The Enforcer (Untamed Hearts Book 3) (10 page)

Now he appreciated her in a way he hadn’t when he was younger, and he had
always
appreciated being able to touch her. His cock was already hard and aching again as he ran his fingers over her smooth pussy and watched the way she responded to him.

Most dancers waxed, Brianna included.

She’d done it since she was a teenager. Everything about her was so smooth and gorgeous. She wasn’t one of those women who spent their lives trying to be beautiful. She’d never been particularly vain, but what she did in life showed, and her toned body had always been his ideal.

Though he’d loved her for so long, he suspected for years that it was ideal because it was Brianna and not the other way around.

Tino liked Brianna’s shape because it was hers.

High, firm tits, cut arms, and a smooth, muscular stomach. Feminine. Powerful. Strong. Tall, with those legs that seemed to go on for miles. He ran a hand down one thigh. Then he raised his gaze to meet Brianna’s as he lifted her leg and draped it over his shoulder. She used her hold on his hair to pull him forward in response, digging her heel into the center of his back as she offered herself to him.

He groaned before he tasted her. Rubbing his thumb over her was enough to turn him on, feeling her wet and swollen from fucking him in the shower, and knowing she was indulging him made him rock hard.

This wasn’t just eating pussy.

This was worshipping pussy.

Unabashedly.

Licking the seam of it, tasting her, teasing her, before sucking on her clit and making her jerk under him.

Then he was running his tongue over her, wanting her to climax, pushing his fingers in until she was full and thrusting her hips against his hand. Making her come once.

Twice.

Three times, her fingers tight in his hair, her legs quivering.

Four times until she was sweaty and breathless, no longer quiet because after coming the first few times, she was sensitive, but she still let him, like she had when they were younger.

Just their secret.

No one needed to know, and with her it was okay.

The two of them could be as kinky as they wanted; they could stay naked and fuck until they were both sore and tired.

Brianna’s pale skin was flushed. Her hand fell out of his hair. She was biting her lip and alternating between jerking away from the feel of his tongue against her and pushing her hips closer.

“I can’t,” she panted before she bit her lip again, and her head lolled to the side.

She fisted the sheets when he arched two fingers up, rubbing against the soft spot inside her, making her moan almost against her will, as if this was a strange form of torture. If this had been another man doing it, maybe it would be, but this was Tino forcing her to come until her strong body was weak from the pleasure. He loved her unconditionally, and she obviously knew it.

“Oh God, one more. Just one more.” Then she clenched around his fingers, fighting for another orgasm, only because she knew he needed to hear it. “I can’t.”

But somehow she did a few minutes later, bowing under him and crying out, as if the ecstasy was coming from somewhere deeper than before. Her thighs shook, and her clit pulsed against his tongue before she fell totally weak beneath him.

Eyes closed.

Strung out on the endorphins.

Tits swaying with short, sharp breaths as she tried to gain her composure.

Why did he like her like this, completely spent and weak to him? He had absolutely no idea, but he surged over her anyway, sucking on her neck, licking at the bruises that motherfucker put on his goddess.

His fucking Madonna.

That was un-fucking-acceptable.

He wasn’t just gonna kill that motherfucker; he was going to hurt him first.

Chuito style.

Ending him was the first order of business on Tino’s hit-man to-do list that had become impressively long in a short period of time.

“Turn over, baby,” he whispered in her ear instead of confessing to plotting ways to make her a widow sooner rather than later. “Give it to me. Just once.”

Brianna rolled over rather than call him on the fact that it was never just once. She spread her legs, opening to him willingly, letting him force her against the mattress and fist her hair.

He pushed in, feeling all the smooth, tight heat of her pussy clench around him as she gasped and arched into him. “Fuck.” He groaned and tugged her head back. Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I love you. Please remember that, okay?”

“I know.” She reached back to run a hand down his bare thigh soothingly. “I know, baby. It’s okay. It’s good.” She moaned when he pushed in deeper. Her thighs were still shaking, but she reminded both of them. “I’m strong, remember?”

He did remember.

So he fucked the hell out of her.

Hard.

Angry.

Pulling her hair and clutching at her hips so hard he was probably leaving her with more bruises.

It wasn’t fair to take out a lifetime of fury on her.

But it had just been so long, and he hadn’t had an outlet. Hadn’t known how to ask. Had never found someone who gave a shit. Who wondered why he took four showers a day. Even his brothers ignored the issue. One out of ignorance. The other out of guilt.

But Brianna had never ignored it.

Had never let him lie and charm his way past her.

Instead she faced him head-on, offering herself to him, body and soul, and all she got for it was the unabashed worship of a man whose love earned her a price on her head.

Brianna cried out when the climax slammed into her, and the sound of it was enough to jerk him down with her. For one beautiful moment, all the pain, all the self-hatred hazed white around him, and there was just Brianna. The two of them lying there quivering in the silence as the pleasure raged.

It took a while for it to pass for both of them, but when it did, it pulled Tino back to reality a little too fast. It had been a long time since he dealt with this particular type of regret. When the high faded and he realized what he had sacrificed for the escape.

Because drugs hadn’t been his only addiction.

Tino rolled off her. As breathless as Brianna, weak in the aftermath, feeling shaky and disoriented and fucking guilty as hell as he threw his arm over his eyes.

“Why can’t I be soft with you?” he asked himself out loud. “Why can’t I be kind? Why haven’t I learned that after all this time?”

She rolled up to him, gentle and lax as she rested her cheek on his chest and traced her fingers over the ridges of his abdominal muscles. “You want to be broccoli instead of a hot-fudge sundae?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he admitted as he kept his arm draped over his eyes.

“Good for me, rather than just tasting like sin,” she clarified and then ran her fingers over his lips, making him lick the pad of one on reflex. He flicked his tongue over it the same way he might her clit. She hummed low in her throat. “Nice.”

He lifted his arm and looked at Brianna, seeing that her light gaze was trained on his mouth, and she didn’t seem too terribly put out that he had just taken out four years of frustration on her body.

Tino grabbed her wrist, still watching her face as he flicked his tongue against the pad of her index finger again. She quirked an eyebrow, her gaze growing softer before she said, “You feel so bad. Make it better.” She pushed her hand up, spreading her fingers wide and presenting her palm to him. “Lick it.”

He couldn’t hide the faint smile that tugged at his lips, but then he closed his eyes and did a fucking amazing job of licking her palm. Putting real effort into getting it as wet as possible, sliding his tongue in between her fingers and then sucking the digits into his mouth.

He could hear the catch in her breathing, but then the joke was on him when she pulled her wrist free from his grasp and stroked his cock, still semihard from fucking her. He moaned, half tempted to shove her hand away because now he was the sensitive one.

Instead he let her touch him until he was fully hard again. Breathless. Exposed, but it didn’t bother him; it turned him the fuck on in a big way. Tino always associated sex with being used, and he’d grown to like sex as much as just about anyone, but being used by Brianna?

Where the fuck could he sign up for that job?

When she pushed her wet hair behind her shoulder and crawled over him, Tino nearly came off the bed he was so fucking hot for her. His eyes were heavy-lidded as he admired the way she looked straddling him—naked, her skin still rosy with desire.

“What do you want?” she asked, holding his cock between her spread legs as she stared down at him. “You want me to ride you like I mean it?”

“
Sì, grazie.
” He groaned and pushed his hips into her hand to prove his point. “Fuck me like it’s the last time.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said it.

Maybe it wouldn’t be the last.

But she fucked him like it was, and it was probably a good thing.

’Cause Tino was extra quiet when he packed to leave in the morning. Then he stood there looking at Brianna spread out on the bed for a long moment.

He took extra care with closing the door gently.

And did what he should’ve done in Garnet—he left without her.

* * * *

Brianna rolled over, sated and rested in a way she hadn’t been in a very long time. So long, in fact, it was a foreign feeling, this gooey relaxation. She reached out to Tino on instinct.

When her hands touched a cold pillow, she jerked up between one blink and the next. Life had left her more than a little paranoid and on edge. There wasn’t any sort of fuzzy and confused moment of disbelief. She knew Tino left without her.

Her heartbeat was thundering. Her vision was fuzzy from the tears, but she crawled over to his side of the bed and found a semiautomatic handgun, three stacks of hundred-dollar bills large enough to buy a luxury car, an old throwaway cell phone, and a note with nothing but a number on it.

No good-bye letters.

No apologies.

Cash, firearms, a burner phone, and a rescue number—that was the love note of a Cosa Nostra hit man. Tino knew she understood the rest. That he loved her. That he left her to protect her. That he had likely planned all along to dump her in West Virginia.

So he didn’t spell it out for her.

Anything else could be evidence.

Tino
did not
like evidence.

There was a tiny part of her that was hopeful when she dialed the number. Her hand shook as she held the flip phone to her ear. It was answered on the first ring.

“Where the fuck are you?” a low voice barked at her, the lilt of a New York accent sounding like home, and so similar to the one she wanted to hear. She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined it was him as he asked, “
Pronto?
”

But there was no pretending it was a different brother.

“It’s Brianna,” she whispered. “He left me this number to call.”

Nova was quiet for a long time before he groaned. “Cazzo.”

“I’m sorry. I fell asleep and—”

“Where are you?” Nova asked before she could finish.

“Where are
you
?” she countered when she remembered that Tino had stopped here only because Nova hated it.

“I’m already home.”

She sighed. “That’s unfortunate.”

Brianna considered finding her own way home. She looked to the money again, noticing for the first time a hotel envelope underneath it. She pulled it out and stared at Tino’s messy scrawl.

King

“There’s a note here. To King,” she said as she studied it. “Is that you?”

“It’s possible.” Nova sounded disturbed at the reference. “What does it say?”

“It’s in an envelope.” She flipped it over. “It’s sealed.”

“Open it.”

Brianna slid her finger underneath the flap and pulled it open. She unfolded the letter and stared at it long enough that Nova growled in her ear, “Well?”

She blinked past the tears and finally read it to him.

King,

Endgame.

Protect my queen at all costs. I’m not you. I still need her to win.

Pawn

“Fuck.” Nova’s voice was tight, as if that note had cut him, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. “Where are you, princess?”

“I’m in West Virginia,” she admitted with a wince.

“Of course you are.” He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “It makes a special moment between us even more memorable. Gimme the address.”

Brianna read the address off the top of the hotel stationery and gave him the room number. Then she looked at the note, knowing it was code, one that obviously had to do with her, much to Nova’s displeasure.

“Do you know what it means?” Brianna understood part of it, but she’d never heard Tino talk about a king in chess until now. Queens and pawns, yes, but not a king, and something about it bothered her as much as it clearly got to Nova. “I know I’m probably the queen, but—”

“You’re a smart girl, Brianna,” he said rather than answer her. “You just sit there and wait for me. Don’t open the door. Don’t look out the window.
You just sit.
”

“For eight hours?”

“For as long as it takes me to get there.”

The phone went dead without an explanation.

Chapter Eight

East Harlem (El Barrio), New York

July 2002

“First rule, if you lose your king, it’s game over. You protect your king. If you leave him vulnerable, then that’s it. You lose.”

Nova set up the white chess pieces on Tino’s side of the board as the two of them sat at the table by the window of the two-bedroom walk-up they’d lived in since they were born. Nova took a drag off his cigarette and leaned down, blowing the smoke out the window, before he went back to setting up the board.

Tino stared at it uncertainly. “Isn’t chess about a queen or something? I never heard about a king.”

“You have to protect the king to win, but the queen is your most powerful piece. The game can be won without her, but for someone like you, I’d recommend keeping her safe.” Nova set his black pieces up in front of him, his right hand hanging out the window with the cigarette. “You have no chance of surviving an endgame without your queen.”