"That was the part I wanted." He said it slowly. "Anyone can be sweet. You were sweet and then you weren't. I want to see which one comes out when I put my hand on you."

Heat went through me from my face down to my knees.

"You don't know me," I said.

"I know you didn't scream or throw anything. You decided." He was looking at my mouth now. "I want you on your knees for me, Miss Hayes."

I couldn't breathe right.

"I want you to say yes to it with your whole mouth," he went on. "I want to be the only man who touches you for as long as you let me."

I should have been scared.

I was twenty-two and I had been engaged for fourteen months, and I had never wanted anything as badly as I wanted to hear him say it again.

That scared me more.

"I have rules," I said.

"Say them."

"One." My voice shook and I made it stop. "If I say stop, you stop. You don't argue and you don't make me pay for it afterward."

"Done."

"You say that fast."

"I mean it." He didn't blink. "What's two?"

"No papers. No contracts, no signatures, nothing you can hold up later. I walked out of one thing tonight. If I want to walk out of this, I walk."

He was silent for a moment.

"I don't like two," he said.

"Then it's no."

"I didn't say no." His jaw tightened. "I said I don't like it. I'll take it."

The car slowed at a red light.

The red glow ran up his forearm.

He lifted his hand and set the pad of his thumb against my lower lip.

I stopped breathing.

His thumb was hard and warm.

He pressed down just enough to open my mouth a little, and then he held it there.

"This is the first thing I'll ask you," he said. "Nothing happens unless you say it."

My lips moved under his thumb. "Say what?"

"Yes."

My phone buzzed in my lap.

It was Ethan: Ari please. Dont go with anyone. Theres a big man, hes not who he looks like, hes dangerous. Come home and I'll fix this. Please.

I read it twice.

Dominic had read it over my shoulder, and he didn't speak.

"He's scared," I said. "But not of you. He doesn't even know where I am."

"No."

"He sounds like he's scared of someone."

"Yes," Dominic said. "He does."

He took his thumb from my mouth.

I felt the air on my lip where it had been.

I texted Lark: Safe. Staying somewhere else tonight. Call you in the morning.

Then I turned my phone face down.

"I won't sleep on Lark's couch with him knocking on the door," I said. "Not tonight."

"Then you'll have a suite with a lock on the inside. The key card is yours." He held one out, thin and black. "I'll sit in the lobby until morning if you want."

I looked at the card.

I took it, and my fingers brushed his, and the whole length of my arm lit up.

"Don't sit in the lobby," I said.

He waited.

"Come up. Ask me again."

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